Every day, some new geekery
Well, I learned a new thing today: there is a kind of pottery known as crested ware (crested pottery or crested china). Little tiny figurines with the crest of a city or county, obviously originally sold as inexpensive souvenirs. Ebay is alive with them. They are, not surprisingly, collectible.
I’d gone looking for a Sussex Pig. The wild pig is the unofficial mascot of Sussex, and his unofficial slogan is “Wunt be Druv.” Which has a ring to it.
This crested Sussex Pig is from a mold known as the sad pig, because duh. I was surprised to find pigs described as Sussex Pigs sporting crests not actually from places in Sussex.
But the one in the picture is from Bognor, which definitely is in Sussex, now officially Bognor Regis since George V convalesced there after a lung operation. Where he famously said, in some context or other, “bugger Bognor.”
Oh, also, happy Burns Night. Hope you’ve made the tatties, neaps and haggis. Or you could save time and just throw up in a bucket.
January 25, 2016 — 8:30 pm
Comments: 17
Lookin’ better all the time
Behold, Tristan da Cunha, the Nipple of the Seven Seas. It’s not really called that, but just look at it. The capital — well, the only settlement, really — is called Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, though. It is the world’s remotest inhabited island, smack in the middle of the Atlantic, somewhere between Africa and South America.
The record high temperature is 75.9°, the record low temperature is 40.3° and it rains 250-plus days a year. It is a British Overseas Territory, natch.
The islands have a population of 301. The main settlement is Edinburgh of the Seven Seas (known locally as “The Settlement”). The only religion is Christianity, with denominations of Anglican and Roman Catholic. The current population is thought to have descended from 15 ancestors, eight males and seven females, who arrived on the island at various times between 1816 and 1908. The male founders originated from Scotland, England, The Netherlands, the United States and Italy, belonging to 3 Y-haplogroups: I (M170), R-SRY10831.2 and R (M207) (xSRY10831.2)[39] and share just eight surnames: Glass, Green, Hagan, Lavarello, Patterson, Repetto, Rogers, and Swain. There are 80 families on the island. Tristan da Cunha’s isolation has led to an unusual, patois-like dialect of English described by the writer Simon Winchester as “a sonorous amalgam of Home Counties lockjaw and nineteenth century idiom, Afrikaans slang and Italian.”
I mention this because a) it’s an interesting place, duh and b) THERE’S A JOB OPENING. Local government is searching for an agricultural advisor. Looks like a terrific place to ride out the apocalypse. Plus, a place that inbred is bound to be full of…certain…opportunities.
Man, if I were thirty years younger. And male. And knew jack shit about agriculture…
Have a good weekend, y’all. Tomorrow comes DEAD POOL ROUND 80. Be here, 6pm WBT, or pick through other people’s leftovers.
January 21, 2016 — 10:15 pm
Comments: 9
I don’t know. Is this smart?
So we’ve had a crime wave in our little village. We’ve had two — two! — burglaries in the last month.
Nope, it’s not our new Syrian friends. It looks like whoever did it was going straight for collectibles and walking past other valuable and more easily-fencible items. A refugee would hardly do that. It’s a bit of a mystery, really.
So we had a meeting of Neighborhood Watch (well, yes, of course I’m Neighborhood Watch, though it’s more usually called Farm Watch this far back in the boonies). The police gave us all a bunch of these. No, not CCTV cameras. They gave us a bunch of stickers that say we have CCTV cameras.
We don’t actually have any CCTV cameras.
Is this smart? I somehow don’t think this is smart.
January 19, 2016 — 10:04 pm
Comments: 13
Okay. At last, I’m in.
ZBrush. Man, I’ve lusted after this program for years. It’s a 3D modeling package, but one aimed at people more accustomed to traditional modeling tools. Artards, in other words. Sadly, it’s like $800.
Naw, don’t worry, I’m not hitting you guys up for money. They offer a 45 day trial. The plan is, I download it, I make as many models as I can in 45 days, I upload them to TurboSquid (sort of like Zazzle for 3D models), and if that account ever reaches a high enough total to buy, I buy. If it never reaches $800, then I’m probably not all that good at it anyway.
So, here I go. I think I can remember a dim and distant time when learning new stuff was fun. Can you?
Oh, yeah. ExpressoBold takes the dick for René Angélil, Celine Dion’s husband. I hemmed and hawed about that pick, since I didn’t really know René Angélil from Adam. But then it occurred to me I don’t really know Celine Dion from Eve, so what’s the diff? Congrats, ExpressoBold — is that a second win? So, up Friday Dead Pool ROUND 80.
January 18, 2016 — 9:32 pm
Comments: 22
Really, really big cow
In fact, the Guiness-certified largest cow that ever lived. I stole that link from Jonah Goldberg. Moreover, the cow died seven months ago.
Because it’s Friday and I’m damned if I’m going to put any effort into it.
Here’s something interesting I didn’t know: the Iron Law of Prohibition. (Link goes to LA Times article).
Also, the Royal College of Physicians is putting John Dee’s library on display. Dee was court magician to Liz the First and a highly Google-worthy fellow. His library was scattered across the country and this is, as far as I know, the first time it’s been reassembled since his death. We have a rule against going into London these days (’nuff said) but we may make an exception.
Finally, this just arrived in my inbox from the John Kasich campaign:
Fellow Conservative, during last evening’s debate, not only was Jeb Bush’s team running ads against me, but Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Chris Christie attacked me online as well. We must have them really worried!
Always leave ’em laughing, as my old mither used to say. Good weekend, all!
January 15, 2016 — 9:36 pm
Comments: 11
Not sure about this.
Can’t Hark sent me this link, and I’m still not sure what I think of it. See, this outfit thinks lat and long, or UTM, or any of our other number-based navigation systems are just too gosh-darned hard for human beings to remember. So they’ve proposed an alternate scheme that slices the world into 57 trillion three meter squares and assigns each of them a unique three word address.
They avoid rude words, homophones and very long words. High population areas get short, punchy words, middle of the ocean not so much. It functions, so far, in nine languages. If you’re curious how it works beyond that, their FAQ is good.
To be honest, though, the main point is exploring the map to find inexplicably amusing word combos. I cannot, of course, give you the three word code for where I’m sitting right now. One of you jokers would surely call in a tac nuke on me, just for shits and giggles. It’s pretty funny, though.
I can tell you — depending on the exact location of the maternity ward — I was born at either kings.meal.punch, frosted.feast.nation or crash.upgrading.artist.
Is this a good idea? I don’t know. Go play with the map. And thank you, Can’t Hark.
January 14, 2016 — 10:59 pm
Comments: 18
You won’t lose any weight eating *that*
Nurse left ‘traumatised’ after finding baby WEASEL in her supermarket salad
She’s a nurse. How traumatized can she be?
(Ha HA! You thought an animated .gif at the top of the pages was annoying).
January 13, 2016 — 10:37 pm
Comments: 4
Identity theft.
I finished Hearts of Stone tonight, which is an add-on to Witcher III. It’s a game. It’s a big ol’ slice of more-of-the-same pie. If you liked the base game (I did), you’ll like this expansion (I did).
If you don’t give a shit about video games and you’re wondering why I even bring it up, it’s because LOOK AT HIS FACE. Familiar?
This is a main character in Hearts of Stone. He gets lots and lots of face time, and he’s so totally modeled on David Beckham, it isn’t even funny. The only thing I know about Beckham is that he played football, he wears a mean pair of underpants, he married that Sulky Spice bitch and his mug is all over the Daily Mail all the time. And that is totally his mug.
I’m hardly the only one to notice. If you do a search of “Beckham” and “von Everec” you get a ton of hits.
Question is, did they pay for his likeness? I haven’t found the answer.
If they did, it must’ve cost them a packet. Why aren’t they bragging about it?
If they didn’t, what a risk! Er…isn’t it?
January 12, 2016 — 10:53 pm
Comments: 5
It’s a toy that makes toys
Any of you gadget hounds fallen for the 3D printer yet? I keep getting flyers at work for a £500 model and a £1,000 model. A little poking around and it looks like the consumer/hobbyist versions are in the $100 to $2,000 range.
Like laser printers, I gather the manufacturer makes their money off the ‘ink’ — in this case, a plastic filament that looks like fat fishing line whereof this grade of 3D ‘print’ is made.
I must say, the arty prints from this class of printer look pretty jaggy and crude to me, but I have no way of knowing if that’s the printer, the model or a user-selectable switch of some kind. I get the impression you can make useful things if you try.
This is a pretty interesting overview of one man’s first year with a 3D printer. FYI, the printer he’s using is around $500. A reel of filament for it is about thirty bucks.
You may recall, I love love LOVE me some 3D modeling. It’s only a matter of time. Just not, perhaps, any time soon.
January 11, 2016 — 11:30 pm
Comments: 12
Take that, eskimos!
The Sussex dialect — like regional dialects everywhere — is disappearing. Radio and television, migration of peoples. Whatevs. But certain aspects of local speech are just too gosh-darned necessary to be lost. I give you, the 31 Sussexian words for mud:
cledgy – earth sticking to the spade when digging is cledgy.
clodgy – muddy and wet like a field path after heavy rain.
gawm (gorm garm) – especially sticky foul smelling mud.
gormed up – stuck seized with mud.
gubber – black anaerobic mud of rotting organic matter. (We have a lot of this — unrecycled prehistoric forest).
ike (hike) – a mess or area of mud.
paunch – to break up fairly coherent mud “those cows they do paunch about the mud so”.
poach – to tread the muddy ground into holes as do cattle.
pug – a kind of loam – particularly the sticky yellow Wealden clay.
slab – thickest mud.
slabby – sticky, slippery, greasy, dirty mud.
sleech – mud or river sediment used for manure – especially from the River Rother.
slob – thick mud.
slobby – a sate of muddiness where it is difficult to extricate the boot at each step “the way here was very wearisome through dirt and slobbiness”.
slough (slogh) – a muddy hole.
slub – thick mud – used as slush is elsewhere.
slubby – dirty with stiff and extremely tenacious mud.
slub-up – to make stiff with mud, he come ome all of a slub.
slubber – to slip in mud.
slurry – diluted mud distinct from slub, saturated with so much water that it cannot drain, churned up into a cream or paste with water.
slommocky – made dirty with mud.
smeery – wet and sticky surface mud, not clodgy or slobby.
spannel – to make dirty with mud as would a spaniel on a floor.
stabble – to walk thick mud into the house.
stoach – to trample ground, like cattle, also the silty mud at Rye Harbour.
stoachy – dirty, mildly muddy.
stoached – an entry to a field in bad weather is stoached (and poached).
stodge – thick puddingy mud.
stug – watery mud.
stuggy – filled with watery mud.
swank – a bog.
They tell us the rain and warm is about to give way to cold and dry. We shall see, we shall see. In the meantime, I’ve got enough new vocabulary words to make conversation. Good weekend!
January 8, 2016 — 9:52 pm
Comments: 20