More misc.

[zotz]

Someone - I'm sorry I forget who, but thanks - posted this link yesterday, with a suggestion that it be played at anyone with one of those trendy-wanker ringtones. Probably not worksafe, unless your boss has a sense of humour and tolerates crudity. Contains flash, too, so is sizeable.

I've used that new DVD drive to move some music to work. Machines of Loving Grace at the moment, but I have the complete works of Joy Division and The Jam here too, with a big pile of Neubauten, various other musics and more ISIHAC than you could shake a stick at. And that was just one disk. Of course, I've had to get a player that understands Oggs, but that's a small price to pay.

Also seen today, and well worth reading, is Momus on Gini coefficients. This is much less dry than it sounds :

"The piece I had in mind wasn't just going to be a dry exposition of Gini coefficients as a statistical measure of the gap between the rich and the poor (which is what they are). It was going to be about how Gini is an objective measure of something you're very much aware of subjectively when you visit a country, and how Gini might be seen as a measure of evil, social evil."

Yesterday I got an email from Buabarn Poonperm. It turned out not to be a bizarre spam at all, but an actual mail from a PhD student with a terrific name. This morning, I went and borrowed several thousand pounds worth of glassware from the physics department. It's about the size of my thumb, and they'd like it back this afternoon.

Must feel odd being complimented by Ian Paisley. My sister was, this week. I'll have to ask her how surprised she was. I'd love to have seen her face at that moment.

Further to previous discussions of polyglomerates, I have recently seen reference to the community vanilla_pride

I have no idea whether this is work-safe or not. I suppose it depends on where you work. It contains Richard Herring, is text-only, and consists of altered song lyrics and references to (but not advocacy of) mistreating primates. Your call.

The Today program this morning was covering the subject of politicians using song lyrics, so obviously they had to get Billy Bragg and John Cooper-Clarke on to discuss matters. Obviously.

Comments

[nickys.livejournal.com]

Reading vanilla_pride is not compatible with drinking tea safely, on account of laughing so much you spill it.

[zotz]

"No dancing round the subject of whether they have a large collection of significant others and merely wish to add one, as they were only missing a grey haired grumpy bastard to complete the set."

I wish I'd said that.

(You will, Graham, you will . . .)

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Re the ringtone - I am fascinated to note that 'flange' is steadily achieving greater and greater success as the latest new rude word..

[zotz]

Flange.

There are certain words that just sound rude.

Gruntfuttocks.

[rowan-leigh.livejournal.com]

ftmoron is in a somewhat similar vein.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. What have I done?

[zotz]

Well, I was hearing a story about someone working the word "penguin" into a particle physics PhD thesis for a bet, so don't feel too outrageous.

[zbyszek.livejournal.com]

I heard it was the title or the abstract of a paper. Either way, penguin diagrams are a terribly important type of Feyman diagram describing weakly mediated flavour changing interactions in particle physics.
Similarly, there is the famous "tadpole diagram". Apparently, the reviewers at first objected to this, but relented when in response the authors offered to change it to "sperm diagram".
Christ, I've just come from a meeting where they were going on about "bubblefish graphs".

[zotz]

Well, I heard it off you, so I assume you remember the right version.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

The penguin article (I seem to recall that it was used to refer to a particular interaction in a Feynmann diagram) was the inspiration for the bet.

[nmg.livejournal.com]

I'm an idiot:

1. I didn't bother checking to see if anyone else had made the obvious reply
2. I can't spell Feynman.