I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

New Home · 20-02-2020 1:41pm

I'll check my sources when I'm back at my computer, but I seem to remember reading about people boiling their shoes during times of famine (like during the Dust Bowl years, IIRC).

BaZmO* · 20-02-2020 2:50pm

New Home wrote: »

I'll check my sources when I'm back at my computer, but I seem to remember reading about people boiling their shoes during times of famine (like during the Dust Bowl years, IIRC).

You can eat leather, it's just skin after all. The problem arises if it is treated in anyway.

The idea that you specifically make clothes out of actual food is a bit Lady GaGa-esque. Why not just have pockets to contain food?

ohnonotgmail · 20-02-2020 2:59pm

New Home wrote: »

I'll check my sources when I'm back at my computer, but I seem to remember reading about people boiling their shoes during times of famine (like during the Dust Bowl years, IIRC).

I seen it in a documentary with some guy called Chaplin so it must be true.

Ipso · 20-02-2020 3:43pm

One of the people who looked for the North West passage ate his boots. I hope they weren’t laced with something.
https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/the-man-who-ate-his-boots-the-doomed-quest-for-the-northwest-passage-1.451409

New Home · 20-02-2020 4:05pm

BaZmO* wrote: »

You can eat leather, it's just skin after all. The problem arises if it is treated in anyway.

The idea that you specifically make clothes out of actual food is a bit Lady GaGa-esque. Why not just have pockets to contain food?

I understand it wouldn't be anyone's first choice, but since people have been reduced to eat grass and even soil to try and fill their bellies, I don't think that eating a shoe would be too absurd to consider.

mikhail · 20-02-2020 4:38pm

New Home wrote: »

I understand it wouldn't be anyone's first choice, but since people have been reduced to eat grass and even soil to try and fill their bellies, I don't think that eating a shoe would be too absurd to consider.

Mad German film maker Werner Herzog once at a shoe after losing a bet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNNGzMK5e4c

New Home · 22-02-2020 6:43pm

sbsquarepants · 24-02-2020 9:00am

New Home wrote: »

I have my doubts about the veracity of the good professors research, there's a few too many $31,250's in there for my liking!;)

Buford T. Justice XIX · 24-02-2020 11:57am

Interesting day today!

https://twitter.com/131Weeks/status/1231858973302829059?s=19

Gloomtastic! · 24-02-2020 2:05pm

A letter in today's Irish Times.......

Sir, – The cobra effect occurs when an attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse.

The story goes that at the time of British colonial rule in India, the British government decided something must be done about the number of venomous cobras. To tackle the problem, they offered a bounty for every dead cobra handed over by the people.

Initially it was a success and snakes were being killed for cash in large numbers. However, because of this bounty, the enterprising people of India began to farm cobras as a means of income.

When the British got wind of this, they scrapped the plan causing the cobra breeders to release millions of now-worthless snakes back into the wild and the cobra population rose further. People respond to incentives.

On the surface, rent control might seem like a reasonable policy to reduce homelessness. However, it is more likely to make the problem much worse.

To reduce homelessness, we need to increase the supply of homes. It is the only real solution that is proven to work. We cannot expect to increase the supply of homes by reducing the financial incentive to build them. It doesn’t make any sense.

Freezing rents may temporarily benefit people who already have homes (though the data is grey), but it will certainly hurt people who need homes. It will cause resources to shift away from housing and the homeless population will rise further. – Yours, etc,

ROBERT SHANLEY,

Bondi Beach,

New South Wales,

Australia.

Kat1170 · 26-02-2020 10:44pm

An Emu's testicle's are black.

mzungu · 26-02-2020 10:57pm

In 1999 hackers revealed a security flaw in Hotmail that permitted anybody to log into any Hotmail account using the password ‘eh’.

BaZmO* · 27-02-2020 12:53pm

We know Anthony Burgess for having written A Clockwork Orange, but in total, according to Shaun Usher's More Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (a book based on the well-known blog), he "published 33 novels, 25 nonfiction titles, produced poetry, short stories and screenplays, composed three symphonies, wrote hundreds of musical pieces, and spoke nine languages fluently." Yet even such a "prolific, versatile, and highly intelligent" man of letters faces writer's block now and again.

Take the Rolling Stone thinkpiece Burgess couldn't manage to write in 1973. Conceding defeat — "things are hell here," he wrote of his life in Rome at the time — he offered the magazine "a 50,000-word novella I've just finished, all about the condition humaine, etc." in its place. Surely his editor would understand? Alas, unluckily for Burgess, his editor turned out to be one Hunter S. Thompson, who fired back the characteristically blunt but eloquently vitriolic reply you see here:

Dear Mr. Burgess,

Herr Wenner has forwarded your useless letter from Rome to the National Affairs Desk for my examination and/or reply.

Unfortunately, we have no International Gibberish Desk, or it would have ended up there.

What kind of lame, half-mad bull**** are you trying to sneak over on us? When Rolling Stone asks for “a thinkpiece", goddamnit, we want a ****ing Thinkpiece... and don’t try to weasel out with any of your limey bull**** about a “50,000 word novella about the condition humaine, etc...”

Do you take us for a gang of brainless lizards? Rich hoodlums? Dilettante thugs?

You lazy cocksucker. I want that Thinkpiece on my desk by Labor Day. And I want it ready for press. The time has come & gone when cheapjack scum like you can get away with the kind of scams you got rich from in the past.

Get your worthless ass out of the piazza and back to the typewriter. Your type is a dime a dozen around here, Burgess, and I’m ****ed if I’m going to stand for it any longer.

Sincerely,

Hunter S Thompson

"The desired thinkpiece never appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone," writes the International Anthony Burgess Foundation's Graham Foster

Badly Drunk Boy · 27-02-2020 2:06pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

That would be an ecumenical question.

Literally.

Here's the the answer in a story about an infinite hotel and an ecumenical council.

I like that!

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Nope.

It's a full size power plant.

With the addition is a hyphen, it could be such a different place...

The Limerick-Generating Station in Pennsylvania is located next to the Schuylkill River in Limerick Township, Montgomery County, northwest of Philadelphia.

Realt Dearg Sec · 27-02-2020 3:38pm

BaZmO* wrote: »

We know Anthony Burgess for having written A Clockwork Orange, but in total, according to Shaun Usher's More Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (a book based on the well-known blog), he "published 33 novels, 25 nonfiction titles, produced poetry, short stories and screenplays, composed three symphonies, wrote hundreds of musical pieces, and spoke nine languages fluently." Yet even such a "prolific, versatile, and highly intelligent" man of letters faces writer's block now and again.

Take the Rolling Stone thinkpiece Burgess couldn't manage to write in 1973. Conceding defeat — "things are hell here," he wrote of his life in Rome at the time — he offered the magazine "a 50,000-word novella I've just finished, all about the condition humaine, etc." in its place. Surely his editor would understand? Alas, unluckily for Burgess, his editor turned out to be one Hunter S. Thompson, who fired back the characteristically blunt but eloquently vitriolic reply you see here:

"The desired thinkpiece never appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone," writes the International Anthony Burgess Foundation's Graham Foster

Burgess was also a very well renowned and respected Joyce scholar. I don't just mean he was influenced by Joyce, or dabbled in it, as so many famous novelists were inclined to do. He wrote an "Introduction to Joyce for the Common Reader" in 1963 (I think?), and made a documentary about Joyce for the BBC around the same time, filmed in Dublin. He later wrote a book about the language of Joyce's work called Joysprick which is genuinely entertaining and accessible. While he knew a lot about Ulysses, he was particularly interested in Finnegans Wake, a book that jumbles words and phrases from umpteen languages and mixes up parts of history and culture from across the world (if you've read Clockwork Orange you'll see why he liked it!). He made a TV show in 1973 where he did a lecture on Finnegans Wake in an Irish pub for an American audience.

But aside from things like that he engaged extensively in correspondence with the world's leading scholars of Finnegans Wake throughout the 70s and 80s as they slowly and painstakingly unfurled what it was all supposed to mean, attending conferences and writing letters back and forth with textual scholars for years. He is very widely respected in Joyce studies to this day for the work he did in this regard, which is pretty much completely unknown and unheralded outside that small group.

stimpson · 27-02-2020 4:30pm

That Burgess/HST thing is genuinely my favourite thing I didn’t know in both of these threads. Thanks.

sbsquarepants · 28-02-2020 11:25am

Kat1170 wrote: »

An Emu's testicle's are black.

So are Barack Obamas;)

Gloomtastic! · 28-02-2020 2:40pm

sbsquarepants wrote: »

So are Barack Obamas;)

Not to be pedantic, but wouldn’t that be his scrotum as opposed to his testicles?

mzungu · 28-02-2020 10:05pm

During the REM sleep phase we are unable to sneeze as our muscles are paralysed. This applies to reflex muscle contractions hence why we don't sneeze, However, when in non-REM sleep our muscles are free to move again but the reflex action for sneezing is still suppressed somewhat, but not completely. If you do sneeze during this period, you will most likely wake up.

cdeb · 28-02-2020 11:32pm

When Apollo 12 was taking off for the moon four months after Apollo 11 returned, it was hit by lightning twice in first minute. Basically the exhaust ionised the air and turned the rocket into the world's largest lightning conductor. All the emergency lights went on inside, but the craft was on course, so Mission Control let it get to earth orbit and checked it out there, as was standard with all the Apollos.

After the checks, Control were happy there was no damage except that they thought there might well be an issue with the parachute operating mechanism. They didn't tell the astronauts this, and let them go off to the moon as normal. The logic was that if the parachutes were damaged, the crew was dead anyway, so they may as well go to the moon.

The parachutes worked fine in the end obviously.

29-02-2020 12:15am

While the world prepares to face a possible CV pandemic, the CDC has been on the real threat facing humanity since 2011, when its Centre for Preparedness and Response first started to publish blog posts with helpful advice on how to face the zombie apocalypse with all the challenges it may bring.

https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm

And you know the shape the blob of toothpaste makes when you squeeze it onto your brush?

?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.sQKhE8YkXxlBhlcpKVCf0QAAAA%26pid%3DApi&f=1

?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.sQKhE8YkXxlBhlcpKVCf0QAAAA%26pid%3DApi&f=1

It has a name. It's a nurdal.

Realt Dearg Sec · 29-02-2020 1:27am

Candie wrote: »

While the world prepares to face a possible CV pandemic, the CDC has been on the real threat facing humanity since 2011, when its Centre for Preparedness and Response first started to publish blog posts with helpful advice on how to face the zombie apocalypse with all the challenges it may bring.

https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm

And you know the shape the blob of toothpaste makes when you squeeze it onto your brush?

It has a name. It's a nurdal.

To be fair the CDC have done a great job with coronavirus. But they're being ignored by their own government.

Ipso · 29-02-2020 2:04am

Candie wrote: »

While the world prepares to face a possible CV pandemic, the CDC has been on the real threat facing humanity since 2011, when its Centre for Preparedness and Response first started to publish blog posts with helpful advice on how to face the zombie apocalypse with all the challenges it may bring.

https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/zombie/index.htm

And you know the shape the blob of toothpaste makes when you squeeze it onto your brush?

It has a name. It's a nurdal.

Well zombie apocalypse was just an umbrella term to cover any disaster.

Esel · 29-02-2020 2:35am

Candie wrote: »

And you know the shape the blob of toothpaste makes when you squeeze it onto your brush?

It has a name. It's a nurdal.

You're a nerd, Al.

BaZmO* · 02-03-2020 11:34am

The Spanish Flu actually originated in France. It was due to wartime censorship in countries like Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States and Spain being neutral so that they reported cases first giving it the nickname "Spanish Flu"

The major troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples in France was identified by researchers as being at the center of the Spanish flu.

It infected 500 million people around the world, or about 27% of the then world population of between 1.8 and 1.9 billion, including people on isolated Pacific islands and in the Arctic. The death toll is estimated to have been 40 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.

Realt Dearg Sec · 02-03-2020 2:50pm

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

To be fair the CDC have done a great job with coronavirus.

I'd like to formally renounce this post as, in hindsight, the most stupidly wrong thing I've ever posted (which is saying something)

Conchir · 04-03-2020 10:37pm

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are connected by King Fahd Causeway, a series of bridges, causeways, and artificial islands that connect them across the Persian Gulf. One of these islands is split in half by the border between the two countries, and contains the border station, customs buildings, and a McDonalds. Its name is Passport Island. This border is also one of the shortest in the world, at just 303m.

The shortest is one of Spain's exclaves with Morocco. Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera is a small peninsula connected to the mainland by a sand tombolo, and the border between Spain and Morocco here is 75m long.

RiderOnTheStorm · 04-03-2020 11:21pm

Can't remember if I posted this before .... Apologies if I did! The Rolling Stones Mag fact reminded me . . .

I am Time Magazines Person of the Year (2006)

...and so are you!

(Time awarded the PotY to everyone with internet access for their contribution to global knowledge)

Time made a few of these large-group PotY awards, so maybe you have 2!

Great accomplishment to drop into a CV or interview?!

Capt'n Midnight · 04-03-2020 11:48pm

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

Can't remember if I posted this before .... Apologies if I did! The Rolling Stones Mag fact reminded me . . .

I am Time Magazines Person of the Year (2006)

You probably shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.

But you have won the Tour de France twice as many times as Lance Armstrong.

ohnonotgmail · 05-03-2020 10:16am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You probably shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012.

But you have won the Tour de France twice as many times as Lance Armstrong.

I've won it five times as many as Lance.

I bet you didn't know that this thread would have a part 2

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