“Few things agitate French winemakers more than other winemakers’ unspeakable irreverence towards the terroir, the mix of soil and climate found in the place where a vine is grown. The strength of feeling is so great that the country even has its own breed of, er, terroiristes. A group of masked, militant French winemakers has attacked foreign tankers of wine, bricked up a public building and caused small explosions at supermarkets.”
Year: 2007
On the word ‘terroiriste’, over 2 years ago
“Few things agitate French winemakers more than other winemakers’ unspeakable irreverence towards the terroir, the mix of soil and climate found in the place where a vine is grown. The strength of feeling is so great that the country even has its own breed of, er, terroiristes. A group of masked, militant French winemakers has attacked foreign tankers of wine, bricked up a public building and caused small explosions at supermarkets.”
On the word ‘opisthotonos’, about 3 years ago
aka the dead dinosaur pose.
On the word ‘skintle’, about 3 years ago
To win at Jenga. New Scientist, for the record, describes skintling as “angling all your blocks so that their diagonals are perpendicular to the edge of the table”.
On the word ‘zacatuche’, about 3 years ago
The Mexican volcano rabbit, aka teporingo
On the word ‘teporingo’, about 3 years ago
The Mexican volcano rabbit, aka zacatuche
On the word ‘opisthotonos’, over 2 years ago
aka the dead dinosaur pose.
On the word ‘skintle’, over 2 years ago
To win at Jenga. New Scientist, for the record, describes skintling as “angling all your blocks so that their diagonals are perpendicular to the edge of the table”.
On the word ‘zacatuche’, over 2 years ago
The Mexican volcano rabbit, aka teporingo
On the word ‘teporingo’, over 2 years ago
The Mexican volcano rabbit, aka zacatuche
links for 2007-12-25
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suspense
links for 2007-12-24
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Who Travels with St. Nicholas?
A right bunch of freaks
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Mistletoe, misogyny and more!
links for 2007-12-19
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awesome
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“Itchy. Tasty.”
links for 2007-12-14
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972 customer reviews! This one will run and run
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“Very good if you need to write on paper”
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Angels, ghosts and Playstation.
links for 2007-12-13
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A place to share forbidden snapshots
links for 2007-12-12
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Western Digital loses its marbles … “The idea this [DRM] is somehow protecting someone is untrue – it is an attack on us as citizens.”
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Gladwell reviews Flynn on the irrelevance – or rather, the real relevance – of IQ
links for 2007-12-11
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“Brings us so tantalisingly close to meaning something that its failure to do so merely frustrates”
links for 2007-12-06
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Rarely can a book have been more appropriately titled
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“Ayumu recalled the placement of numbers flashed onto a computer screen faster and more accurately than humans.” Wonder how he does at Halo
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Tooth Fairy still at large
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“This is such unbelievably good news. My whole body is shaking with joy,” said the project leader.
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There could only be one winner. Moral: don’t ask the internet for its opinion
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“We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs”
links for 2007-12-03
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I narrowly missed having my portrait typewritten by her earlier this year
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Beetles, butterflies and more
links for 2007-12-01
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Interesting discussion of the film’s treatment of Grendel’s mother
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Steven Poole’s brilliant book on the aesthetics of videogames is now available as a free download. While stocks last
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“Few people realize, however, that explicitly magical characters are actually the earliest examples of modern superheroes.”
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Steven Wells’ adventures in the Philadelphia health system, related with typical Swellsian vigour
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Fictional notes to the Soane collection. Nice idea, pity it seems to have flaked out before completion
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Panel discussion
the dvinsk clan
links for 2007-11-29
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“Different languages force their speakers to pay attention to different things”
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“the belief that things you have noticed only recently are in fact recent””
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Digitisation: good news and bad news for libraries and those who love them
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They’ll be banning books next! Oh.
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Interesting references to efforts to model the causes and incidences of war
links for 2007-11-28
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“Esquire’s sexy starlet is the hoax with the most”
links for 2007-11-22
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Best SETI signal ever received is still a mystery, thirty years on
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By the guy who wrote the Wow!
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Investigating the ‘shadow biosphere’
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The research also suggests that living microbes would likely have survived in a slightly bigger rock, he added.
links for 2007-11-20
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A rogue synth decides to spontaneously remix Van Halen
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Still persevering with this one
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“The tunes were made quite fast in the middle of the night and they had to fight for their right to exist”
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“We’re not really into lighting, we’re into dark rooms and everything vibrating”
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Note the dotted line between ‘drum&bass’ and ‘melancholy’
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“amount of party and sipping bacardy”
links for 2007-11-19
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“… Thompson kicking the chair out from under Eloise to scrawl ‘I am Eloise’ in lipstick on the vanity mirror.”
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A profile of the anti-iPod: “What is music in this modern age, and what is technology, and what do we want it to do?”
links for 2007-11-18
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Is E8 the key to the universe?
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Another version of the E8 story. Astonishingly dumb comments. If this is the popular reaction to a successful theory of everything, we’re doomed
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But won’t that make the unicorns cry?
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To make a wormhole, blow up a curve
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A method found while trying to find a cure for leukaemia …
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Turning junk into oil and gas
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“You make it sound as though I am this writer whom everybody thinks is straight until one day his wife comes home and finds him standing before the mirror wearing a silver suit and a glass helmet.”
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An equaliser for humanity after Kasparov vs Deep Blue. Sort of
On the word ‘macroscian’, about 3 years ago
or one who lives in polar regions. Apparently
On the word ‘macroscian’, almost 3 years ago
or one who lives in polar regions. Apparently
links for 2007-11-15
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fabulously useful
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Oh Lazyweb, how I love thee. Though the results seem incomplete, particularly for eMusic