Interesting Links for 09-12-2011

[andrewducker]

• This is pretty much how I feel about wine-tasting and whisky-tasting.
  (tags: drinking alcohol tea experience )
• Scotland’s Hurricane Bawbag raises Twitter storm
  (tags: twitter weather wind scotland funny )
• Star Wars vs Star Trek: An Objective Analysis
  (tags: StarWars StarTrek funny )
• The Biggest Star Wars Plot Hole, Explained By Science!
  (tags: StarWars )
• You've Probably Read Enough
  (tags: reading doing motivation )
• First realistic 3D reconstruction of a brain circuit
  (tags: brains neuroscience )
• TWO giant pandas were very drunk within 15 minutes of arriving in Scotland, it has emerged.
  (tags: scotland edinburgh panda zoo )
• Occupy protesters talk reform with the head of the FSA
  (tags: finance occupy banking fsa )
• Women to be allowed to serve on Royal Navy submarines
  (tags: navy submarine women uk )
• A full addon pack for Defense Grid - with GladOS! Glee!
  (tags: DefenseGrid GlasOD Portal awesome games )
• SF to be first city in US history to set minimum wage over $10
  (tags: sanfrancisco wages usa minimumwage )
• France and Germany urge common corporation and financial taxes
  (tags: tax euro europe )
• The truth about supermarket 'bargains'
  (tags: business shopping supermarket uk )
• High school senior kills cancer with nanotech, still can't legally drink
  Personally, I think anyone that kills cancer should be given special drinking dispensation. Although their brains should also be classified as national treasures, and protected from alcohol at all costs.
  (tags: cancer science research )

Comments

[andrewducker]

How...odd. There's been an exception thrown all day by the process that posts these. No idea what was causing it, or why it's suddenly managed it.

More bugfixing at the weekend!

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

Loved the top twitters about hurricane bawbag. Awesome.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Regarding the Experiencising LJ thing you linked to - I've heard that the crazy variety and colour of toilet paper is mostly a UK thing and people in other countries are happy with it being white and just doing its job, without needing to be imbued with the near-magical powers of aloe vera or shea butter. Could someone from abroad confirm/deny?

[steer.livejournal.com]

http://most-expensive.net/toilet-paper

Here's some expensive portuguese manufactured toilet paper.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

This would be more impressive had I not seen a bottle of designer mineral water earlier, so my mind was pre-boggled.

[darkoshi]

In the U.S., we have single ply, double-ply, triple-ply, some thin, some fluffy... but I don't recall seeing any color but white on the shelves.

http://blog.toiletpaperworld.com/where-did-all-the-colored-toilet-paper-go/

I'm not familiar with any toilet paper that has aloe or shea, although I have heard of facial tissue like that. I always get my preferred brand of TP (based on high post consumer recycled content), and don't pay much attention to the rest.

I remember a particular toilet paper that they had in Germany; it was thick (but not soft), grey in color and must have been recycled... an inn which I frequented while visiting my aunt had it. It was so rough and uncomfortable, that I took to buying my own toilet paper when staying there.

[steer.livejournal.com]

The Biggest Star Wars Plot Hole, Explained By Science!

In Star Wars, isn't the storm troopers missing all the time more plausibly explained by the "They got away, just as you planned, with the tracking device attached to their ship" plot? After all, why plant a tracking device on the ship and then order your soldiers to shoot all the pilots?

Apart from on the death star I think the only chance in Star Wars that Storm Troopers get to shoot is at the Mos Eisley launch which did look a tricky shot. Once they're in the TIE fighters the Storm Troopers seem pretty good at getting rid of rebels.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

that is what I assumed the blog post would be about.
Palpatine's comments did strongly suggest the Stormtroopers were under orders to miss convincingly.

As Luke stated, "Your overconfidence is your weakness."

[andrewducker]

Good point. And Clone Troopers are good shots. We seem them on Hoth, but I don't remember if they're any good. And obviously there's a fight against Ewoks.

Hmm, I'll have to keep an eye out next time I do a rewatch!

[tysolna]

Re: supermarket bargains - As someone who was taught to compare prices and value-for-money (thanks, Ma), I am not in the least bit surprised about supermarket pretend-bargains and weight vs amount pricing. If all else fails, I will pick up a weighted bag of apples and compare the weight to the one priced by number of apples - that trick hasn't failed me yet. Always remember that what they want in the end is your money.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I once saw a shelf at Safeway that was utterley devoid of packets of cookies which were (say) two for 1.50, all sold out because of the special offer. Alongside was a completely full shelf of double packets, identical in weight to two single packets. Selling at 1.20.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

my mother is a colossal sucker for a bargain.

watching her foibles over the years rendered me an acute sense of when not to buy.
it doesn't always work, but I do try.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I was about to say 'really?' about the wine tasting but I daren't now because of your poll on it...

But can't wine tasting be just about trying different varieties for the interest in the different tastes, without it being about being made by Albanian nuns etc etc?

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I cleared that up a bit in a comment on that post - I have no objection to people liking one wine more than another, and discussing that with other people that also have varying tastes in wine. It's people that project that into either being better people because of it, and their taste being a sign of it, or into something they can use to tell other people that their differing tastes are wrong (rather than being a matter of, well, taste.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Last year someone in the French meetup group organized a wine tasting evening -- everyone was assigned one region, and asked to bring a moderately-priced bottle of that, like about 6-7 quid. And we spent the whole evening trying them all, and she'd written up cards with stuff about them. It was lovely!

[andrewducker]

Sounds nice (Well, as an abstract concept, I wouldn't enjoy it with wine, but I get the general idea)

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

fuckadoodly

the AutoCorrect and #bawbag posts had me in fits yesterday. Exactly what I needed.

[darkoshi]

Thanks for the Star Wars Plot Hole link. It's an amusing yet plausible explanation. The first 2 linked-to articles on that page were very interesting too.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

My pet peeve about plot holes is that even if the stormtroopers were incompetent, it's only a plot hole if filming a more convincing "heroes escape from bad soldiers against the odds" sequence would make some other part of the film incoherent, or is completely logically impossible. But I don't think either of those is the case.

[andrewducker]

It's only a plot hole because we're told they are competent, and then they visibly aren't. If we were told they were as rubbish as they are that would be different.