My blog wordled, and Quote of the Week #1

When I spot something that just rings my bells I will store it up and post on Monday my “Quote of the Week”.

Today the honour goes to Kanani Fong.

As I get older, I realize there are no easy answers. There’s a multitude of reasons why a given situation exists. Listening to all sides has been interesting, reading up on the history of the region is engaging. But as for answers? For every answer there’s a new question.

And “wordled?” Well this is odd, as I found it on a post that appeared among my Blog Picks on Google Reader, but seems to have been taken down… So you won’t yet see it on Google Reader. It referred to the word cloud gizmo at Wordle.

Here is Floating Life:

 

Biorhythms

There was a great fad for this at the height of the weird 70s; I was introduced to it by an almost permanently stoned Science teacher from California…

But check mine over the New Year break! Looks like the position of Australian Cricket right now – but worse…

That’s a widget I have on Opera…

…which I recently reinstalled to replace Google Chrome. My main thing is still Firefox though, and sometimes Maxthon2 – which is good, but IE8 as little as possible. Partly this is related to how WordPress behaves in each one… (Chrome does mad things with my cpu load… It may be from its habit of constantly updating itself. The pic is on Photobucket because WordPress seems to be having a glitch right now…)

Now I wouldn’t vouch for biorhythms, mind, but I think staying under a rock may be called for…

 

Teh Marcket as a 21st century ghoulie or phantasm…

A nice jab at one of our most habitual reified abstractions or galloping personifications.

Thanks to Nicholas Gruen, an economist of note, for passing this on via Club Troppo.

 

Not posting with much seriousness, or let’s lighten up a little…

Three things that have piqued me…

1. The perils of computer translation as seen in spam comments

I will relay this wonderful example of the dangers of word-for-word “machine” translation before consigning it to Akismet oblivion. I do wonder, however, what Babelfishing this blog in another language must yield.

Secrecy is ly the A- help you can get from peace fulnessing or buying remedy medication via the Internet. With the hundreds of legal online pharmacies recognized on the Internet today, you no longer lack to sweat blood yon having to come the pharmaceutical chemist in your restricted dose store when you paucity to buy remedy medications like *** Online…

The said dose remedy is fundamentally entranced in preference to having procreative dealings. Upstanding like other lifestyle dose benumbs, *** Online may also be entranced up with an inane stomach. It is not non-poisonous, regardless, to suppose *** along with medications that carry nitrate ingredient, for it may prime mover unanticipated let go in blood affliction, as follows, prime to fondle or lessness attack…

*** Online is a benumb medication. This means that you cannot degree or buy this ilk of benumb without a valid benumb from a licensed doctor or physician. at times a remedy is watch overed, you can either get the remedy at a particular dosestore or buy *** at online pharmacies.

To certain that you’ll get je sais quoi from *** Online medications, insinuate steadfast that the online dispensary you pick out is a licensed or a fair one. Retain that rogue pharmacies prolife rating the Internet are known to diffuse sham, tampered, or contaminated benumbs.

We are warned of side effects.

Roughly, the side forces caacclimatized by the *** dose are lenient and not final for a duo of hours. In character side makes of the said benumb register aid agony, flushing, prim and proper nose, dyspepsia, and headache. Oddball materialization is also developing into the commsolitary reported non-immutable side outcomes knowledgeable by men who are fetching *** Online.

Though, if any of the side force enumerated farther down persist, it is much recommended to leave off the inset down of the *** dose and consult your doctor nearly it:

* Dizziness * Erection that aftermosts for more than four hours * Blurred or unanticipated modest disappointment of envisaging * discourteous disappointment or curtailment of hearing * impulsive * Ringing in ears * Hives

I haven’t used *** myself, but I think I have experienced * Blurred or unanticipated modest disappointment of envisaging  and * discourteous disappointment at times….

2. The many looks of Julie Bishop

While recognising that Annabel Crabb hasn’t contributed greatly to our understanding of policy issues in her piece today, I did so like it…

NOBODY gives "looks" quite like Julie Bishop can.

The Liberal deputy leader is carefully co-ordinated in everything she wears, from the heels on her feet right up to the expression on her face.

But the expressions are easily the best. When the shadow treasurer "looks" at you, you know you’ve been "looked" at.

The Bishop repertoire ranges from shocked innocence through pouting reproach to pure hate. Each has a specific use. Each is unforgettable.

The shadow treasurer entered question time yesterday wearing "Hillary Clinton".

"Hillary Clinton" is a dazzling, defiant, diamond-hard smile, whose wattage tends to be in inverse proportion to the direness of the circumstances at hand. It is an expression employed when everything around the wearer is falling apart, and she’d really like everyone to change the subject; Bishop donned the very same expression this year for a press conference after her colleagues voted to abandon Australian Workplace Agreements, against her express advice…

I am sure Julie’s original profession of the law would have given scope, but perhaps a post-politics career in film or TV? Imagine Julie in Kerry O’Brien’s role…

3. Aussies not tops in all departments

No, that’s the Poms, it appears: Britain on top in casual sex league. But we have thrust our way into the top five, ahead of the Yanks at least…

In an international index measuring one-night stands, total numbers of partners and attitudes to casual sex, Britain comes out ahead of Australia, the US, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany…

PROMISCUITY RANKINGS OF MAJOR COUNTRIES*

1 United Kingdom

2 Germany

3 Netherlands

4 Czech Republic

5 Australia

6 USA

7 France

8 Turkey

9 Mexico

10 Canada

11 Italy

12 Poland

13 Spain

14 Greece

15 Portugal

*OECD countries with populations over 10m Source: David Schmitt, Bradley University

Well, what do you make of that?

 

I have been gender analysed…

Thanks to Legal Eagle, who recently gave birth, for this one. She was a touch amazed:

…[her] site has an 82% likelihood of being written by a man. Whereas Tim Blair’s site has a 72% chance of being written by a female. Hmm. I’m thinking the text classifier needs a little work.

So naturally I checked, and this blog “is written by a man (68%).” Ninglun’s Specials “is written by a woman (54%), however it’s quite gender neutral.” Well, what about that? My feminine side obviously comes out there! I am at my most butch or macho on English/ESL it appears, with an 87% masculinity score there.

After that I was curious about a few of my regulars. Marcellous: 72% male; Thomas: 71% male; Jim Belshaw: also 71% male; Denys: 65% male. Bruce is 83% male, while AV is 82%. Kanani Fong’s blog “is written by a woman (54%), however it’s quite gender neutral.” I really am starting to wonder about Tim Blair!

It is a bit surprising though that Lisa (Aluminium) is 89% male. Perhaps because she swears from time to time?

See Gender Analyser. Have fun.

 

Just don’t feel like verbalising today…

Here’s the “arty” version of my mood…

 

See more on Ninglun’s Specials.

…and another park, another sleeper – this one in Redfern Park on Sunday.

 

And that’s another thing that really gets on my goat…

Does anyone use that expression any more? It means pissed off, cheesed off, annoyed…

Today’s Sun Herald has this story: 20 things you could do to irritate someone.

…From a list of 32 common daily hassles, respondents were asked to indicate which irritated them.

Inconsiderate behaviour – including dinner-time telemarketing calls, talking to a "robot" and not a "real person", unfriendly or uncaring customer service, driving dangerously to get ahead of traffic, competing for a car space or queue jumping – was a universal annoyance.

People older than 40 experienced more irritation around technology, violence (on TV and on the streets) and bad language than younger respondents.

The Australian Psychological Society, which conducted the nationwide survey, said an individual’s response to stress could have an adverse impact on health, leading to high blood pressure, anxiety and relationship troubles…

One item not mentioned was silly internet polls, which is my cue to add to the number using the annoyances listed in that article. You can vote for as many as you like, and the responses appear in random order. Check the Sun-Herald above to see what the survey found.

There’s space to add your own pet peeve too.

 

Old and hot in Surry Hills

Well, old the photographer must be: “What are you doing out, Pop,” the Koori woman asked me… And hot? Well, can’t you tell?

Just minding my own business on a Pension Day, and going to the bank, which is right near that bus stop. The bike guy had been visiting the teller machine too.

Let’s just check that bus stop…

Seems OK.

 

On translation

Without being in the slightest bit patronising or, worse, racist one can be amused at some of the mangled English that comes one’s way in translated text. We should always keep in mind this isn’t a one-way street either; it isn’t just a case of funny foreigners doing appalling things with English. There is a deadly serious side to the issue as well, as anything from international relations to running a business may be affected. And religion. I recall many years back an anecdote told by a missionary about a preacher working in a tonal language who told his congregation they should look forward to Heaven because when they got there their trousers would be removed. He had meant to say “burdens” but used the wrong tone. Similarly, I once ventured in Mandarin, a language I hardly speak at all, to introduce myself as a “dumpling” when I meant to say “teacher”. I believe Kevin Rudd is much less likely to make such errors.

All this to introduce a blog: Web-Translations.

The people there emailed English/ESL hoping for promotion, but it is a commercial rather than an educational site so I haven’t obliged. However, I thought I would mention it here. There are some nice stories there.

 

In which Richard Dawkins proves that atheism…

… does not inoculate one against puritanism.

See Harry Potter fails to cast spell over Professor Richard Dawkins.

As for me, reading The Phantom, Batman, Biggles, The Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh, and [God] knows what other twaddle has made me the man I am today… Let alone Peter Pan – but I won’t go there.

I should have stuck with the Dictionary and Encyclopedia Britannica, though there are probably fairy tales in both of them.

 

Daft and meaningless

1. Obama is a socialist.
2. McCain is a Nazi.

The things people will say or think in the heat of a political campaign. You may as well say:

1. Queen Elizabeth II is a socialist.
2. Kevin Rudd is a Nazi.

Well why not, if your epithets are going to be devoid of any actual content?

1. Sarah Palin is a pumpkin!
2. Malcolm Turnbull is a zucchini!
3. Obama is a radish!
4. McCain is a frozen French Fry!

 

Just one of those things…

The Consulate of the Peoples Republic of China was in Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills. They still own the building which is currently being gutted and renovated by a small army of neatly uniformed Chinese workers.

– Photo by Neil 17 Oct 2008

If you can’t read it…. ===>

 

I wish William McInnes hadn’t said this…

… because I can’t get it out of my head.

Last Saturday in a piece about the Rugby League Grand Final Australian actor William McInnes wrote:

…Midweek saw the telecast of the second US presidential debate between the senators McCain and Obama. John McCain tried hard to be folksy but looked a little like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family only being allowed out of the cellar as long as he didn’t get too cranky. “Now friends,” he would say a little too much and all the while Obama was all loose-limbed elegance and seemed to be on the verge of smoothly segueing into some Brook Benton song. The phrase he is most fond of is “you know”. As one would say it to friends.

It was a town hall debate and the audience was made up of a cross-section of American society. Hello! I wasn’t quite sure why the debate was being telecast live but somebody at the ABC deemed it to be important enough to be so I watched a little.

I wondered if McCain or Obama would barrack for Manly.

It was that sort of a perplexing week. When McCain pointed to Obama and referred to him as being “That One!” I thought to myself, this is the “Blame the Winger” moment of the 2008 race…

I will let you decide which is which.

I mentioned it on Sunday to M and Sirdan, but M didn’t know who Uncle Fester is, and Sirdan didn’t quite remember…

 

Schadenfreude

It is, a bit, but I couldn’t resist it.

I nicked it from The Other Andrew who nicked it from Yarraville Paul!