Displaying comments 1 to 50 of 61
MeFi post:
World's Biggest and Most Expensive Ship
This is a brilliant way of visualising a billion dollars. Just think, instead of the Iraq war we could have ordered 3000 of these,
(Insanely, that would probably have been the better decision)
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 2:12 PM on June 24, 2008
MeFi post:
Reading Proust or Proust Reading You?
Reading the entirety of Proust in the original is one of my major life goals, along with learning Chinese and circumnavigating Africa. I'm giving myself twenty years to do it.
I joking set myself the goal back when I could barely get through an Asterix book in French, and I though I'm a good deal times closer to starting now, it's still looking like a fairly Himalayan challenge.
The first volume sits almost untouched on my shelf, mocking me as I write this.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 3:28 PM on May 27, 2008
MeFi post:
We are weird. And somewhat echoey.
I have to say I love this approach. These classes are hard, rise to the challenge! Like He-Man! As someone who always took the easy humanities way out, and who after graduation became really interested in maths and foreign languages, I wish I'd seen this stuff ten years ago. (Not that it would have changed my decisions, I was a lazy little pigshit.)
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 7:26 AM on May 27, 2008
MeFi post:
"If it isn't doom it'll do until a proper doom comes along."
Sigh.
A decade of moaning about Tony Blair being all spin and no substance, then after just a year of 'Not Flash Gordon' Labour's poll ratings are down round their ankles. Come back Tony, all is forgiven.
The Conservatives are furiously spinning Cameron as the 'heir to Blair', but apart from being young and smiley I can't see much that of a resemblance. Of course, none of us know what Cameron is really like because the Tory's haven't really announced any actual policies... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 2:55 PM on May 23, 2008
MeFi post:
End Nigh?
I wonder how that growing-food-without-fertiliser research is coming on...
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 9:31 AM on May 22, 2008
MeFi post:
Script-Doctorin' the TARDIS
I was thinking only the other day; "Russell T. Davies has been doing Doctor Who for a long time now hasn't he?", so this doesn't come as too much of a shock.
It's definitely good news if we end up with a darker, scarier Doctor Who. I love the program to bits but can't help but wish that all the kids watching it would just fuck off and let me appreciate some gore/complexity/terror.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 2:31 AM on May 21, 2008
MeFi post:
What goes up...
At a certain point, he decided to open the doors. He pried them apart and held them open with his foot. He was presented with a cinder-block wall on which, perfectly centered, were scrawled three “13”s—one in chalk, one in red paint, one in black.
No-one is coming. You will never leave the elevator. Nicholas White, welcome to Hell.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 8:42 AM on April 15, 2008
MeFi post:
"At Once Idiotic and Utterly Mesmerizing"
Tecktonik is indeed everywhere in France, it's in no way cool though. It perhaps used to be cool half a decade ago, but now the mainstream is finally catching on in a slightly take the piss way. An anecdote to demonstrate: one of my friends who's teaching English in primary schools couldn't do 'heads-shoulders-knees and toes' with one of his classes anymore, because all of his ten-year old pupils would always start 'tecktoniking'. Ten year olds are rarely at the cutting edge.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 1:08 PM on April 1, 2008
MeFi post:
What Europeans think of each other
uncleozzy
Before WW2 the French were seen as a violent and warlike people, with the best army in the world (see Napoleon for further details).
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 9:32 AM on February 20, 2008
MeFi post:
Meathook Through The Nose
I have heard this is something that coke fiends are particuarly good at, not that I'm going to be watching the video or anything.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 3:08 PM on February 11, 2008
MeFi post:
Free, legal music downloads
I'm surprised by the reaction this is getting, as this seems to be a much more revolutionary model than just paying for mp3 downloads. It's effectively legalising peer-to-peer downloads. Sure the lack of support for mac is unfortunate, but this is presumably a temporary problem. It seems to me that the music industry has resigned itself to making money out of merchandise and live concerts, and accepted that in the future recorded music sales will be a much smaller part of their operation.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 4:02 AM on January 28, 2008
MeFi post:
"Of course I don’t like Hitler but…"
When The Next Awful Thing Comes, we can be pretty sure it won't be like The Last Awful Thing. We have very little to fear from Nazis, we've been effectively immunised against them, the next fucked up thing will be completely different.
(climate change skeptics anyone?).
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 5:59 AM on January 24, 2008
MeFi post:
Look out below...!
I feel really sorry for all my friends who left uni last year and went to work in the city, they're so getting laid off. They'll be Bernards and Giles weeping bitter tears on the streets of London tonight.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 7:49 AM on January 22, 2008
MeFi post:
Post-War Brit Lit
No Will Self confused me too. Of the current generation of British novelists I think he's the most likely to still be being read in fifty years.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 9:25 AM on January 7, 2008
MeFi post:
Benazir Bhutto Assasinated
I only hope this will make a martyr of her and will work to turn the moderate Pakistani majority against the extremists, don't know how likely this is though.
Very sad, saw her interviewed a couple of times, seemed like she was intelligent and cared.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 6:05 AM on December 27, 2007
MeFi post:
Dragon's Feathers
Dragons, is there anything they can't do? Wonderfully creepy stuff, thanks.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 3:54 AM on December 21, 2007
MeFi post:
The Ten Doctors
Why did they all defer to the first doctor? How much sense does that make?
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 8:45 AM on December 7, 2007
MeFi post:
Trackulous - track anything
I can't wait until my home computer tracks all this shit for me. I can graph sleep against weight, work done against hours of tv watched.
YOUR LIFE ON A GRAPH! COMING SOON!
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 7:16 AM on November 20, 2007
MeFi post:
McSpaced
I think this can only be a good thing. Spaced was such a breath of fresh air, I'd never seen anything like it, and haven't since.
More sitcoms like it = good news. Hey, you don't have to watch it if it's awful right?
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 9:55 AM on October 31, 2007
MeFi post:
199 Peter Cook videos
Peter Cook is definitely up there with the funniest English comedians. I don't think there's anyone better.
Great post.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 4:53 AM on October 30, 2007
MeFi post:
Many See It As Circular
Age is a horseshoe, the year is a circle that I always view from September (my birthday). Both are a bit wonky though.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 1:41 AM on October 17, 2007
MeFi post:
Armenian genocide
There will always be a reason not to piss off this group or that group. At the end of the day politics is about doing what's right and coping with the consequences. If you don't support a condemnation of the Armenian genocide then you can just shut up about the holocaust for the rest of your life.
"Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?" - "Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?"
- Adolf Hitler
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 1:32 AM on October 17, 2007
MeFi post:
Under A Green Sky
Earlier in the thread someone said if you put a carbon tax on electricity generation nuclear would be more expensive than renewables, in which case there is no argument for nuclear. But then I've also heard that nuclear is stacks cheaper than the non-fossil fuel alternatives. At this point I've heard so many different opinions that I'm guessing no-one knows. So why don't we just introduce the carbon tax and find out?
Seems to me that would solve all the problems raised in this... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 5:54 AM on October 10, 2007
MeFi post:
Genome
I didn't read all of it.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 7:33 AM on September 16, 2007
MeFi post:
Rumsfeld at home
Of course Rumsfeld isn't evil, it's far worse than that, he's INCOMPETENT.
Nobody plays the vilain in their own life story, horrible things happen when we let clowns take control.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 8:00 AM on September 11, 2007
MeFi post:
What has the BBC ever done for us?
I've always thought the BBC was the best possible argument for communism. State provision of a service that's vastly superior to the market alternatives; I wonder how that works?
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 8:42 AM on September 10, 2007
MeFi post:
In God we doubt
People don't kill people because of religion, they do it because it's an evolved trait.
People don't help their neighbours because of religion, they do it because it's an evolved trait.
Nearly everyone on the planer is religious, that seems to be in the programming too.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 1:53 PM on September 2, 2007
MeFi post:
How to win the Nobel Prize 101
That Road to Reality website needs creating. My attempts to penetrate the book have so far been as successful and panful as my attempts to run through walls.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 5:16 AM on August 30, 2007
MeFi post:
The coming of the tiny cheap computers
People often talk about all the countries that need water and food before laptops. Personally I've never been to one.
All the countires I've been to (places like China, Turkey, Russia, Malaysia, Ukraine etc.) seemed to be crying out for something like the OLPC.
The school I worked at in Malaysia had a couple of full-on $1000 laptops, for use amongst 100 kids. I think they would have preferred to have 20 OLPCs.
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 7:12 AM on August 20, 2007
MeFi post:
Aubrey de Grey - Do you want to live forever?
The bit that strikes me as improbable about De Grey's views is that this can be done in the next twenty-five years. Seems a mighty coincidence that a 43 year old man would come up with a number like that...
But I don't doubt that this will happen in the next hundred or two hundred years. My eternal grandchildren, will I envy them?
posted to MetaFilter by greytape
at 6:22 AM on August 20, 2007
