Howjsay.com is a unique online speaking dictionary that offers clear pronunciations of
English words,
phrases,
slang terms,
technical terms,
brand names,
proper names,
profanity, and
many foreign words, including
common variations and
alternatives. Astoundingly, the sound files
are not computer-generated -- every single one of the site's
138,152 entries are enunciated in the dignified tones of British academic and polyglot
Tim Bowyer, who has
steadily expanded its glossary over the years using logs of unsuccessful searches and direct user suggestions. The site is part of Bowyer's
Fonetiks.org family of language sites, and is also available as
a browser extension and as a mobile app for
iPhone/iPod and
Blackberry.
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 23, 2010 -
27 comments
Friday Frivolity: A
highlight reel of clips from the BBC show
Walk on the Wild Side, featuring voiceovers for animals so you finally get to know what's really going on in all those nature documentaries. This
BBC playlist has previews for a lot of the individual episodes. (I got region-blocked on a few of those videos, but most seem to work fine.)
[more inside]
posted by kmz
on Dec 17, 2010 -
13 comments
Chai Why? The Triumph of Tea in India : "But whereas I initially supposed tea-drinking to be as Indian, and perhaps as old, as the Vedas, I have come to know that it is, in the
longue durée of Indian history, a very recent development; one that (in many parts of the country) did not much precede my first visit, or that even followed it."
posted by dhruva
on Apr 19, 2010 -
18 comments
UK Space Agency launched with
a logo that "looks uncannily like the logo for the British Rocket Group, a scientific body from Doctor Who." It's mission is
to develop British space technology, "[b]ut this will have to be done through
unmanned space activities, because for the foreseeable future the UKSA will not have enough resources to reverse the decision,
taken by the Thatcher government in the 1980s, that Britain will not pay for manned space flights... planned expeditions to the International Space Station will be funded by the country's partners in the European Space Agency."
posted by kliuless
on Mar 24, 2010 -
35 comments
Space: 1999 (1975-77) is a British sci-fi series, the last production of
Gerry and
Sylvia Anderson who were first recognized for their work in "
Supermarionation." This series saw the end of the couple, with Sylvia Anderson leaving the show at the end of the first season. She was replaced by
Fred Freiberger, who brought in some Star Trek sensibilities and attempted to cater the show more to the American action-adventure audience. A third season was planned but not produced, and left the series unfinished, ending on an episode that was "
like bad Shakespeare, or worse, bad Star Trek." Fans still support the show in many forms, even creating a semi-official fan-produced mini-episode entitled
Message from Moonbase Alpha to bring some completion to the series, which was shown on September 13, 1999 at the
Breakaway: 1999 convention. Another group of fans has recently taken to
updating the whole series, to
bring Space:1999 into the future.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jan 13, 2010 -
91 comments
The Works of
Swede Mason: "
Jeremy Clarkson," "
Get in the Back of the Van," "
Jungle All The Way," "
Bill Wyman's Metal Detector," "
Put the Lotion in the Basket, *" "
Got The Sucka," "
The Gobshite, *" "
Squashed Thingy," "
Spare Me The Madness," and the pair of tracks based on
Neighbors deaths "
Coffee And Croissants" and "
Todd....Dead."
[more inside]
posted by flatluigi
on Oct 13, 2009 -
14 comments
Conquerors 2009 “There are many underhanded ways of making your conker harder. The best is to pass it through a pig." World Conker Champion – Charlie Bray. The World Conker Championships are on this weekend.
All the action from last year.
previously [1] [2]
In other news,
a cure for bleeding canker has been found, with a welcome side effect, leaf miners don't like having garlic breath.
posted by tellurian
on Oct 8, 2009 -
19 comments
Charlotte and Branwell Brontë wrote many of their stories of Angria on tiny sheets of paper in nearly microscopic handwriting. This particular example consists of four sheets of notepaper folded into sixteen pages. The individual sheets are approximately 4 ½ inches long and 3 5/8 inches wide, and the entire text contains about nineteen thousand words.
posted by Joe Beese
on Sep 18, 2009 -
20 comments
The Letter of Last Resort. At this very moment, miles beneath the surface of the ocean, there is a British nuclear submarine carrying powerful ICBMs ... there is a safe attached to a control room floor. Inside that, there is an inner safe. And inside that sits a letter. It is addressed to the submarine commander and it is from the Prime Minister. In that letter, Gordon Brown conveys the most awesome decision of his political career ... and none of us is ever likely to know what he decided.
posted by veedubya
on Jan 22, 2009 -
65 comments
The Great British Sandwich is a 'collaborative web project' to build the world's tallest sandwich, one ingredient at a time. It began picking up inedible layers early (20th from the bottom is Cat Hair, 38th is an iPhone 3G) and is now
almostover 400 layers including the Higgs Boson, Child's Tears and All the Turtles. via
the Ridiculant
posted by wendell
on Jan 5, 2009 -
19 comments
The Stone Roses are set to reform. It's almost 20 years since they released their extremely fine album creatively titled
The Stone Roses. The
band that was a big part of the
Madchester movement have been bumping into each other at Manchester United games and no doubt seeing the money that the footballers are making decided it was time to regroup. The rumours are not certain, but some say it is
75 percent likely and media reports
everywhere indicates it is probably happening.
[more inside]
posted by sien
on Dec 15, 2008 -
54 comments
Land of the Free, home of the geek. Steven Schofield takes photos of british sci-fi fans, dressed in character in their homes. He treats it as 'found' photography, which seems to illustrate the subjects vulnerability. The title of the work is Land of the Free - and illustrates how American culture infiltrates, with the ironic edge of questioning the idea of the freedom of choosing to copy the look of these fictional characters.
via kottke
posted by filmgeek
on Jul 14, 2008 -
36 comments
