December 2011
3 posts
November 2011
20 posts
“Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank.
Give a man a bank, and he can rob the...”
– @owenderby.
“And I will always wonder
How it would be if we never had met;
Life would be...”
– If We Were Words We Would Rhyme. By Gruff Rhys.
“Gwell hwyr na hwyrach!”
– Better late than later! Bit of Welsh for you, there.
WatchReal football. Real close. Dartford FC.
“Clever people … are always answering questions.”
– Frank Moore Colby.
October 2011
26 posts
Le nom des stations de Métro prises au pied de la... →
French Metro station names interpreted literally.
Divert your course.
This is the actual radio conversation between a US Navy ship and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. It was released by the chief of naval operations later that same month.
Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: This is the aircraft carrier US Lincoln, the second-largest ship in the United States Atlantic Fleet. We are accompanied with three Destroyers, three Cruisers and numerous support vessels. I DEMAND that you change your course 15 degrees north. I say again, that's one-five degrees north, or counter measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
What do you call "railway stations"?
The Russian railways have the most interesting [term], vokshol, which derives from an early visit to British railways and the then main London terminus at Vauxhall. The Russian word derives from this because of a misunderstanding that “Vauxhall” meant “train station”.
(via The Guardian)
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson.
What a Misunderstanding! →
New Yorker cartoons captioned with the same, rather apt, phrase.
“My ambition is handicapped by my laziness.”
– Charles Bukowski.
Speak no evil. →
By 2007, Google knew enough about the structure of queries to be able to release a US-only directory inquiry service called GOOG-411. You dialled 1-800-4664-411 and spoke your question to the robot operator, which parsed it and spoke you back the top eight results, while offering to connect your call. It was free, nifty and widely used, especially because – unprecedentedly for a company that...
September 2011
27 posts
