Spam I am

[j4]

Spam this morning:

Subject: Greetings, I have learned an interesting thing

What interesting thing have you learned recently?

Comments

[lnr]

Is learning how to export Outlook contacts in a format which can be imported into Hermes Webmail interesting? Didn't think so, but I just learned it.

Mike learned how to fly a plane, which is much more interesting. But not how to land one, which you'd think would be quite useful.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Is learning how to export Outlook contacts in a format which can be imported into Hermes Webmail interesting?

Yes! Is it difficult?

[lnr]

http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/docs/faq/e43.html

So a bit faffy, but not insurmountable.

[kjaneway.livejournal.com]

I learned at the weekend, that Gustav Klimt drew really lovely pictures of masturbating women.

I also learned that while the Tate is entirely happy for under 18s to look at all sorts of other nudes without the slightest warning, if they're touching themselves they put a sign up at the door suggesting that the content might not be suitable!

[sparrowsion]

Klimt was friends with Schiele, so it's not altogether surprising that they shared some motifs.

I learned yesterday that humans can learn to echolocate.

[lnr]

I read that as echocolate, and wondered what on earth it might mean.

[kake]

Echochoclocation — finding chocolate via sonar.

Echochocolocation

[j4.livejournal.com]

beep (.(.(. beep (.(.(. beep (.(.(. OM NOM NOM

*giggling quietly to myself now*

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

I should imagine that Klimt was able to come up with those motifs all by himself ;P

[kjaneway.livejournal.com]

Klimt was friends with Schiele, so it's not altogether surprising that they shared some motifs.

Indeed. Klimt's images are much less tortured... or, actually, much more sympathetic than Schiele's, though.

Bloody difficult to find prints of them, though. :-(

[kake]

I learned that Canning Town contains a miniature wood. I also learned that I have a (very) vague connection to the area via Mansfield College, where I was a lecturer (the kind that tutors, not the kind that lectures) for a bit.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Miniature wood FTW!

And I didn't know you used to tutor at Mansfield, so that's an extra interesting thing for me. :-)

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

Ah: Wood Discovery Weekend! On Saturday we discovered a Woodland-Trust wood to the north-west of Eynsham, and walked along riverside paths tracing the route of the Evenlode that, from their disrepair, hadn't seen two dozen humans this year. We saw a muntjac in the distance and rabbits surprisingly close.

(Bizarre we've only just spotted that wood. I suppose that's what an A-road does to a place's psychogeography: slices it in two. Whining about the visual effect of too many signposts in these quondam cutesy Cotswold villages is very much not seeing the wood for the trees.)

[imc.livejournal.com]

I recently found out that GET, POST and HEAD aren't just HTTP requests — they are also Unix commands (which come with perl-LWP).

[j4.livejournal.com]

Oh! By coincidence I learned about the amazing usefulness of command-line HEAD just t'other day, but I hadn't extrapolated to GET and POST being unix commands too (d'oh). Thank you :)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Does "that OSS is broken in a way that causes significant annoyance to me and minimal perturbation to the people meant to be fixing it?" count? (It is a particularly interesting way of being broken, IMO.)

Otherwise, I vote for: describing Julian Lloyd-Webber as looking like a tramp who found a cello can make some people snort tea out of their nose in a very impressive manner.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Does "that OSS is broken [...]" count?

Depends, what OSS? :-}

Our headmistress looked like Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Dunno if you can see this but it was such a strong meme at school that there's now a facebook group about it (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2265646064).

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Dear gods, you're right there. That was uncanny and scary.

OSS (http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/studentsystems/)-formerly-known-as-Isidore. (Which I keep wanting to call Elsinore.)

[1ngi.livejournal.com]

That ragwort leaves and poppy leaves look very similar in young plants and had to pull up all the 'self-seeded poppies' yesterday when they revealed themselves to be yellow weeds.

I did know that ragwort was originally first planted in this country in the Oxford botanical garden in the 1600s. I'm not sure how long it took to migrate to Cambridge but I'm betting that it was only marginally slower than the X5.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ragwort = yellow, pretty, & deadly poisonous to cows (or was it horses? -- anyway, I remember pulling it up from the sides of fields on the farm where we used to spend the summer when I was little).

I didn't know about it being planted in the botanical garden though!

I'm betting that it was only marginally slower than the X5

*giggle*

[gerald_duck]

The Romans had twenty-sided dice.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

(See, I wanted the sides to be labelled I, II, ..., XIX and XX...)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

As well as learning the US State Capitals I can now name all the US Presidents. Conversational topics at parties for rest of year = sorted.

Hello my name is Kat, I am 26 years old and I have never even been to blimmin' America.

[j4.livejournal.com]

State capitals and presidents? You can totally be on our pub quiz team YES PLEASE.

I am 30 and have never been to America either (and probably never will now because it involves FLYING, evil bad etc).

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Flying is indeed a problem, although in my case any environmental concerns pale into insignificance compared to my paralysing fear of taking off, landing and turbulence (being in a plane doesn't bother me at all, as long as it stays still, which pretty much negates the point of being in one to start with).

I haven't been to a pub quiz in YONKS. Must rectify this! And find one with suitably geographic/historical questions!

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Germany has very limited Sunday trading.

Fifty years ago, The CIA built a mile-long tunnel into Berlin (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-52-no-1/turning-a-cold-war-scheme-into-reality.html).

[j4.livejournal.com]

Mile-long tunnel! If I was the CIA I would fill it with badgers.

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

Sixty years ago, The Nazis built a bunker under this chap's garden (http://gardenbunker.blogspot.com/). They filled it with evil fascist badgers, most of whom escaped and took jobs as plumbers.

[rmc28]

Hob nobs appear to have no milk in them, making them suitable for those of my friends forced to follow a dairy-free diet.

My mother-in-law has at least 5 saws, of which the most useful for sawing branches off trees is the smallest (and the last one found).

[j4.livejournal.com]

I didn't know hobnobs were milk-free, that's handy to know!

When I was milk-free there was virtually nothing biscuitty which didn't have whey powder or lactose or some other horrible faffy bit of nearly-milk which would set my allergy off. And I was so so grateful to the nice people at Rowntree who wrote back to my mum (when she asked about one type of bar/chocolate/thing) with a complete list of all their products and which of them were milk-free and what the ingredients were. And, joy of joys, plain Breakaways were milk-free! Real chocolate like what other people ate! :-)

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Skype; I find talking to people over the Internet deeply unnerving. Seeing their picture is fine.

[j4.livejournal.com]

IMLE it's not so much "unnerving" as "completely fucking hopeless" as there's so much interference/lag that it's ...... like....... likeTALKING.... hello? .... TO ..... someTALKINGone... LIKEhello? helDOWN A WELLlo? Hello? ....

Mind you my (equally limited) experience of iChat AV is that it's just as much fail but you get to see the lag as well, like bad dubbing. :-}

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Worked fine for me (sample size of one). Connections have gotten faster, I guess.

[reddragdiva]

Do you know, I'm actually having to stretch to think of something.

My cheap crappy little MP3 player plays Oggs out the box. Which isn't mentioned at all on the box or in the manual. I am most pleased at this :-) Now I just want it to do m4a's as well.

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

Mozart wrote *filthy* letters.

[crouchinglynx.livejournal.com]

Chlorine-based Mould and Mildew Remover seems to do what it says on the bottle, but not if you use it in accordance with the instructions on the bottle. It can also cause a headache if used in a poorly ventilated shower room - such as the kind of shower room where mould/mildew are inclined to grow.

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

There is now Orzo available in Tescos. It's in the Polish section!

Also, "dunnocks" becomes a rude word, if said in the right tone of voice.

[nja.livejournal.com]

That the third year exam board has the discretion to graduate a candidate who has second year modules outstanding, unless resitting those modules would allow the candidate to raise their overall degree classification.

Oh hang on, what interesting thing have I learned recently?

Leather wallpaper looks just as bad as it sounds. Idle apprentices are hanged at Tyburn after being betrayed by their whores (http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/hogarth_william_industrious_9cellar_10alderman.htm), industrious apprentices get to be Lord Mayor of London (http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/hogarth_william_industrious_12mayor.htm). I think there is a lesson for us all there.

[oinomel71.livejournal.com]

I've learned that there is a certain length of time beyond which used teabags can't healthily be left in a tub on the worktop, and that it's something less than eight days.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

There was a QI marathon on Dave one night when I was on the night shift. I learnt a load of what could reasonably be considered crap, but I did enjoy learning that phobias only refer to irrational fears and there is supposedly no word for "fear of lions" because such a fear was considered rational.

[monkeyhands.livejournal.com]

Not interesting, but useful: if you don't have any symptoms, you can get pain-free, appointment-free STD testing on the NHS. (I went to the Family Planning Clinic when they were a)training a new doctor and b)a bit bored.)