Posts by Snafu

Vote now for your fave sci-fi movie quote

@ Mad Max 2 Classic

"It's my snake. I trained it, [so] I'm gonna eat it!"

Gyro pilot to Boomerang Boy

I can't believe that over for 150 comments no-one's mentioned the /original/ & definitive quote:

Or maybe it should be a soliloquy..

(can't be bothered to find a movie script, so I'll just copy & paste from the book):

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. [...] Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. "

If you can't guess the title to this book/film/etc, you don't deserve to call yourself a sci-fi fan!

Merseyside health authority gives away staff data

Percentage fines

Is there any /logical/ (as opposed to political) reason why private organisations shouldn't be penalised by a /percentage/ fine (of turnover or profit) rather than a flat fee?

This wouldn't work economically for government-owned organisations such as the DHS or the MoD, as the end product would simply be that the taxpayer pays the fine, but for other areas such as banks, accountants/auditors or construction companies it may put a sting in the tail as opposed to the current fiasco of <gallic shrug> 'we won't do it again yeronner'.

In the cases of organisations that are so intermingled with government spending that they can't get out & survive after paying the fine, then their government subsidy (for want of a better word) should be fixed as if nothing has happened, whilst the private area should be fined as above

Since (unfortunately, IMV, but..) there appear to be no /truly/ State-owned enterprises any more this proposal will at least claw back /some/ of the cash that's been pissed-away over the last 20-30 years in the name of capitalism & free enterprise (read INDIVIDUALISTIC GREED).. before this country sinks finally into 2nd-3rd world status

If there are any non-partially-privatised areas still out there, apart from the Civil Cervix (Govt Depts, Sir Humphrey), they need the 'Radical Reform' done properly: cut out the middle managers & work up

Of course, this will never happen, but I can dream. Anyone seen V for Vendetta?

Reg lexicographical Shock Army liberates mobe

@umacf24

Dearest creature in creation

Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse

I will keep you, Susy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,

So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare heart, beard and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it's written).

Made has not the sound of bade,

Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,

Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,

Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery:

Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.

Exiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing.

Thames, examining, combining

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war, and far.

From "desire": desirable--admirable from "admire."

Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.

Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.

Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone. Balmoral.

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,

Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.

Scene, Melpomene, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,

Reading, reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth

Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet;

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,

Which is said to rime with "darky."

Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation's O.K.,

When you say correctly: croquet.

Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive, and live,

Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,

Between mover, plover, Dover,

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police, and lice.

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label,

Petal, penal, and canal,

Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.

Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,

Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it."

But it is not hard to tell,

Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,

Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous, clamour

And enamour rime with hammer.

Pussy, hussy, and possess,

Desert, but dessert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.

Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rime with anger.

Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.

Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.

And then: singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Query does not rime with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;

Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.

Though the difference seems little,

We say actual, but victual.

Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;

Put, nut; granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rime with deafer,

Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,

Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific,

Tour, but our and succour, four,

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria,

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion with battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.

Say aver, but ever, fever.

Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess--it is not safe:

We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.

Heron, granary, canary,

Crevice and device, and eyrie,

Face but preface, but efface,

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,

Ear but earn, and wear and bear

Do not rime with here, but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,

Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation--think of psyche--!

Is a paling, stout and spikey,

Won't it make you lose your wits,

Writing "groats" and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel,

Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict, and indict!

Don't you think so, reader, rather,

Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rimes with "enough"

Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of "cup."

My advice is--give it up!

I was always under the impression that this was GBS' (George Bernard-Shaw) work, but the first Google search finds some German bloke: G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946

If you want, there's plenty more where that came from..

UK ID card service mounts birth, marriage, death landgrab

I forget who it was who said this:

'Because enabling legislation never gets a decent airing in parliament (not that it would make any difference, since the six back bench MPs bold enough to risk the wrath of the whips just aren't enough to make a difference)'

..but did you take a look at 'The Ministry of Truth' this evening on BBC2? ISTM to be an excellent expose of how 'this sort of thing' works..

Preterite peter-out: How the end beginned

".. regularised"?

That looks almost as horrible to my eyes as something like

'When I wedded my wife, I bidded her never to look at Jack in that way. I slayed her. I slitted her throat from ear to there. I shedded my blood-covered clothing, but was stinged by the credit card company who refused to honour my purchase of new apparel.'

Interesting that your (?) spelling-checker highlights 'slayed', 'bidded', 'shedded' & 'stinged', but not the other two..

Apple patches Windows QuickTime bug

Quicktime alternative

I wonder if QTA is affected..

Blogging: made in England?

@ Tim Porter

Not in the slightest. IIRC someone (possibly Cookie himself) offering to pay the BBC the going rate for new tapes, simply to retain the archive. They declined :((

iPlayer Politics: Behind the ISPs vs BBC row

@ Dom

"think that this iPlayer argument is excellent - let's hope that this will force BT (and others) into upgrading the WHOLE system into something that will be over-engineered and therefore future-proofed."

Hah! If that was going to happen it would have started years ago when the whole LLU/BT monopoly was first posited. BT want to keep their monopoly on 'last mile' cable for very sound financial reasons: it's one of the few things that makes the company profitable. The attempt by OFCOM to regulate this has been a joke - witness all the BT squealing & OFCOM rolling over in the last decade.

If the government /really/ wanted an end to the LLU debacle they'd have renationalised BT to start with, maybe then sold off its assorted parts to private companies. However, they didn't - partly because of the demon ( to the assorted governments of the time) word (re)nationalisation, but mostly because of a) the debacle that BR turned into when it went through a similar process (nationalised company to parts sold off inappropriately); b) the lobbyists; & c) they didn't have the money then; when they had the money they squandered it on bureaucrats, management, focus groups etc for other problems (NHS, EEC, etc); & now they don't have the money again (except possibly in private pension funds owned by aforementioned bureaucrats etc)!

It's all very well saying that a market economy has to compete to stay healthy, but when dealing with an entrenched monopoly or nationalised industry the 'market' doesn't apply. Competitors such as the internal market groups have to compete with each other at a reduced budget (because of the restrictions placed on the 'former' 'monopoly'), so they whine. Outside competitors have to deal with an entrenched market position (read 'monopoly', but also 'brand') that frequently owns all the infrastructure, & now won't even talk to /itself/ because 'it's a different company'! Is there any wonder why /they/ whine?

It's enough to make you want to bang their heads together!

(another Dom, BTW)

Symantec showers free software on bug-afflicted Chinese

I'm puzzled

Symantec gives to China, one of the most prolific creators/instigators/copiers of pirated s/w around, thousands of free licenses

How does that work?

/sarcasm=off/