the corner office

... it's now been a decade since the All Your Base Are Belong To Us meme.

Have a nice day.

Epitonic's back. They were one of the best places to discover new music, then one 'buyout' and a flopped website redesign and poof, frozen and broken and neglected for what, nearly 8 years?

The BBC about the Chilean miners

Dr Neumann said one was suffering from a dental infection and the other had vertigo.

She described vertigo as like a dizziness that made it difficult for the patient to maintain balance and walk properly.

I could understand the BBC wanting to say 'She described vertigo as' if the doctor had instead purported that vertigo was a condition where the patient smeared themselves in bat faeces while reciting Edward Lear poems backwards. It would then be both newsworthy and useful for readers to know that the doctor meant something other than what vertigo is normally defined as in the dictionary. In any other situation, I'm not sure why the attribution should be necessary.

Interesting read:

Germany made its final reparations-related payment for the Great War on Oct. 3, nearly 92 years after the country's defeat by the Allies

I used (!) to cycle past Battersea Power Station every morning to work. It's an amazing building, and I often wondered what it was like inside. These photos by photographer Peter Dazeley give a glimpse.

As soon as we figure out how to travel at the speed of light we can start planning 21-year journeys to the planet Gliese 581g (via). Perfect holiday destination, with some awesome scenery. And if it has inhabitants, then maybe they can come visit us!

We went down to Goodwood for the Revival this weekend. A lot of people take it rather seriously; I've never seen so much tweed in one place in all my life.

But a really cool experience. I'm not the Motoring Enthusiast in the family and so Leo and I spent Saturday at the holiday cottage (and exploring some bridleways and fields in West Sussex, what beautiful countryside), and we joined the Real Motoring Enthusiasts of the family at the Revival today. The cars and bikes and buses and assorted antiques were all really impressive, but the aircraft were the best part of it for me, especially the aerial displays with Spitfires and Mustangs and other WW2 aircraft. Wow.

Sitting on the tube tonight, two ordinary blokes were sitting across from me. Typical boring blah blah. Then during a lull in the conversation the one bloke says to the other 'I didn't cook last night, I made myself cheese on toast'. And then he proceeded to explain how he'd grated cheese for a change instead of just using slices, and how he mixed in some Dijon mustard, and how really good it was, and he and his mate then had an earnest and informed-sounding conversation about the sorts of things you could do to enhance your cheese on toast.

And I thought to myself, what a weird and wonderful world we live in.

Cycling home tonight, and as occasionally happens, some aunty in a Merc A3 in oncoming traffic took a chance and cut in front of me at an intersection. She was far enough ahead that my life wasn't endangered but I had to brake pretty hard regardless.

I shook my head and prepared to air my usual tepid admonishment, but at that moment, as if the Lord Himself, having grown bored of feeding on the souls of unbaptised babies, had happened to lean over the arm of His throne in the clouds, and looked down, and had felt compelled to weigh in on matters, and a huge bellow was let forth right next to me: F*****G W****R!!!

Not the Lord, and not directed at me, thankfully, just another cyclist who'd come up pretty fast and came a lot closer to pranging into the Merc. Not the kind of insult I'd generally hurl at a woman, but so loud and unequivocal the sentiment, that the best contribution I could have made at that point was an approving 'yeah!', which would have detracted from the moment, I felt, and instead I said nothing and cycled on.

I caught up to the cyclist at the next traffic light, and before he turned off I was tempted to say 'well said', but I saw he had red hair, and a beard, and I was sort of scared he'd turn to me and say 'You're Welcome, My Son', as he rode away, leaving behind the waft of baby souls.

Some more thoughts.

The irony in the final sentence of my last post has not eluded me.

My missus also pointed out that certain demographic groups might not think the carpets are kak at all.

There were some interesting comments in the discussion at MarginalRevolution (the original via). Some people made the point that wear and tear can't be the whole answer, because plenty of places have the same problems and don't have loud carpets.

I'm sure the answer is that it's a mix of things. Wear and tear is undoubtedly an issue and probably a big factor, but I'd speculate that the carpets are there to complement the flashing lights and sounds and general visual chaos, all of which is intended to generate a sense of excitement and sensory agitation; I'm sure it's all very psychological and stuff.

Tangentially, another commenter said that that cinema carpets are designed to hide popcorn. Now that's plausible!