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Cat has impressive velociraptor purr

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Bill Nye on why he wears bow ties.

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Weatherman nails pronouncing longest place name in UK

modulous says...

Well, I don't know what this is worth but I live within a 100 miles of Llanfair and this pronunciation is about as right as it gets. Saying the full place name is something of a challenge and I was taught it by a teacher of mine who was very Welsh. I got bonus points as a kid cos I could remember the English translation as well. I'm going to bet that the only reason they bothered to put this village on a national weather map was because they knew the weatherman is one of those that have taken the few hours of time it takes to commit it to memory and wanted a Youtube moment.

Once there, it is so weird it rarely leaves.

It sounds like he learned this the way I did: break it into sections. For help I memorised English ish words to guide me through the journey:
Llanfair (lllllLand fire!)
pwllgwyngyll (pullll Gwen Gilllll)
gogerychwyrn (Gagarin twin)
drobwll (doubllllll)
llantysilio (llland silly Oh or silo if you prefer)
gogogoch (Go! Go! Goch!)

Monsters beware

modulous says...

It's funny how language works really. 'Ass' is not a nice word? In my UK experience we tend towards 'ass' being the PG version of 'arse' - when we are using Americanisms such as 'kick my ass'. I thought this might be because we don't use 'butt', but we do have 'bum'. 'Kick my bum' just has no impact with that round b - u- m ending. At least the 'tt' in butt give it a sharp ending.

Incidentally, I don't think I've ever heard a Brit unironically say 'kiss my ass'. If it is sincere it is always 'arse'. But Assholes are generally less unpleasant than arseholes. Assholes are when your mates are dicks. Arseholes are strangers that are cunts.

Pun'd at IKEA

modulous says...

Incidentally, I'm pleased with the production. The guy got my accent wrong, but the woman playing my wife really got the reactions well.

modulous said:

No wordplay? Should I assume pun is not intended because punishment? IKEA little problem with this, so please take a seat. I have a problem with IKEA - everything in the showroom is meant to be for sale but the curtains were drawn. I have lots of jokes about IKEA, but you wouldn't get them: they're inside jokes.

Pun'd at IKEA

modulous says...

No wordplay? Should I assume pun is not intended because punishment? IKEA little problem with this, so please take a seat. I have a problem with IKEA - everything in the showroom is meant to be for sale but the curtains were drawn. I have lots of jokes about IKEA, but I won't furnish Videosift with them: they're inside jokes.

Non-Irish Boy Eats Carolina Reaper

modulous says...

Sounds like he has English parents but lives in Scotland or the other way around. For the record the elder (I believe its a grandfather) has a pretty strong northern English accent so it's reasonable to suppose the family has a bit of a mixture and that's represented in his ambiguous accent.

I detect no Irish, though.

Clues: The way he says 'nine' is Scottish. Irish would tend towards 'noyn'. When he says 'It is a real one', the 'it is' is characteristically Scottish. When the elder says 'I know' he says 'I naaaw' which is so Northern English its untrue - the final 'E R' nails it.

The ropes are looking a little frayed

modulous says...

Raging like a madman would simply have made the experience more terrifying for the kids still attached to a massive length of elastic under tension.

The rage begins once the kids are not in danger and a suitable target for the rage is apparent. Raging at the staff on the ground while the kids are in danger serves only to distract the staff (further endangering the kids) and scare the kids (further endangering the kids).

It looks like step one in their process was to release the tension in the elastic, which makes sense. If the mechanism holding them down failed while getting out of the car/cage the results would be worse for them and for anyone nearby helping them out.

Siri, What Is Zero Divided By Zero?

modulous says...

http://videosift.com/video/Numberphile-Problems-with-the-Number-Zero

Skip to 10 minutes for 0/0 if you don't want the background. A quick spoiler clue is that x/x = 1; Also, 0 x 0 = 0, which implies the answer is 0. Indeed, there are a number of different mathematical constructs one can make to demonstrate that the answer is any number one likes.

Mathematics needs to be uniform and consistent, and an operation that can return infinite legitimate values depending on your approach is a disaster as far as this is concerned. Suddenly the whole enterprise of mathematics is ruined. Better to call 0/0 undefined.

Into English and cookies. How many cookies does nobody get when you don't divide cookies among no people? Does this make sense?

Into speed. If I am travelling at speed and you want to measure it you need distance travelled and time taken. If I travelled 100 kilometres in 1 hour you can say I'm travelling 100kph. If I travelled 50 kilometres in half an hour (50 / 0.5) , you can say the same thing. 25km in quarter of an hour (25 / 0.25) and so on and so forth. All come out at 100kph. But what if you decide to measure how far I travel in 0 seconds? I travel 0 metres. 0 / 0 = ? 0kph? And if you took this narrowly focussed measurement every few seconds you would see that my speed remains at 0kph but I manage to cover 100km in an hour anyway. Maths is now broke

iaui said:

I understand why for n > 0 n/0 is indeterminate but I'm not convinced 0/0 isn't simply 0. If you have zero cookies and split them amongst zero friends then nobody gets anything so zero?

ZX14 Kawasaki motorbike bursts into flames at 400km/h

Jon Stewart on Charleston Terrorist Attack

modulous says...

Terrorist attacks are really rare too. The US government seems happy to 'turn the country inside out' to be seen to be catching and preventing them.

scheherazade said:

To take a less emotional counterpoint :

a) Internal attacks like this, when considering the massive population of people (1/3rd of a billion), are extremely rare. Lightning strikes compete very well with these in terms of lethality. So what exactly do you do? Turn the country inside out (do things legislatively/executively that affect everyone) because there's a chance that 1 in 300 million people will once every year or two do something like this?

Ferrari driver narrowly avoids double accident

modulous says...

I'm pretty sure the person that pulled out did look to his left before pulling out. He is about 20-30 metres from the junction and has completed the turn, this probably took a few seconds to complete the turn from stationary or near stationary and get away from the junction. The Ferrari driver looks to have covered somewhere between 100-200m of distance in this time.

The first sign the Ferrari driver passed was a warning sign of an awkward junction coming up ahead on his right so he should slow down. There are other warning signs and a speed limit clearly posted that he is in excess of.

He may be a talented car handler, but he's a poor (and dangerous) driver.

Animals reacting to reflection in mirror



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