en – Page 59 – Denseman on the Rattis

EN · SIGN

Don't leave the couch!

2008/02/11 23:34

No Farting sign, Small World, Disneyland Paris
Originally uploaded by gruntzooki

So what is this sign supposed to mean?

That you can’t leave the couch?

That you may not wave?

That playing games on the Wii is forbidden?

Or is it an anti-Nazi sign?

EN · KIDS · LINGUISTICS

shorthand sexism! Originally uploaded by The Sizemore McCabe Project Until a generation ago, it was entirely reasonable to teach handwriting in schools: People needed to be able to write in a legible fashion to family and friends, even if they used typewriters for official letters. But since the advent of email, the main reason for handwriting is to write shopping lists, notes to oneself, drafts and other stuff that is never intended to be read by anybody else. So wouldn’t it make much more sense and stop […]

EN · GADGETS · IT

Helianthus

2008/02/08 19:21

Thomas’s new toy Originally uploaded by PhylB After selling the flat, I decided it was time to replace my old faithful laptop, which I had called alcedo because of its blue colour. I ordered a big Dell laptop with two harddisks, a wonderful 17″ monitor and a bright happy yellow cover. Because of the colour, I decided to name it helianthus. The laptop arrived with Vista preinstalled on one of the harddisks. (I had considered buying one of Dell’s Linux laptops, but the hardware configurations available for […]

EN · TRANSPORT · TRAVEL

Birmingham?!?

2008/02/02 11:55

The bullring Originally uploaded by Jimmy Law I’ve just noticed that Ryanair are starting up a route between Birmingham and Billund. That means that they’re now flying to London, Dublin and Birmingham from Denmark. What planet are they on? Unless they think lots of people in the Midlands want to visit the original Legoland (but why should they – Windsor isn’t that far away for them), I don’t understand who they expect to use this route. In my experience, to a British person Denmark consists of Legoland […]

EN · SPORT

European champions

2008/01/27 23:35

Today Denmark won the European Championship in handball, beating Croatia 24-20 in the final. This is big news in Denmark, not quite as big as when we won the European Championship in football, but almost. It’s totally dominating all Danish newspapers on the internet at the moment. Handball is one of the “big four” ballgames that all Danish kids have to learn well at school: football, handball, volleyball and basketball. I never liked it – it was too hard and fast for me at the time, but […]

ECONOMICS · ELECTION · EN · POLITICS

American states

2008/01/23 23:48

The more I learn about the US, the more it strikes me how badly the state borders reflect the real political, economic, physical or cultural boundaries. For instance, the New York metropolitan area covers parts of New York State, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, while these states all contains bits of different metropolitan areas. Given the American Constitution, it’s extremely unlikely the map of the US will ever be completely redrawn (the current states would all have to agree, which just won’t happen), but I still think it’s […]

EN · FOODDRINK

The end of A&W

2008/01/22 23:01

A & W Originally uploaded by sneaky monkey When I moved to Glasgow, a burger place that I used to pass almost every day was the A&W on Renfield Street. I didn’t enter it for a long time, but the signs advertising root beer, floats and other American oddities were puzzling me. When I finally tried it out, I was pleasantly surprised: They made lovely milkshakes (with real ice-cream), their burgers tasted of beef, and so on. According to the photo, it used to be only an […]

EN · FOODDRINK

A cool birthday present

2008/02/09 23:43

Chef Widmann Originally uploaded by PhylB I got lots of nice presents for my birthday yesterday, but I think the coolest one must have been this chef’s jacket with my name and Dannebrog and the Saltire embroidered on the chest. Now I’m cooking on gas! 🙂

EN · GADGETS

Geocaching

2008/02/09 23:18

a geocaching nerd! Originally uploaded by PhylB I recently bought a handheld GPS receiver, a Garmin GPS 60, with a view to trying out geocaching. Today, given that the weather was nice, Phyllis, Anna and I went for a walk in Roukenglen Park, and I thought this was a good opportunity to test the new toy. The one we tried to find is called A South-Side Saunter and is located at N 55° 47.474 W 004° 18.932. I fortunately was able to push Anna’s buggy almost all […]

ALTHIST · EN

Background information about the recent ethnic tensions in Zhongyu

2008/02/03 00:33

Name:Zhongyu (Central Europe in Chinese). Official languages: Chinese and Lingua Franca. History: The Germans are the largest ethnic group in Zhongyu and the one that benefited most from colonialism, via education and employment. Some Germans fought back against the Chinese seizure of their lands. When Zhongyu’s first president, Herbert Schmidt, demanded “independence now”, China tried to form an alliance of other ethnic groups in opposition. The plan failed, and sowed the seeds of mistrust between Zhongyu’s peoples. Schmidt, a German, rewarded his followers with land abandoned or […]

EN · IT · WEB

www prefix

2008/02/02 11:37

Phyllis just told me that if she uses the address http://www.twid.bibulus.org rather than http://twid.bibulus.org, she’s taken to ask.com instead. However, on my computer both addresses take me to this blog. Can other readers please verify whether there’s a problem here or not?

EN · GARDENING

Lidl fruit trees

2008/01/29 22:22

Lidl fruit trees Originally uploaded by viralbus A couple of days ago, we were in Lidl shopping for Bockwurst and other essential food items when we discovering they were selling fruit trees at £3.99. We bought five – the four ones on the photo and a Cox Orange. I’m a bit concerned it’s a bit early in the year, but we’ll see. They also had plenty of berries, so we bought red and black currants, gooseberries, blueberries, raspberries and brambles. Yummy!

ALTHIST · EN · GEOGRAPHY

Alternate American map

2008/01/26 00:38

Speaking of American maps, I recently found this nice map that shows how the map of North America would have looked if there had been many more independent countries. Not just the CSA and Texas, but also places like California, Five Nations and Vermont. I like it. Somehow it makes it look more like Europe, no? I do wonder, though, whether the USA in such a scenario would have had that many more inhabitants than the other countries. Wouldn’t many of them have been better at attracting […]

ECONOMICS · EN · POLITICS

Brown’s incompetence

2008/01/22 23:21

Northern Rock Originally uploaded by David Farrer There’s a very interesting and scary article in The Times today about how disastrous Brown and Darling’s handling of Northern Rock has been. I particularly like how he puts in perspective how much money we’re talking about: [W]hat else could the Treasury have done with £55 billion? Here are a few ideas: it could have rescued MG-Rover and turned it into the worlds strongest car manufacturer after Toyota. It could have acquired control of the Airbus programme and shifted its […]

ECONOMICS · EN · POLITICS

Brown's incompetence

2008/01/22 23:21

EN · FOODDRINK

The end of A&W

2008/01/22 23:01

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