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Random Q & A Thread - PART 2

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The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

08:27 / 14.12.04

Cheers Jub, it's not so much a case of equal sides, I would imagine in terms of justifying it the angels and demons are in opposition but the balance of power is tipped by the omnipotence of god. I also don't think such a list of opposing entities in heaven and hell was doctrine but more a case of people wishing to quantify everything. I suspect it went on in medieval times though I have the 16th century stuck in my head for some reason. On the other hand this badly remembered info from something I read a long time ago.

Does anybody know anything about the two sides in the war in heaven when lucifer/stan/the devil fell?

09:42 / 14.12.04

I may be horribly wrong, but the only written record of it is in Paradise Lost, no?

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

13:59 / 14.12.04

Baz, you may be right, it may take a while for me to find it, cheers for the link.

14:35 / 14.12.04

Does anyone know how to pronounce the name "Zbigniew"? I think it is Polish, but may be wrong.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:11 / 14.12.04

As in the Carter cabinet? uZ-big-knee-ef, I think.

Reidcourchie - the war in Heaven is recounted in Book 6 of Paradise Lost. Essentially, you're about right. The angels and rebel angels make war, in a Homeric style (If you haven't read the Iliad, go do now). The rebel angels invent artillery and gain the upper hand, the loyal angels drop mountains on them. The battle is resolved by MESSIAH, the son of God, taking the field and driving the rebel angels over the edge of Heaven, telling them that their soul's forgiven (OK, not actually that bit), and casting them into Tartarus.

15:31 / 14.12.04

Does anyone know of a good hostel (or a cheap hotel) in Glasgow? I need a place to stay while I look for a flat.
Any good temping agencies would be helpful as well.

02:22 / 15.12.04

I stayed at the Euro Hostel a few years ago, and had no complaints...

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

13:26 / 15.12.04

Thanks Baz, Jub and Haus for the help.

"The rebel angels invent artillery and gain the upper hand, the loyal angels drop mountains on them."

Now I have to read Paradise Lost. Rest assurred I have read the Iliad, I thought it would improve my appreciatian of Troy.

I have another question can anyone suggest a rather maudlin piece of solo trumpet music, preferably either Jazz or Blues? Also can anyone suggest a piecew of music preferably jazz that has a trumpet solo followed by another wind instrument solo, another trumpet or a saxophone? Ideally the solos would appear to be in competition or duelling?

Once again, cheers.

18:36 / 15.12.04

How long is too long for this thread?

Melancholy trumpet: synchronistically, I just opened this page as Radio1190 was playing something that'd fit the bill on my headphones.

Duke Ellington, At Newport album, "Jeep's Blues" has a trumpet and a sax, apparently, doing a duet over the big band. (I'm only 95% sure because these headphones are pretty crappy and the recording seems to be one of the older ones.)

There's also some good stuff I know on a movie soundtrack. It's all duets between Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker. I can't remember the name of the movie, though. I've got two tracks on a mixtape, and the one I liked best was called "Harry's Philosophy" which mainly consisted of Hooker mumbling about how it served him right to suffer and how low he was feeling. It's the other track that had a melancholy sound to it.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:09 / 18.12.04

Please, won't someone help me fix my hair?

Back in April, after two happy years of baldieness, I decided with a heavy heart to grow my hair back in the hopes of getting a job. Going natural is not a small thing when your collar and cuffs haven't matched since 1991, but needs must ect.

It's been a long process, especially since I have very thick unruly hair that likes to grow straight up on top and straight out at the sides (think if Wolverine and Dilbert's pointyhair boss had a baby. Oh, stop whimpering. Have a drink, you'll feel better.) I now have hair down to about... oh, halfway between Andy Warhol and Christopher Robin, say. The colour is best described as Dingy Mouse. I look perfectly respectable and sort of cute and timid and I hate it hate it hate it hate hate hatey McHate.

I'm half inclined to go for the clippers and bleach, nice platinum Grade 3 a la Stop The Insanity, but I look really butch with short hair and employers here don't seem to like butchy chicks. So, what should I do?

02:45 / 21.12.04

Be invisible.

05:17 / 21.12.04

have any of you been here:

http://www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk/london/default.htm

I'm drinkin the organic ale right now and it's tasty

12:05 / 30.12.04

I was watching the end of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly last night, and the final scene reminded me that I've never understood the rules of those finger-twitching pistol duels you get in cowboy movies. I mean, what are they waiting for? I'd have thought that in that kind of stuation - where it's all about the speed of the draw - you'd make sure you were first to go for your gun. No one's counting down, they're just standing there, hands hovering over their holsters, concentrating, waiting for... I don't know what. 'Pull your damn gun!', I always think.
What am I missing? Was there a cowboy code that made it dishonourable to be the first to draw? If so, how did these stand-offs ever end? Wouldn't you think: 'Well, the rules to us equally... one of us has got to draw first... That person's going to be at a significant advantage in this brutal fight to the death... that person might as well be... BANG!'?
Some of these gunfighters have apparently been in lots of these duels, and yet they don't seem to have formulated a policy.

What's the story? I've not seen that many westerns, but in the ones I have seen, it's never really been made clear.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:13 / 30.12.04

Dammit, grant! You know I lost my most of my powers after you used that Ray Of Green Wiggly Lines on me. All I've got left is Winning at Cluedo and Strudel of Death. Stop taunting me.

pointless and uncalled for

12:24 / 30.12.04

If no one is counting down then its one of two things. Either there's a strike of the clock soon or its a matter of reflexes and options.

If you move to shoot first then the other person could react by taking a defensive move like running or diving, severly reducing your chances of hitting and leaving your opponent to exploit your open position. If you move defensively first then your opponent essentially gets a free shot on you and gets to put a covering stance on your new position. However, if you wait for your opponent to move to shoot first then you can react by trying to shoot them first. Not as crazy as it sounds. The first person to move can't expend a lot of time or effort on the accuracy on the first shot and therefore there's still a good chance of missing. This means that the reactive shooter has, in theory, more time with their first shot while the first shooter corrects their aim.

Add into that little duelling mix some nerves and wild west ego/bravado and you can see why they happen.

Of course there are some films where the set up is completely preposterous but this is cinema, not real life.

12:35 / 30.12.04

With regard to the wild west shoot-outs I always thought (probably erroneously) that if you went for your gun first that it counted as murder, while if your opponent went for his guns first but you were faster then it counted as self defense.
Plus it looks cool, so y'know.

19:22 / 30.12.04

Also, those spaghetti westerns were, in part, playing off Kurosawa's samurai movies -- and there's a whole kind of samurai duel based on getting the other guy to draw first. Psych-out dueling.

----

Carnival: You're a double agent now. Be as unseen as possible, or HQ will become MOST DISAPPOINTED.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

10:10 / 02.01.05

But what about my HAIIIIIRRRR?

Okay, question: Does anyone remember that thread quite a while back about the guy who was selling a videotape of "nagas" on eBay? I lost all my bookmarks in a Windows disaster and I can't find his site. Ta!

10:49 / 02.01.05

Mordant, could you dye it to a colour you like better? Red, maybe, or a darker brown? Or even lighten it - though the idea of you turning into a bottle blonde makes me giggle.
A bit of colour could let you find a half-way look that you quite like but that won't scare off employers?
Also, maybe a cut would help? One that could be adapted to be more 'you' when you're not in looking-for-work mode?

10:54 / 02.01.05

Just read that again and see you've considered the bleach. Bleached but longer, maybe? I know it's a terrible thing to have a 'compromise' haircut but then you hate it as it is.

18:42 / 02.01.05

Most guns in the old west were terrible, any shot over a distance was wayward at best - in fact most fights in the old west were knife fights, guns were too unreliable. But as for the rules, as mentioned it's the psyche out, sometimes it was a case of shooting at high noon, so a clock would chime, but most times it was just twitchy face off time, or just shooting as quickly as possible so if you missed you could get another shot off.

19:23 / 02.01.05

Thanks for the answers, all. The psych-out potential of appearing to offer your opponent a head-start sounds plausible. Make them nervous, maybe their hands will shake. Adds up if it's a samurai tradition too. Generous though.
Hadn't thought of the self-defense angle. Sounds reasonable too.
Not sure I understand one part of your explanation though, pointless...

The first person to move can't expend a lot of time or effort on the accuracy on the first shot and therefore there's still a good chance of missing. This means that the reactive shooter has, in theory, more time with their first shot while the first shooter corrects their aim.

But this puts the reactive shooter a whole turn behind. Why's he got any more time with his first shot than the proactive gunman did - particularly considering that the latter now has his gun drawn and is merely fine-tuning his aim?

Benny, I had an idea that these fights had little basis in fact, but it's such a staple of Westerns that I thought there must be some traditional rationale behind all the dithering. Just shooting as quickly as possible so if you missed you could get another shot off seems so much like the obvious thing to do, but maybe it's only the gutless bad guys who do that. Can anyone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Westerns confirm that it tends to be the chap in the black hat who draws first?

19:52 / 02.01.05

Most westerns show the black hatted bad guy twitching to move first, but the hero being too quick on the draw. The whole drawing fast thing was more a staple of the circus (Wild Bill Hickock etc) and was just for show, with a handfull of copy cats in the real world. But most gun fights were quick and without ceremony - ie, arguement, someone pulls a gun and shoots someone else - the whole 'high noon' thing is more dramatic. But yeah, black hatted bad guys twitched first (from memory, doesn't The Ugly twitch/draw first, but SPOLIER ***************************** he's gun is empty, so the other, cooler characters respond to him drawing first, but Clint has the upper hand, as he know's Eli's gun is empty.

15:49 / 03.01.05

Has anyone ever fixed poor eyesight through exercise? You know, like this guy?.

I am unconvinced, but trying to be open minded. I've read of this sort of stuff before but never heard of anyone who's managed to do it. Have you? A real person, not just someone you read about?

15:20 / 13.01.05

Background story:

Last night I had an argument with my brother about The Placing of Clothing, Towels Etc over Radiators, and the Dangers Thereof. My brother, you see, is a cross between the Harry Enfield character who constantly sticks his oar in (catchphrase: "You don't want to do it like that! You want to do it like this...") and an over-zealous Health and Safety Inspector. And he lives in the same house as us (us being me, Julie and The Boy). So you can imagine how alarmed he was to discover that me and Julie are in the occassional habit of airing slightly damp clothes on the oil-filled electric radiator in our bedroom. He issued pleas for us to Cease and Desist immediately, because:

"It works like a transformer and when they go wrong they explode, and WE'VE ONLY GOT ONE HOUSE YOU KNOW, and I once left my PE kit over the radiator at school and the PE kit melted and I could have burnt the building down."

Now, if my brother wasn't making these sort of demands every five f***ing minutes, and if he didn't turn out to be totally paranoid and wrong 99% of the time (eg the Extraordinary Case of the Potential Copyright Infringement) I might've said "oh, fair enough" or something, but as it was I tried to argue it out with him. But of course I have no idea how risky it is or not, and he's a persistant bugger (think Little Britain character who makes impossible demand of shop owner and says "I'll wait") and I ended up exaperatedly shouting "oh all f***ing right, forget it, we'll stop doing it". Gah! Failure! Loss of face!

Actual Question:

So, erm, does anyone here have any knowledge about the risks involved in putting clothing, towels etc over oil-filled radiators? *Have* we been acting in a grossly irresponsible manner?

15:54 / 13.01.05

I don't know. But when I lived in a house heated only by electric radiators, I never put wet clothes on them because water + electricity = bad: however, if you use one of those v cheap plastic/wire clothes-horses and put the clothes near the radiator - or, depending on the type of clothes horse, over (but not in contact with) the radiator - they dry nearly as fast and nothing explodes.

00:35 / 15.01.05

I'm fairly certain the only risk is of clothing smoldering and maybe catching alight -- if the damn things is going to explode, what's doing the exploding, how does it ignite, where's the pressure coming from and why are they putting it in houses anyway?

Oil-filled radiator recall. Ooo! Hazardous!

It's filled with "diathermic" oil. I can't find what that is, really, only that it seems to be used a lot in solvent distillation and in Italian factories.

The resistable rise of Reidcourchie

15:11 / 16.01.05

Grant cheers for the music reccomendations, they didn't quite work out but they where both wvery good bits of music.

10:31 / 17.01.05

Can anyone possibly tell me who it was that first coined the phrase "the network is the computer"?

13:07 / 17.01.05

Everyone seems to credit Scott McNealy. Any particular reason to believe he nicked it?

20:48 / 18.01.05

Does anyone know a method of re-straightening the boning in a corset?

10:00 / 19.01.05

How badly bent is it? Or are you merely looking to adjust the fit? Is it steel or actual bone? Because I think if it's bone, you're looking at techniques not far removed from the ones used by shipwrights and string-instrument makers to bend wood. Lots of heat/steam, gentle pressure over a couple of days kind of thing. If it's steel, you might be able to get it out and give it a gentle hammering.

11:43 / 19.01.05

If someone comes to dinner at your house and brings wine, is the correct etiquette to open their wine or your own first?

11:52 / 19.01.05

I imagine there's no right answer, but then again I know nothing of etiquette. If, as happened to me recently, your guest brings a warm bottle of Cypriot pudding wine you just fridge the filth and hope everyone forgets about it.

12:05 / 19.01.05

I tend to open their wine first, in case they get the impression I think their wine is shite and only fit to be drunk when blotto. Or, if one is red and the other white, I open the white first because I tend to imagine I have made a fish course, even though this is rarely true.

Cash -did they?

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