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Questions and Answers - Part 3

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All Acting Regiment

22:17 / 06.04.06

There's a pop psychology book called Straw Dogs (I think) that might have something useful in it. Your library might have it.

Does anyone know where I can find pictures of ship graveyards? You know where ships get broken up?

Whisky Priestess

22:33 / 06.04.06

Shrug: Watch Before Sunrise and Before Sunset for flirting tips.

Legba: The library is your friend ... but try reading the critical and fictional works of Angela Carter, A.S. Byatt and Tobias Wolff for top flight stories and criticisms thereof.

Bubblegum Death

22:36 / 06.04.06

We were driving near the airport one day when we saw a bull digging a hole. Is this normal? If not, why would he be digging a hole?

All Acting Regiment

23:24 / 06.04.06

Also...anyone remember that big red toy spaceship a lot of people had back in the day? It was staffed by leettle purple figures, and the engines could come out and be little hovercraft, and the middle part could by a tracked vehicle, the top of which could come off and be a flying saucer with big cigar-type engines at the back.

Think there were also large grey shell-fish shaped ones it was meant to fight.

What was all that about?

01:34 / 07.04.06

We were driving near the airport one day when we saw a bull digging a hole. Is this normal? If not, why would he be digging a hole?

Was he using a spade? 'cos you know if he was I heard Evil Scientist has been breeding hyper intelligent cattle. Malevolent fuckers they are too. Could've been anything from concealing evidence to burying a body in that case. I mean who knows what his agents get up to? Best not tell too many people and if you hear a murderous low outside your door call the police.

(Oh right, off to bed then? Yes. Good idea.)

07:18 / 07.04.06

Maybe it was a pantomime bull - the perfect disguise for two murderers trying to surepticiously dig a shallow grave.

Ex

07:26 / 07.04.06

Further to Shrug on Phex's rat - you may not have to buy a trap, I used to rent one from a pet shop/rat breeder. A fiver a time. See if you can hang onto it until you give the rat back, though, espeically if there's some mysterious escape technique it's employing (eg large hole in cage, power of mesmerism).

Ex

07:30 / 07.04.06

And they tend to like to keep close to walls. If you hear them moving in a certain bit of the room, like behind the sofa, stick the trap there with the mouth of the trap in line with the wall. For maximised rat-hearing, keep the lights dim in the evening (but they quite like the telly, I think).

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:37 / 07.04.06

Especially BBC4. Oh, and Smallville, but they think it's a bit silly now.

15:14 / 07.04.06

So Geoff Bennington put this bit of French (it is by Montiesquiueueue, I cannot spell him and do not know who he is) in the middle of a quote that I am quoting in an essay, without translating it, and now the editors say that I have to translate it. Which hardly seems fair. On the basis that Bennington is unlikely to respond to my email requesting a translation of the French bit in his 1990 essay 'Postal politics' by tomorrow, which is when I want to have finished this thing by, can any of you clever people tell me what this means?

toutes les créatures... s'entretiennent par une correspondance qu'on ne saurait assez admirer

To me it appears to mean all creatures speak to one another by means of a correspondence which it is impossible [lit. 'one does not know how'] to admire enough. Is that right?

15:17 / 07.04.06

And even if it is, can you suggest a way of phrasing it that sounds less stupid?

15:28 / 07.04.06

babelfish says: (I know it's bad!)

all the creatures... discuss by a correspondence which one could not admire enough

doens't sound too shabby.

15:42 / 07.04.06

The translation widget on my Mac gave the same thing.

I was thinking:

"all creatures... communicate through a correspondence which one cannot admire enough"?

15:55 / 07.04.06

Communicate is good...

16:36 / 07.04.06

What's the context in which the quote is used, BTW? (now there's an awkward sentence.)

19:22 / 07.04.06

Obviously, the bull is digging the hole to put a five-gallon paint bucket in it to trap a rat to be its secret girlfriend based on a mistranslation of Straw Dogs and a poorly subtitled version of Before Sunset (thought Julie Delpy was singing a song about cheese and hay at the end) and using an old toy spaceship as bait.

19:25 / 07.04.06

A correspondence I cannot admire enough.

19:55 / 07.04.06

All creatures are united together; they sustain themselves by a correspondence which one could not know how to admire sufficiently. Sounds good.

From Montesquieu's Essay on Natural Laws and the Difference between Right and Wrong, translated by Professor William B. Allen.

You'll find it in context here, sixth paragraph, under Agreement of these Laws with God's Wisdom.

20:09 / 07.04.06

Now this is a difficult one.

Recently I remembered an amazing painting. At first, it looks like a tree. But, really it´s full of hidden people. The shapes of the twigs, roots, leaves all are the shapes of human beings. I saw that painting years ago in a magazine. If anyone could find it on the net, I´d be grateful.

20:38 / 07.04.06

I downloaded Google Earth several months ago but I suspected it of corrupting my computer, so I tried to remove it. Lo and behold, the thing is immune to my attempts to uninstall it. Anyone have this problem, or, even better, a solution to it?

20:47 / 07.04.06

The best (and free) program to get rid of anything is RegCleaner. Download, install and use it, that should take care of your GoogleEarth!

20:51 / 07.04.06

Can nicotine patches be responsible for an outbreak of spots? Does giving up smoking give you spots even if you don't use patches?

Why, oh why have I got spots?

22:40 / 07.04.06

I found the painting! It´s called Hide and Seek [1940-42] by Pavel Tchelitchew. And how did I find it? I googled "amazing painting". I always get irritated, when something turns out to be so easy.

Here it is:

23:45 / 07.04.06

Every bad thing you can think of happens when you stop smoking, Lula. Spots are the least of it. I now have eczema, inflammation of the scalp and and sebacious cysts. It will pass. It will, it will...

10:43 / 08.04.06

Xoc, you're a hero! And now I can find out who Montiesquieu is also!

All Acting Regiment

22:49 / 08.04.06

I'm wondering...how does christianity sort of spread through the roman empire? I mean, when they adopt it as the official religion, are there already churches and dioceses etc, or do they then send out people from rome to build them?

A sort of diagram might be helpful.

05:19 / 10.04.06

tv networks in brasil - which one/s is likely to show something like big brother, or its ilk?

am writing a novel and have just had a character meet a brasilian who was involved in a tv network, would like to make it 'real'... ta in advance.

All Acting Regiment

05:38 / 10.04.06

Dead Megatron! Quick!

Tabitha Tickletooth

08:22 / 10.04.06

Sings *Oh, I'm gonna look so stupid...*

When an electric socket on the wall is turned on and my power cable for my iBook is plugged in to the socket but *not* to my iBook is electricity being used? If the iBook is plugged in, but is fully recharged (and not in use) is it still using electricity (the little green light around the plug is glowing, so it must be using something, I assume)?

Similarly, if I have one of those power pack things with 4 sockets in it: it's plugged into the wall and two of the sockets are being used (say one for the iron and one to recharge my mobile phone) is electricity just leaking out of the other ones and being wasted?

I suppose I'm asking, is electricity pushed or pulled through sockets and do I need to turn them off at the wall to make sure I am not wasting electricity?

15:57 / 10.04.06

how does christianity sort of spread through the roman empire? I mean, when they adopt it as the official religion, are there already churches and dioceses etc, or do they then send out people from rome to build them?

Here: Wikipedia on Constantine.
In a really tight and uncomfortable nutshell, a courtier of Diocletian (responsible for some of the worst martyr-making/lion-feeding atrocities) happens to have a Christian (or Christian-friendly) mother, and experiences a vision of a cross before the battle which makes him Diocletian's inheritor.

It's a little more complicated than that -- Christianity had been steadily growing for three centuries under various periods of persecution and what could be called "decriminalization." And the Roman Empire was also *consolidated* under Constantine, so that the Eastern Empire (under what got named Constantinople, after him) and the Western Empire (under Rome itself) were united. For a while.

(This is a major oversimplification -- there was actually a tetrarchy at the time, with the empire split four ways, but I'm not really up on the details.)

So, there's a long-lasting faith with a hierarchy and various outposts, but it's a heterodox collection of various beliefs that all center on the figure of Christ. Gnostics of various flavors, Nestorians, Arians, all these different kinds of religions. It's only after Constantine that they start codifying the faith and deciding what is and what isn't orthodox according to a centralized authority (one bound to the political structure of the empire).

More on Constantine at the brilliantly biased Catholic Encyclopedia, and at the much more clearly written F Smitha history pages.

And here's a map showing the pre-Constantine spread of Christianity.

18:38 / 10.04.06

Tabitha: anything that extends the length of the circuit inside your house is going to add an infintesimal amount to your power usage. But some devices are worse than others -- like VAMPIRES!

Yes, Vampires! lurk within your home!

Colston says most people don’t realize that many of the electronic devices plugged in around their home continue to use electricity when turned off.

“Most people have 20 or more of these ‘vampire appliances’ plugged in all the time. These devices continue to use electricity when in the standby mode.

“This trend began in the late 1960’s with televisions built with ‘instant on’ technology. This technology eliminated the need for one to two minutes of warm-up time and began the trend toward standby power. TVs, cable boxes, DVD and CD players, cordless phones, burglar alarms, microwaves, clocks and clock radios, garage-door openers, video-game consoles, computers, monitors, printers, cell-phone chargers and adaptors all use electricity in the standby mode.”

He says an estimated 5 to 10 percent of a home’s electricity is used by appliances that are in standby mode.

“This may increase as more products are linked to computer networks and are being constructed with microchips.”

I don't know if this is as true now as it once was. Before 9/11, Bush appointed a SLAYER! with the delightful name of Spencer Abraham. Who now, uh, works for a French nuclear energy company.

20:09 / 10.04.06

Tabitha - The power cable for your iBook is most likely a switchmode power supply. They work by turning the electric current off many times every second to give the right amount of voltage and current, and they use a little electricity even when not supplying any power to other devices, though they use a heck of a lot less than the older magnetic transformers. Your laptop will also use a bit more power even when the battery is full, when it's plugged into the mains, as the electronics will keep the battery topped up, and power the laptop at the same time - it might even brighten the screen, or run faster whilst it's plugged in.

Electricity doesn't leak out of unused sockets, so don't worry about that. You wouldn't use any more electricity even if you left them all on with nothing plugged into them, as there's nothing to complete the circuit. The current only flows if it has a nice easy path, and the air gap between the pins in the socket is far too difficult for it to cross.

Grant's right about stuff that uses power in standby - tellys are particularly bad for that, though apparently the new Xbox 360 is even worse. There's lots of other things too. An easy(ish) way to find out is to turn off all the lights, fridges, freezers (only quickly) and everything else you know of that's on, and watch the meter. Chances are it'll still be slowly going round. I'm not sure what power consumption has to do with networks or microchips, though; there's nothing inherant in either that leads to standby power consumption.

Interesting stuff on Constantine, btw. If only I could get They Might Be Giants out of my head now...

22:44 / 10.04.06

tv networks in brasil - which one/s is likely to show something like big brother, or its ilk?

I am writing a novel and have just had a character meet a brasilian who was involved in a tv network, would like to make it 'real'... ta in advance.

Dead Megatron! Quick!

"Nobody summons Megatron"

Sorry.

I already answered astrjax via PM, but here's a copy for the delight of the entire barbesphere:

The name you're looking for is "TV Globo" ("Globo Television"). It is our biggest, most powerfull network, accounting for almost half the audience and 80% of the advertisement money, give or take. It is the one that makes the best soap operas, miniseries, comedian shows, news coverage and even Brazilian instalment of, alas, Big Brother (already in its 6th season).

It has a very high quality standart, certainly the best in Latin America and one of thje best in the world, but it has some very shady politics. It was created during our right-wing dictatorship (1964-84) with lots, and I mean *lots* of foreign (i.e. American) cash and equipment, and it usually support whoever is in power, unless they don't like them , in which case the wait for the right moment for the slander timer. It's kinda like Fox Network, but with a tropical twist. And no Bill O'Reilly, at least.

If you want to know more about it, you can look for an English-produced documentary from the early 90s called "Beyond Citzen Kane" (the name says it all) about how Globo influences - and manipulates - the political and cultural scene in Brazil.

00:47 / 11.04.06

we give great thanks to dead megatron, o great thanks indeed.

ooh, i have another question. read in the guardian about prince harry up to hilarious antics once again, in fancy dress... again, no less..

but tell me, british 'lithers, what is this 'chav' they go on about? chav? doesn't instantly make sense... o enlightened ones, shine even a dull glow my way...

00:57 / 11.04.06

The most basic translation of chav (with all of its classism and derogatory meaning intact) would be 'white trash'.
Perhaps a bit more 'wigga' in dress sense..
But yeah, white trash probably explains the word pretty well.

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