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Random Q and A Thread

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ONLY NICE THINGS

17:56 / 20.09.02

Bear, it's not just a UK/US thing. In Britain a Public school is still private (ie fee paying), but of sufficient heritage and standing to be deemed a Public school. I don't think there are codified criteria of qualification, but an understanding that for a good, respecatble private school to call itself a Public school would be to betray such a poor grasp of the protocol as to be no longer qualify as a good, respectable private school.

There are codified criteria of qualification, as any fule kno.

Bear: A private school in Britain is a school where the school itself chooses which pupils to accept, and generally charges fees for their tuition. A public school, so called because Eton was the first school which accepted students from across the country rather than only from their local area, is a school whose headmaster is a member of the Headmasters' Conference. Membership is by invitation; there are about 250 schools currently sending Headmasters to the Headmasters' Conference if memory serves. These schools are almost exclusively fee-paying, although Alleyn's, for example, was elected in 1919 and remained a direct grant school until 1958.

In the US, as far as my limited understanding goes, a private school is a fee-paying school that can select whom it educates, and a public school a publicly-maintained school which accepts those students not accepted by or put forward for private schools.

19:20 / 20.09.02

The only thing that you can generically say about private and public schools in the U.S. is that the latter receive public (state) funding, though school vouchers are attempting to chip away at that. On the primary and secondary levels, public schools are free and tuition is charged for private schools. As far as selectivity goes, some private schools pretty much take anyone who will pay and some public schools --like the magnet high schools in this area-- present a fairly rigorous testing process to prospective students.

At the university level, both private and public schools charge tuition (public school is cheaper, if you are in state) and both use selection processes. Most state university systems are tiered, and there are junior colleges open to pretty much anyone.

02:49 / 21.09.02

Without having to download a program or sign up to anything, where can I download the end theme music to the Incredible Hulk tv show?

The Return Of Rothkoid

07:14 / 21.09.02

Midi Hulk themes here. But they are MIDI, obviously, and will suck.

There's some other thematic goodness here, though. MIDI closing, but proper opening.

13:32 / 23.09.02

My cuddly, furry, purring pet sadistic killing machine has just leapt upon a wasp and gleefully consumed it.

I'm sure she has done this before without apparent ill effects. How can this be? Surely as the poor struggling, highly annoyed wasp is progressing down a feline gullet, it must be stinging her innards?

She is strutting about making pathetic victory squeaks now and very pleased with herself, not sounding like anything untoward is going in the oesophageal department.

14:27 / 23.09.02

And there goes another one for dessert. All hail the mighty hunter!

15:43 / 25.09.02

Dammit, what's a noun that means something like "flakiness" or "not checked in with reality-ness" that ends in -tude? It would be something in the form of ingratitude or pulchritude...

16:40 / 25.09.02

desuetude?
(means "rustiness")

the only words that occur to me are "self-deluded" and "inexactitude" which aren't probably right either.

16:42 / 27.09.02

What's a nonce? I looked it up in my dictionary, but I don't think it's quite what y'all are talking about when you say things like nonce-patrol...

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:56 / 27.09.02

Does anyone know whether the name 'Morlock' was derived from the French 'Morlogues' from the novel by Giustiana Wynne-Rosenberg?

16:58 / 27.09.02

Mazarine:

Nonce = prison slang for child molester.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:40 / 27.09.02

Random answers:

"Taking the piss" is arguably derived from "piss-proud", ie having an uncomfortable hard-on due to an overabundance of weewee in the pipes. Having the piss taken out of you would relive the condition. We can infer that at one time taking the piss involved an element of ego-deflation, of knocking someone off their high horse, taking them down a peg or two, etc, etc. Now its meaning is more general.

Oh, and you know the cool thing about Payne? Even though Royle and his wife have the odd spat, they still love and respect each other really. Isn't that nice?

And failing to acknowledge the fanciability of Alan Rickman is just peculiar, if you ask me.

Random Q's:

What the hell is the derivation for that sort of nonce? I mean, when I were a nipper, "nonce" was an obsolete slang term for "the time being".

On a (presumably) related note: What is the derivation for anon? (as in "I shall see you anon" rather than the abbreviation for "anonymous".)

17:58 / 27.09.02

Guess what, Mordant: your two questions appear to be related.

nonce Pronunciation Key (nns)
n.

[From Middle English for the nones, for the occasion, alteration of for then anes : for, for; see for + then, neuter dative sing. of the; see the1 + ones, anes, once; see once.]

(I'd imagine the prison usage had something to do with "nancy boy" but I'm not sure what.)

a·non Pronunciation Key (-nn)
adv.
At another time; later.
In a short time; soon.
Archaic. At once; forthwith.

[Middle English, at once, from Old English on n : on, in; see on + n, one; see oi-no- in Indo-European Roots.]

(also, kind of oddly: anon
n : sweet pulpy tropical fruit with thick scaly rind and shiny black seeds [syn: sweetsop, sugar apple] )

There's a South African language tic that others find maddening. When they mean, "eventually, when I get around to it," they say "now-now" or "just now."
"I'll drop by just now," can have you waiting for a visit all day long.
So it seems like "anon" started out the same way.

20:03 / 27.09.02

For real, Cam? Golly....

05:32 / 29.09.02

Ambicath:

The Entity

I think.

12:01 / 01.10.02

Does anyone know where I could download some J-Pop? - I don't know any artists, I just want to listen to some but when I try and search all I get it popup hell.

15:58 / 01.10.02

Alright, we all have been wondering here at the office about the kettle, after a visit from the Safety Inspector.

The Inspector said "When the kettle is not in use, it must be unplugged..." I think he said because it might cause a short or some such thingy.

Now, we were all left wondering (bunch of dopeheads that we are here), why the hell can we leave the fridge or the microwave plugged in? The kettle even has an automatic shut-off and of course has passed all necessary quality control inspections, what is with this Safety Inspector? Is he just going on because our office is so safe that that he is now feeling rather useless and is making up shit?

Someone, please help to enlighten our entire department! We are all baffled.

~MT

16:07 / 01.10.02

I think probably so that, in the highly unlikely event that there in electrical fire or something, the company can claim that it isn't responsible (for insurance purposes).

16:16 / 01.10.02

Hmm, could be Kit-Kat.

But, wouldn't the department be liable for the microwave as much as the darn kettle?

16:23 / 01.10.02

Microwaves don't have a big heating element in them; I imagine that electrically, an electric kettle is a lot closer to a hair dryer than to a microwave. Not that I'd want either of those two dumped in a bathtub with me.

16:29 / 01.10.02

Oh - I doubt they'd make the department responsible, it's almost certainly just a liability thing and specified in their insurance policy. Tedious, though...

Morlock - groupie for hire

16:39 / 01.10.02

Electric kettle. Water. Electricity. Not a good combo. Fridge and microwave, no water (on the whole).

16:40 / 01.10.02

Sounds rather reasonable grant. They all nodded, a little anyway.

Don't get me started on those Insurance Policies!

Thanks

This is a very handy thread!

~MT

23:09 / 01.10.02

What's the least strenuous way to knock down a brick wall? I suppose the standard method is to whack it to bits with a sledge hammer, but is there a less butch method involving special hire tools that a softie like me might resort to (other than natural erosion, glacial rubbing and so on)? It's very low, this wall, only 3 or 4 bricks tall with flat slabs on top.

01:55 / 02.10.02

There are always two answers to any question involving the least strenuous way to do a strenuous, destructive task.

1. Sit and wait. In a few years, time will do the heavy lifting for you.

2. Hit it accidentally with your car.

01:58 / 02.10.02

In a slightly more-to-the-point vein, there's always my favorite destructive tool: water.
It's amazing what you can do with an ordinary garden hose and some dedication. With a rental pump to give added pressure (and a bit of patience), you can etch concrete.
Thus: don't attack the wall, attack the ground under it.

10:12 / 02.10.02

Go hire yourself some of those hulking guys with the big muscles. Hand them sledge hammers. Point at the wall. Mime hitting the wall with a sledge hammer. Sit back in your lawn chair with your tall cool glass of lemonade and supervise.

If you want to do the work yourself, go rent an impact hammer. That should make short work of the wall.

11:34 / 02.10.02

Thanks, chaps.

grant: I like the water idea a lot, but I can't use it because the wall in question is in my mum's back garden, and I'd probably have to flood the place before the first brick fell. Also, the wall forms a rectangle, which I reckon makes it more resistant to undermining than a single, self-supported wall.

Trijhaos: The hiring of muskley mushes is good, but I doubt I could afford it. An impact hammer, though, I like the sound of that. What is it, exactly? I've done a google search and found pics of straightforward, muscle-powered sledge hammer affairs and huge pile-driver machines (yum!) but nothing much in between.

11:50 / 02.10.02

What I was thinking of was a smallish jack hammer. Not one of those large monstrosities they use to tear up the road, but one that you could hold horizontally. I remember seeing something like it the last time I was at a harware store.

12:31 / 02.10.02

I have another question, yeah yeah..

Television viewing figures in the UK, how do they work them out? America has the Nielson system but I remember reading somewhere that in the UK they use power surges on the national grid to work out the number of people watching certain shows, that can't be all can it?

Does anyone know if they use any other methods?

Morlock - groupie for hire

16:49 / 02.10.02

Bear: TV ratings are much the same over here. The Company that does the number crunching is ATR, but the whole process is overseen by BARB.

Short version of the system is that they pick 5000-odd homes across the country as a sample, and install boxes onto their TVs which monitor when the TV is on and what channel it's switched to. The viewers just let the box know who's in the room at the time. Each night the data is squirted down the phoneline and the results are processed from there.

"We control the horizontal, and the vertical..."

Morlock - groupie for hire

16:53 / 02.10.02

Oh, and before I forget, your power surge story probably derives from a story I only partially remember, about half the country switching the kettle on when the ads come on during Coronation Street.

16:26 / 04.10.02

Question: What makes an image 'graven'?

16:29 / 04.10.02

Well, "graven" just means carved, doesn't it? Although why idols especially are known as graven images I'm not sure.

21:16 / 04.10.02

Actually, graven is just the past participle of grave, meaning serious or somber. So, a graven image, in this context, is one that you're seriously intending to worship.

Presumably, it would be perfectly all right to carve idols of Fonzie, since that would just be a silly image.

(now, I'll just sit here and wait for Haus or somebody to tell me I'm completely wrong.)

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