United Kingdom - Justify Your Existence

[Angel Intheuk]

Favourite drink TA: Tea!! with milk and sugar ta! If you're talking alcohol then real ale and stout is a very british thing. mmm lovely warm ale.

[Flashback]

You keep forgetting Ada lovelace, she's Probably the world first computer programmer.

[Velocity Kendall]

I didnt!
Ada Byron invented software and the sexy geek!

[bill618]

Its true, we invented spoil heaps, radioactivity and dark satanic mills. Youre welcome, world!

Now ‘you’ll’ have to find a cure for entropy, run amok in the world by all of those marvelous techno-industrial inventions.

[Flashback]

Damn right, I know her lovelace sounds sexier then byron.
She designed Algorithms.

[bcarman]

Yeah, but my president could beat up your Queen, prime minister, etc., neener.

Seriously, this is what happens when you try to do serious research on the internet.

[Velocity Kendall]

mmm lovelace..



http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...a-lovelace-day

[Velocity Kendall]

Looking up things about the Difference Engine, surely one of the coolest sounding inventions ever, I found some of this fun cover art by the guy what done the Bruce Sterling William Gibson book of the same name. Which is quite a decent book as I remember.















gormenghast


balrog






loads more wierdness here

http://www.ian-miller.org/winter/

[Flashback]

[bcarman]

Looking up things about the Difference Engine, surely one of the coolest sounding inventions ever, I found some of this fun cover art by the guy what done the Bruce Sterling William Gibson book of the same name. Which is quite a decent book as I remember.















gormenghast


balrog






loads more wierdness here

http://www.ian-miller.org/winter/

Oh Ian Miller is one of my favorites ever. He is a really cool guy and he likes my work too so he obviously has great taste. I might be in advertising if not for artists like Ian Miller, Brian Froud, and Wayne Anderson to name a few incredible Brits.

[Partisan]

ah Ian Miller he made lots of the classic Warhammer Fantasy Artwork right at the beginning in the late 70s and early 80s up until early 90s and Warhammer 40000 stuff as well the first book about the chaos "Realms of Chaos" was a masterpiece of fucked up art.

[TASmith]

Can anyone explain to me what the Welsh are all about? What's the typical attitude towards the country with the longest named town in the world?

Oh, and I know we've talked a bit about British politics before, but any general attitudes about the major political parties, stereotypes, etc, would be interesting.

And, another major issue for my students in Slovakia has to do with British attitudes to Eastern Europeans. I've heard from many Slovaks that they didn't feel welcome in England. What's the British perspective, and is there anything a Slovak can do to get in your good graces?

[Velocity Kendall]

What class are you teaching Racial Stereotypes from Around the World?

I guess recent eastern european economic migrants occupy a similar niche to Mexican immigrants in the US, ie people looking for a better life and an opportunity to earn money, doing economically critical but unpleasant or boring jobs, often treated as bonded labour by gangsters and like shit by everyone else. Being poor and excluded leads a percentage of the young ones into crime. Least, thats what my Romanian friends say.

[Black Spot]

Not all the Welsh can sing, but they all think they can. That town with the longest name is a gimmick to bring in tourists. It rains a lot. My mother is Welsh.

The attitude to eastern Europeans is mainly down to the misguided idea that some ignorant people have that they're taking all our jobs. They are, but they do them, do them well and at a lower cost. Those complaining wouldn't work that hard ever.

Political stereotypes. Conservatives are all heartless toffs, Labour are insincere opportunists (that's more recent) who think they speak for the common man, Liberals are too wishy-washy. Boris for PM as nearly everyone loves him.

[JFierce]

It's funny how that sounds exactly like the U.S.

[s.ketch]

Dick measuring contests are stupid.

The English invented dicks and measuring and that's right about they time they converted to metric since using one's thumb as a base unit for small things was made obsolete.

[Elwell]

Sydney Padua's great webcomic about Lovelace and Babbage:http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles

[Velocity Kendall]

We love metric. Im 6 metric feet tall and the speed limit on motorways is 112.65408 kilometres per hour.

[Flake]

I was watching UFC the other night, it was in England somewhere and the announcer was all

"Aaaand fighting out of the blue corner, weighing in at 11 point five six stones"!

11.56 stones..so..a bit over eleven and a half then?

I'm comfortable with different weighing systems but it's odd when people throw decimals into stones and pounds. They should stop that.

Pick a system.

[Black Spot]

I swap between imperial and metric all the time. One big difference between the UK and Europe is that we use a period for a decimal point while they use a comma.

[TASmith]

"What class are you teaching Racial Stereotypes from Around the World?"

Anyone else feel that was unfair? Discussing stereotypes ≠teaching/reinforcing stereotypes.

And discussing political stereotypes ≠ reinforcing racial stereotypes.

And Eastern Europe is a block of countries, not races, even if many people living there don't see it that way.

[JFierce]

I could never get into the whole 'stones' being a measurement. How heavy is a stone? Stones come in all shapes and sizes/weights.


But then again we're the ones that use Mile instead of Kilometer. So I don't have room to talk.

[Aly Fell]

JFierce - we use mile too. It's one of the idiosyncrasies about UK measuring: we were told to go metric in the Seventies, but still hold on to Imperial variants. They work together, most of the time. I'm just over six foot; what that is in metric, I have no idea.

I remember a great bit of Scouse (Liverpool) humour, from some comedian: a workman was laying paving stones in the street, and an American tourist comes up to him and enters into conversation. "Do you know, back in the States they lay these paving slabs to be accurate to a thousandth of an inch." The Scouser looks up at him and says, "That's no good to us mate, we've got to get them spot on!"

"What class are you teaching Racial Stereotypes from Around the World?"

Anyone else feel that was unfair? Discussing stereotypes ≠teaching/reinforcing stereotypes.

And discussing political stereotypes ≠ reinforcing racial stereotypes.

And Eastern Europe is a block of countries, not races, even if many people living there don't see it that way.

I like to think we're actually all the same 'race', but there are different ethnicities under that inclusive umbrella... Hippy hat off now...

Boris for PM as nearly everyone loves him.

Boris for PM? How can you doubt his integrity? He supports 'Dave' the whole way! Personally I think Boris would be the first X-Factor PM. Charisma and bumbling likeability does not disguise the fact he is very old school Tory. He is, as I've said before, a very clever man...

The North/South divide is very real if you live in the North as I do. If you live in the South you wonder what all the fuss is about because Watford's not that far.

Speaking of 'Boris' (the only UK politician known by his first name alone), I just found him and Arnie taking a cable car trip together:

[LordLouis]

I also find it very interesting to note that British people are very ambiguous towards the concept of "Europe". Sometimes they express themselves like BlackSpot did "The UK and Europe" (as if they were two different entities), and sometimes it's "We in Europe" especially when it comes to differences to the US.

Just to quote a comment on the EU nobel peace price article on the BBC website just an hour ago:
"Well done EU. The EU is far from perfect but its intentions are good and I think we should be proud to be a part and to be European. We share a great deal in common with our European neighbours (we're descended from them!) and surely better to be integrated with our neighbours than at loggerheads. We need an honest discussion on the pros and cons of EU membership, not just Daily Mail hearsay."
-> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19921072

But when it comes to the usual EU bashing on Question Time, it's all splendid isolation again.
Just gotta love it.

[Damien Levs]

England is the only place I know where you can buy a cold sausage roll and a warm can of Cola

[Partisan]

England is the only place I know where you can buy a cold sausage roll and a warm can of Cola

D: ...

[Black Spot]

Boris for PM? How can you doubt his integrity? He supports 'Dave' the whole way! Personally I think Boris would be the first X-Factor PM. Charisma and bumbling likeability does not disguise the fact he is very old school Tory. He is, as I've said before, a very clever man...

The country is broke and the mealy mouthed platitudes coming from all sides does nothing. Boris would at least take the people with him. We used to have a lot more interesting eccentric politicians from all parties, but now they all sound the same.

LordLouis Britain has always been apart from Europe whilst belonging to it because we are an island. We haven't had our borders redrawn every 100 years or so. Nor have we been invaded since the 11th century.

[Elwell]

I was watching UFC the other night, it was in England somewhere and the announcer was all

"Aaaand fighting out of the blue corner, weighing in at 11 point five six stones"!

11.56 stones..so..a bit over eleven and a half then?

I'm comfortable with different weighing systems but it's odd when people throw decimals into stones and pounds. They should stop that.

Pick a system.

I always thought "stone" as a unit of weight wasn't pluralized?

[Psychotime]

To be perfectly honest, for some reason I have little to no interest in ever checking out the UK just because I expect to hate the food. I don't even know where I got that idea from.

[Aly Fell]

To be perfectly honest, for some reason I have little to no interest in ever checking out the UK just because I expect to hate the food. I don't even know where I got that idea from.

That's interesting.