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Posted: 06-09-2013 22:12 Post subject:

It's only a short step away from licking boots and begging for a job. A lot like the shit that happens on The Apprentice.

Employers are having fun with this.

Posted: 06-09-2013 23:08 Post subject:

When the practice becomes widely enough known that applicants can prepare for it, it'll be dropped and something else will be tried.

There used to be weird 'personality' tests where you had to draw a tree or analyse a map of of a village and so on. I have a crib-book on these tests with model answers and advice such as how much detail to include on the tree. (Not too much, but not too little!

These particular tests are out of date now because, well, you can mug up for them with a crib-book. Laughing

Many years ago I landed a plum job partly by answering hundreds of questions on one of those newfangled laptops.

Neither I nor the others had seen one before, but I'd bought my kids a Gameboy and found that the up/down/scrolling movements were very similar. I coasted through the questions with ease and finished well before everyone else, impressing the interviewers no end. Did it mean I was suited to the job though? Wink

Posted: 07-09-2013 22:52 Post subject:

Posted: 08-09-2013 00:46 Post subject:

The ritual humilation of candidates is called "hazing" in some regions. It is to be deplored in any circumstances.

To see it as part of the recruitment process is not surprising at this time. I am disappointed to see anyone defend it, however. Sad

Posted: 08-09-2013 09:07 Post subject:

A lot of Brents out there.

However, I now feel inspired to visit Currys and ask them to demonstrate the features of a chinese laptop through the medium of Interpretive Dance.

Posted: 08-09-2013 10:05 Post subject:

Aggressive sales techniques (especially from somewhere like Currys, who make next to nothing on the actual product sales but a fortune on the extended warranty) means that retail staff need to be actors (liars) nowadays anyway.

Posted: 12-09-2013 20:14 Post subject:

Was watching "Destroyed in seconds" and saw a crash from the 2001-2 X-Games, Super-Modified Shovel Racing. Now unmodified Shovel racing looks like fun, you sit on a snow shovel with the handle between your legs and slide downhill - a lot like polybagging. This guy crashed and broke his spine, 3 ribs, his hand and some cuts on his chin. After this crash, X-Games dropped Shovel racing as being too dangerous! There is a sport that is too dangerous for X-Games! Shocked

Posted: 14-09-2013 08:33 Post subject:

Chinese boy, 5, becomes youngest person to fly plane
A five-year-old boy has completed a 47-minute flight in a light aeroplane over China's Guan County, without assistance from his instructor.
[video]
12:14PM BST 13 Sep 2013

He Yide, known as Duoduo, trained for three weeks at a private flying club in China before taking to the skies last month for his record-breaking flight.
His achievement, however, has been overshadowed by criticism of abuse levelled at his parents.

The boy's father, He Liesheng, is a self-proclaimed 'Eagle Dad', named after the bird of prey that pushes its offspring off a cliff to teach them to fly.
Mr He said: "Sometimes you're a good coach, but not a good father, and people will criticize you for that. On the contrary, if you're a good dad, even though your child will be happy, he won't be successful at all."

On a family holiday last year, Mr He controversially made his son walk around New York City in the snow while wearing only underpants and shoes. Several months later, he took Duoduo to hike up Mt Fuji, again not dressing him appropriately for the 15-hour adventure.

Despite the criticism, Critics are worried about this type of extreme parenting. Ren Xiaoai, from the People's Education Magazine said:
"The mental and physical harm to the child, when a boy thinks 'even my father goes against my will and forces me to do things that I don't want to do'. This will make him have no trust in his surroundings when he grows up."

But Mr He insists: "There's no unsuccessful child, only non-persistent parents"
The father and son have applied to have the boy's solo flight recognised as a world record, but it has yet to be confirmed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10306920/Chinese-boy-5-becomes-youngest-person-to-fly-plane.html?placement=rhs1

Posted: 14-09-2013 13:07 Post subject:

Dancing with Cats

Images of quite astonishing weirdness on the Awful Library Books site.

Classes are said to be available

Part of MONPA, the Museum of Non Primate Art where you can also purchase A guide to the bird-droppings of America! Smile

Posted: 15-09-2013 07:20 Post subject:

Posted: 20-09-2013 22:28 Post subject:

I was alerted to this image by Mock the Week - I don't think it's been on the MB before:

Flying Frog Caught on Camera at NASA Moon Rocket Launch
Sept. 12, 2013
By JOSH HASKELL
Josh Haskell

A still camera on a sound trigger captured this photo of an airborne frog as NASA's LADEE spacecraft lifted off from Pad 0B at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Chris Perry/NASA NASA's unmanned LADEE rocket headed to the moon with an unexpected passenger, a small frog which was caught on camera launching into the air from its home in the marshy wetlands surrounding the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

One of three still-cameras setup around the launch site, triggered by sound, caught the small frog in the air. The frog is hard to miss in the photo with its arms and legs spread wide surrounded by debris from the wetlands, also lifted up by the power of the rocket's engines. The photo was posted to NASA's Instagram account.

"We got back to the office after the launch at 12:30 a.m. and we're all pretty amused and amazed," Chris Perry told ABCNews.com. "It was also sad to see a frog go like that. As much fire as that rocket is putting out, I have to imagine it got injured."

Perry had set up three cameras to cover the launch and the power of the engine knocked over his tripod 150 feet away. The camera that captured the photo shoots approximately six frames per second and Perry says the frog only showed up in one of the photos.

"There's debris in the other photos, but no frogs. He was probably moving pretty quickly," said Perry.
"I'm guessing it was about 150 feet away from the Minotaur rocket, give or take a few," said Perry. "Lots of flies out there that evening, so I'm sure our frog (or toad) had a nice feast."

Keith Koehler at the Wallops Flight Facility tells ABC News that hundreds of frogs live in the acres of marsh lands surrounding the launch pad. NASA says they do everything possible to protect the wildlife living in the area.
"We've never seen this at Wallops before. I've been here 30 years," said Koehler.

The rocket is carrying the NASA Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) for a 100-day mission circling the moon. The purpose of the mission is to gather measurements and explore the moon's atmosphere, sending information back to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

NASA employees based at the Wallops facility say they haven't located the "famous" frog, but hope that it survived its wild ride.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/nasa-rocket-launch-accidentally-lifts-frog-space/story?id=20237426

Posted: 23-09-2013 22:38 Post subject:

Triumph Herald covered 20 miles in 52 years

It is described as a "classic car with one careful lady owner".
But what makes this Triumph Herald so unusual is that it has covered just 20 miles since it rolled off the production line 52 years ago.
Still sporting its original 1961 £15 tax disc, the blue and white car was delivered to the buyer's home by trailer.

The Triumph is to be auctioned on Saturday by East Anglian Motor Auctions in Wymondham.

After the Triumph's original owner died years later, her family sold it back to the car dealer who sold it.
Auctioneer Tristram Belemore-Smith said: "When he (the dealer) went to see it, he discovered it had not been driven from the day it had been delivered brand new - and decided to keep it as part of his private collection."

The Triumph is expected to make between £12,000 and £15,000 at auction. Cool

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-24204080

A silly little story - like most things, it's really the Human Condition (or maybe Lost and Found), but I'll park it here. Wink

It appealed to me because back in the early 70s I owned a Triumph Herald (estate car version), and it was a handy little wagon, ideal for towing my racing dinghy. About the only car I have fond memories of.

Posted: 23-09-2013 23:55 Post subject:

As a kid, I loved car-spotting. But those were the days when every make had its own distinctive shape. The Triumph Herald was very much the vin ordinaire of the marque; I was really hoping to spot the Vitesse with its paired and slanting headlamps. Not as rare as a Cyclops Rover but worth turning one's neck - just in case.

Modern cars are hard to tell apart - good luck to anyone who has the patience and know-how to keep a classic one on the road! Smile

Posted: 28-09-2013 11:45 Post subject:

Totally bonkers, with a hint of sex - what's not to like? Wink

Project Bush: how will photographing pubic hair help British women?
Next week 'Project Bush' is calling for British women to photograph their pubic hair in order to "stand up to the pressures of modern society". Katy Rink explains why she won't be joining in.
By Katy Rink
3:42PM BST 27 Sep 2013

I might have been prepared to bare my breasts for a charity wallpaper but I draw the line at this call to arms from the creative advertising agency ‘Mother London’.
‘Project Bush' is inviting all women to have their pubic hair photographed as an expression of 'modern feminism' next Thursday.
Billed as “a call to action for women to stand up to the pressures of modern society and present their bushes in all their glory”, it is all about choice, apparently.

“Whether waxed or never tended, young, old, black, brown or white, we want to display London’s lady gardens in all their variety and demonstrate the choice that many women – particularly – may not realise they have when it comes to waxing”, sings the agency press release, by one Mr Liam Fay-Fright.

Do we really need this? I mean, really? It brings a whole new meaning to private view (that’s how it ought to stay – private).

I fail to see why feminist groups have hit upon body hair as the locus of women's struggle. We had Armpits4August this summer (although, granted, a noble cause) and there is even a Facebook group “Women Against Non-essential Grooming” (WANG) - you’ll be sorry if you search for it on Google Images. Shocked

Maybe I’m in the wrong here but I just don’t envisage naïfs of this cosmopolitan era, standing in front of bathroom mirrors everywhere agonizing “To wax or not to wax”.

Even if we accept that the problem exists – and these young women really do need protecting against our heteronormative society (look it up, I borrowed it from WANG), then I’m not sure that photographing a load of genital fluff is the right way to go about it.

I hardly think that self-doubting teenage girls will be emboldened by snaps of overgrown, multi-coloured, militant muffs. That will have them reaching for a grooming kit quicker than you can say Babyliss Bikini Trimmer.

I suspect that this is really about column inches (now then!). Cool

When it comes to grabbing attention, legs, moustaches and armpits aren't nearly as ballsy as bushes (now I'm really confusing discourses). They should have called it 'Flash your Bush'; I'll bet you anything that was considered and rejected for its patriarchal, oppressive overtones, deemed out of tune with the emancipatory intent.

Willing volunteers/victims will be snapped for Project Bush by celebrity photographer Alisa Connan, whose clients include Carla Bruni and Charlotte Church (it begs the question…will they be stripping off?). You get a 15 minute slot (which can be booked both in the day and evening on October 3) to have your ‘bush’ anonymously photographed.
The resulting exhibition, at Mother London, in Redchurch Street, purports to “address the state of feminism in 2013”.
Now that is conversation that perhaps we ought to have.

I'm much less concerned about media and cultural pressures forcing my hand to the razor, than I am about having to pick up my husband's pants day in, day out and being ticked off for not making his sandwiches.
The wife’s role, in this first quarter of the 21st century, remains awkward and undefined, caught between so many different expectations.
Most of us still feel obliged to assume the traditional role of homemaker, nurturer and all round husband-supporter – if we don’t do it, no-one else will.

At the same time, we are bent on career success, whether this is a matter of financial necessity, or because deep down, we believe we will never be truly happy unless we have fulfilled our potential.

One of the first questions at the school gate is “so do you work, then?”– and yet it is still mum and not the ‘busier’, ‘more important’, less visible dad who will be frowned upon for forgetting a packed lunch or permission slip.

Your five-year-old is drowning in his brother’s massive jumper with his pants outside his trousers? “Oh, that’s OK” a teacher will giggle at the husband, “it’s obviously a dad day today”.
But if you so much as forget to sign his reading book, she’ll freeze right over: “Please, do remember. It’s so important to have that continuity with home.”

Back at the ranch, many husbands still expect dinner on the table and a clean pair of socks every day. Someone has to shoulder the bulk of the dull domestics, however and it falls, more often than not, to the wife. We screw up all the time, trying to keep it all ticking over and boy, don’t they let us know it.

We might start out in our marriage by believing in equality (fools that we are!) – that was before the kids came along when we were still living rather like a couple of students, on an even footing, with similar hopes and dreams for personal and professional achievement. That all changes as it becomes clear one of us will have to give a little. We look to our mothers for enlightenment but reject their dated manifestos with horror; such lives of servitude and forbearance are surely not for us, times have moved on…

But in the minute by minute power-struggle behind the average front door, I’m not sure they have. Perhaps we do need these feminist creatives to stick up for us after all.

But I’m still not doing getting my bush snapped. End of.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10339748/Project-Bush-how-will-photographing-pubic-hair-help-British-women.html

Posted: 28-09-2013 14:08 Post subject:

Yes. But is it art?