robot-alert!

These absolutely rock. They used a 'historical tale construction kit' to make cool jokes. Mostly they are references to old computer games and cartoons and movies, but still, v. funny!

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Dear ......,

Thank you for your letter rejecting my application for employment with your firm.

I have received rejections from an unusually large number of exceptionally well qualified organizations. With such a varied and promising spectrum of rejections from which to select, it is impossible for me to consider them all. After careful deliberation, then, and because a number of firms have found me more unsuitable, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection.

Despite your company’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet with my requirements at this time. As a result, I will be starting employment with your firm on the first of the month.

Circumstances change and one can never know when new demands for rejection arise. Accordingly, I will keep your letter on file in case my requirements for rejection change.

Please do not regard this letter as a criticism of your qualifications in attempting to refuse me employment. I wish you the best of luck in rejecting future candidates.

Sincerely,

John Kador

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I probably should be working rather than posting this, but it's cool - online versions of old books like The Book of the Courtier (here) and a 1603 translation of Montaigne's Essays (here)

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A page with millions of kittens... what more could you ask for?

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I always thought the Central Line seemed pretty far below surface level...

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Scholars of Twang Track All the 'Y'Alls' in Texas
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL, NY Times

Published: November 28, 2003

OLLEGE STATION, Tex. — "Are yew jus' tryin' to git me to talk, is that the ah-deah?"

That was the idea. John O. Greer, an architecture teacher at Texas A&M University, sat at his dining table between two interrogators and their tape recorder. They had precisely 258 questions for him. But it waddn what he said that interested them most. It was how he said it.

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Those responses, part of an ambitious National Geographic Society survey of Texas speech, with its "y'alls," "might-coulds" and "fixin' to's," are helping language investigators throw a scientific light on a mythologized and sometimes ridiculed mainstay of Americana: the Texas twang.

Among the unexpected findings, said Guy Bailey, a linguistics professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a leading scholar in the studies with his wife, Jan Tillery, is that in Texas more than elsewhere, how you talk says a lot about how you feel about your home state.

"Those who think Texas is a good place to live adopt the flat `I' — it's like the badge of Texas," said Dr. Bailey, 53, provost and executive vice president of the university and a transplanted Alabamian married to a Lubbock native, also 53.

So if you love Texas, they say, be fixin' to say "naht" for "night," "rahd" for "ride" and "raht" for "right."

And by all means say "all" for "oil."

In addition to quickly becoming enamored of Western garb like cowboy boots and hats, big-buckled belts, western shirts and vests, newcomers to the state — and there are a lot of them — are especially likely to adopt the lingo pronto.

At the same time, the speech of rural and urban Texans is diverging, Dr. Bailey said. Texans in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio are sounding more like other Americans and less like their fellow Texans in Iraan, Red Lick or Old Glory.

Indeed, Dr. Tillery and Dr. Bailey wrote in a recent paper called "Texas English," a new dialect of Southern American English may be emerging on the West Texas plains. It is not what a linguist might expect, they wrote, "but this is Texas, and things are just different here."

The changes are being tracked by researchers for the two San Antonio linguists, who are working with scholars from Oklahoma State University and West Texas A&M in Canyon, outside Amarillo, under the sponsorship of the National Geographic Society. They divided Texas into 116 squares and are interviewing four native Texans spanning four age groups— from the 20's to the 80's, in each.

As part of the latest effort, two master's students in linguistics from the University of North Texas at Denton, Amanda Aguilar, 24, and Brooke Earheardt, 23, arranged recently to record Mr. Greer, 70, as he responded to an exhaustive 31-page questionnaire.

Ms. Aguilar first probed some of Mr. Greer's attitudes toward Texas. Was it a barren state?

"It's in the ahs of the beholder," responded Mr. Greer, who was born in Port Arthur. The state, he said, was "dee-vahded, you kin almost draw a lahn."

Was it a progressive state?

"Compared to who?" he said. "Califohnia? Baghdad? Ah'd have to say Texas is a progressive state."

Distinctive?

"Most are distinctive in their own way," he said, smiling, "with the possible exception of Ah-wah." (That was Iowa.)

Next Ms. Aguilar quizzed Mr. Greer on a lexicon of Texas words and phrases. Had he ever heard the expression "y'all?"

Of course. "Ah think `you' sometimes just duddn't work bah itself."

Could you use it for just one person?

"Ah would trah to confahn it to the plural," he said. "It's just like `youse guys.' "

Had he heard "fixin' to?"

Of course again. " `Ahma' often goes with it," he said. "Ahma fixin' to go."

The questions and Mr. Greer's answers kept coming. A dragonfly? That's a "miskeeta hahk." A wishbone was a "pulleybone." A cowboy's rope was a lasso or a lariat, or just a "ropin' rope." A drought was worse than a "drah spell"; no rain, or "it haddn for a long tahm." You wait "for" a friend who haddn shown up, but you wait "on" someone who is nearby and delayed, perhaps upstairs putting on makeup.

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I had a dream last night that I was discussing premier league football (english football) with some footbally types, and that I could understand it. Lucy Broadhurst, who supports B'ham City and Liverpool, was there. We were saying things like, 'yeah, the teams at the top are Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal... and Newcastle won that game yesterday which means that...'

I think it's because I chanced to see a football report on the news last night. I am supporting Newcastle because they look like prisoners in their black and white uniforms. I will have to remember to get upset if/when they get knocked out.

Great thread on Slashdot all about working from home and how to cope. Lots of geeks (the people who read the site are mostly programmers and stuff) seem to work from home offices. I'm just doing this for the short term, but if I were doing it indefinitely I would go and rent some cheap office space in the city centre.

Other people seem to get laptops and work in cafes, get dogs, or other schemes to force them to interact with people. One guy worked for two years in the Paris central library... I don't think that would be a great option since I'm on the phone all the time.

I get my human interaction because I have a dog, and I take her on a nice 2+ hour run every day. We go to the same park every day (scorching heat or sub-freezing). You get to meet quite a few people that way who for the most part have some common interests. I've made some good friends.

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HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnamese drug addicts kidnapped a mute teenager, bundled him in a sack and sold him to a dog-meat eatery as a stray canine, state media said on Saturday.

The Gia Dinh Xa Hoi (Family and Society) newspaper said the two addicts grabbed the homeless 13-year-old from a busy market in Halong city.

Halong, around 90 miles from the capital, Hanoi, attracts hordes of tourists to its spectacular bay and rock formations, a United Nations heritage site.

The kidnappers tied up the boy, bundled him into a sack and sold him to the restaurant for $19, the newspaper said.

The restaurateur, shocked to find the boy, fed him and released him.

Police were investigating the case but had made no arrests, said the newspaper, mouthpiece of the state Population, Family and Children Committee.

Dog meat is a delicacy in parts of China and in some other Asian countries such as Korea, Cambodia, Indonesia and Laos. In Vietnam, eating specifically farmed breeds is believed to bring health benefits and is seen as auspicious.

Early in November, Thai police rescued more than 800 dogs from smugglers who were taking the animals to Vietnam to sell for meat.

From Slashdot:

"Wired is running a story about using subdermal RFID microchips to pay for goods. Applied Digital Solutions are marketing the VeriChip as the world's only implantable ID technology. CEO Scott Silverman says they could someday replace credit cards, but a final product is a few years away. They are also receiving condemnation from some fundamentalist Christians who believe that this is the fabled 'mark of the beast' of biblical lore."

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You know how there's this Internet site that finds all these irrelevant, inconsequential mistakes in movies? Newsweek got Peter Jackson to comment on some of them from the Rings movies.

‘THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING’

Blunder No. 1: “During the scene with Sam and Frodo in the field with a scarecrow, you can plainly see a car cruising past in the distance, from left to right.”
Jackson: We actually didn’t know about the car until we were cutting the movie. The smoke [from the exhaust] and dust wasn’t so bad because there was already lots of it around, but the bloody windshield was reflecting the sun back into the camera lens. So we erased it for the DVD. I think some people were upset because they tried to show it to their friends and it was gone.

Blunder No. 2: “While Arwen is carrying Frodo to the Ford, a close-up of his face shows his eyes and mouth covered in a green, pus-type substance. Moments later, his face is clean.”
Jackson: Yeah, we started with the pus and then we got just a bit revolted by it. So we eased back on the pus. We didn’t think Elijah looked very good with pus.

Blunder No. 3: “When Arwen and Frodo are being chased on horseback by the Ringwraiths, the soundtrack to the scene is a cantering horse. A canter is three beats, whereas a gallop—which is what the horses on screen are doing—is four very fast beats that often sound like a single beat.”
Jackson: I should’ve—well, it’s too late to fire anyone. The damage has been done.

Blunder No. 4: “When the hobbits enter Bree, there’s a distance shot from above in which the principal actors have clearly been replaced by shorter doubles. Also, the sizes of the doubles are completely wrong. The last hobbit into Bree is really, really fat—and he isn’t even the double for Sam, who’s the stockiest of the hobbits. It’s actually Merry, who’s very thin.”
Jackson: [ Giggles ] It’s true. There are definitely little doubles in that shot, and we did have four standard hobbits who were all about four feet high. So if you’re really paying attention, there are shots where you can sense that someone’s body shape is suddenly slightly different.

Blunder No. 5: “During the scene in which the hobbits ask Strider where he’s taking them, he answers, ‘Into the wild.’ A second later, as Viggo Mortensen walks past the camera, the bow he carries on his back bumps into the camera, nudging the screen a bit.”
Jackson: It does, yeah. But it was the best take. We did three or four takes, and for various reasons his movement past the camera just wasn’t as dynamic. So I chose the one that has a little bit of a bump. I was just hoping people wouldn’t notice. [ Laughs ] This is fun.


‘THE TWO TOWERS’
Blunder No. 1: “As people are fleeing Edoras, there are many shots of Eowyn—and in all of them, her hairstyle is different.”
Jackson: [ Laughs ] That shouldn’t be! Maybe it was the wind. It was really windy there.

Blunder No. 2: “The Uruk-hai are these huge, ferocious, twisted, unbelievably strong warriors—and yet the hobbits keep laying them out by tossing rocks at them.”
Jackson: In the books, hobbits are renowned for stone-throwing, so I guess if you’re going to rely on somebody to bring down an Uruk-hai with a stone, it’d be a hobbit.

Blunder No. 3: “When Saruman is talking to Sauron through the palantir, his lips aren’t moving.”
Jackson: Well, that’s because he’s engaged in a psychic session. That was deliberate.

Blunder No. 4: “In shots of Fangorn Forest from a distance, it’s an evergreen forest. Seen from up close or inside, it’s a deciduous forest.”
Jackson: Wow. Well, when you see it from the outside, it’s a real beech forest on the South Island of New Zealand. But seen from the inside, it’s a miniature forest that we built. [ Pause ] You’ve got pages and pages there. And those are all mistakes they’ve spotted?

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I've got to post some of these, they're great! I don't know about 'subversive' though.

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Savants are interesting cos they seem to indicate some of the properties of the brain. Like artistic and computational stuff compensating for damage to the part of the brain that does socialising and emotional things. It's strange how a lot of artists and computer programmers seem kind of autistic socially. What does it all mean?

This also reminds me of the kind of stuff Rocco does at his work. Have you heard of this kid?

Matt Savage launched his jazz career by attempting to improve a Schubert sonata. His piano teacher told him that the G-sharp he just played was supposed to be a G-natural. "It sounds better my way," he protested. She replied that only when he wrote his own music could he take liberties with a score. Keen on taking liberties, he became a jazz composer. He released his fifth album this year, making guest appearances on the Today show, 20/20, and NPR. Recently, his trio booked two shows at the Blue Note in New York City.

In May, he will celebrate his 12th birthday.

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It's my birthday and we won!! It's my birthday and we won!!! Hurray for Marv!! Hurray for England!! We're not as rubbish as usual!!

In the United States, the cover of Paul Krugman's new book is a little bit different than the cover in England. (from Atrios)

Every year we grow more and more dependent on the Internet. But would you know what to do if your connection suddenly went down?

No one knows when the Internet will fail. It could happen at any time, leaving you bereft of your e-mail, your sports scores, and your Blogs. Therefore, it's important that you and your family have a contingency plan for just such an emergency. If your connection to Cyberspace were to ever get severed, you should at least be prepared. We have included a few key points that should assist you if that were to happen.

1. Panic!
An excited, agitated state will give you that heightened sense of awareness and will increase your thought processes allowing you to come up with rational solutions. Panic is just nature's way of putting your body into over-drive. It's a defense mechanism that gives you an edge when dealing with potentially harmful situations, such as a severed arm or the loss of your Internet.

2. Find A Telephone
Do you have access to a telephone line? Early computers connected to the Internet using a dial-up device along with a hardware device known as a "modem." Since this technology is obsolete, it will be of no use to you. Instead, use your telephone to call your friends to see if their connection is also down, as you will have lost the ability to send an email or an instant message. You can also use a telephone to call 911, an emergency service that will first tell you to calm down, and then will send out specially-trained technicians to find the source of the Internet's failure.

3. Use Your Back-Up Computer
It's always good to have an emergency laptop handy, in case you need to harry over to a buddy's place where the Net is still up. If there is still no Internet at that location, at the very least you could connect to a small network or LAN (Less-than Adequate Network). Laptops can also be placed on tables at coffeeshops, while you sit around with a latte, nervously waiting for your connection to be restored.

4. Install A Game
In emergency situations, installing a single-player computer game can occupy your down-time. While it won't replace the adrenaline rush of intense networked multiplayer action provided by the Internet, a quick game of Sim City or Flight Simulator may distract you long enough for your connection to return.

5. Perform Routine Maintenance
While programs such as Norton Antivirus have removed most of the tedium of computer system maintenance, nothing could help pass the time faster than cleaning out your hard drive, emptying your cache, or organizing your celebrity fake porn collection. Take the time to stare at your screen while you perform a defragmentation. The time will literally fly while you barely notice your separation from the Internet.

6. Turn On A Television Or Radio
Televisions, strange boxes that sit in your parents' living rooms, were once used to provide entertainment, long before DVDs and Playstations were invented. Televisions have the capability of broadcasting streaming information similar to the content on multimedia websites. With a "remote control," a wireless device that is like a small one-handed keyboard, you may be able to surf a limited number of "channels," while you deal with the loss of your connection. Unfortunately, television is only a one-way media.

In ancient times, radios were also used to entertain. A radio allowed you to listen to news, sports, and music, much the same way that you listen to live streaming audio on a Shoutcast server. Like the television, a radio will only have a limited selection of listening stations, and no video. Hopefully your separation from the Internet will be brief.

7. Read
People in pre-Internet times used to read "books" and "magazines", written materials once created in printable format to pass the time. Some e-books are still available on paper, and may offer a short-term solution until your power is back and your broadband is restored. If reading is not an option, as a last resort, you may wish to try doing "chores," or try your hand at cooking. While these activities cannot replace the Internet, they may be able to make the down-time a little more tolerable.

8. Go Outside
The idea of leaving your workstation may seem a little extreme, but you can perform errands that you normally get parents or spouses to do: grocery shopping, drycleaning, etc. Leaving your dorm room, basement, or above-garage apartment suite, may be risky, but again, the time may afford an effective distraction from your Internet woes. NOTE: Be careful to avoid the sun, because your pasty white skin will not be used to the exposure.

9. Spend Time With Your Spouse
Communicating with your wife or girlfriend may seem like a radical suggestion, but the time investment may offer long-term rewards. Spending any amount of time talking about your "relationship" may free up more Internet time for you later on, when your ADSL or Cable link to the World Wide Web has been restored. WARNING: These will probably be the longest hours of your life.

10. Use Your Emergency AOL Disk
If you find that your connection to the Internet is going to be longer than you can possibly stand, as a last resort, pull out an emergency AOL CD, the one with 910 free hours of connection to the AOL service. Take the CD in one hand...and slash it across your wrist! Suicide will probably be a better alternative than connecting to that service.

Hopefully some of these Internet alternatives will be able to assist you during an offline crisis. Emergency radio broadcasts will likely advise you of the state of the Internet and be able to predict when your bandwidth will be restored, but remember to have an emergency plan in case your digital detachment is longer than you expect.

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After watching the extended version, I sort of feel that the cinema version was unfinished. I can see why they left it that way, because of time constraints, but the stuff that was left out is really the heart of the movie. In a way, the cinema version is almost a trailer for the extended version. I wonder if the extended one will ever make it onto the big screen?

By the way, after some parlay with Marvin Marblesons, it seems that no amount of improvement can lessen her revulsion for the movie's Faramir character. I don't mind that it's different, but I can kind of see her point. In the book, Faramir is a particular type of character - amazingly, one of the handful who's able to shrug off the ring's influence (along with maybe Aragorn). He may be more human and interesting in the film, but what you lose is a larger-than-life hero type person.

I realised that one of the reasons I like the Faramir/Boromir/Steward scene so much is it reminds me of me and my brother. In the movie, Boromir is shown giving a big speech in traditional hero mode, but then afterwards he's palling around with his brother and is just a regular guy. With his brother, he can relax, but when their dad shows up he has to go back into the big hero schtick again.

It reminded me of family get-togethers where me and Nate have to act one way around the family, meanwhile biding our time until we can go down to the pub and let off steam.

Good God, it looks like it wasn't a joke after all. It's been reviewed by a Web site called 'bevnet'. They give it 3.5 out of 5 stars as well, despite the fact that 'it was pretty hard for any of our testers to keep from spitting the product out'. The review ends with the immortal line, 'we really hope meat flavored beverages don't become a lasting trend'.

Apparently, this is the first soft drink ever created for the sole purpose of a clever marketing gimmick, and not for actual consumption.

Turkey & Gravy Soda
Category: Other; Packaging: 12 oz glass (355 ml)

Jones Soda's Turkey & Gravy soda is one of the strangest things we've ever tasted. First of all, the product uses an interesting formulation that contains a variety of ingredients rarely (if ever) seen in beverage products and it's zero carb/calorie. Not to mention that we've never had turkey and gravy that was carbonated and sweetened with Splenda ;). Anyway, the product's aroma definitely smells like turkey and gravy, but the flavor is another story.

The taste is noticeably salty and has a mild sweetness to it. There is a slight "turkey 8 gravy"-like finish to the product, but the addition of carbonation and sweetness generally hide the taste otherwise. Honestly, it was pretty hard for any of our testers to keep from spitting the product out.

So is this product a failure? No, not at all. We have to give Jones Soda credit for putting this product out there purely to create buzz -- and they definitely succeeded on that front. The real challenge is yet to come -- can Jones turn this buzz into something that helps energize the brand and gets consumers to buy more of the product? The potential is there, but only time will tell. Overall, we give this product good marks for creativity and execution, but we really hope meat flavored beverages don't become a lasting trend ;)

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This is a corking read! Two full issues online!

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Ugh, I just noticed that Amazon.com is selling this for about £10 less than I paid...

We watched the extended edition last night, although we probably should have started it earlier, as we started at around eight and it didn't finish until around midnight, admittedly with loo breaks (I can see why this is on a DVD and not in the cinema). The changes were very interesting. I think this is one of the few films where they had to make cuts not for quality but simply because there's way more material than could possibly be squeezed into a normal cinema-going experience, thanks to the complexity of the books.

My take on the cinema version of Two Towers was that it had some glaring flaws, and I didn't have any particular desire to watch it a second time. Some of the problems that spring to mind are to do with the way the story was compressed: with Gandalf, for example, he sort of comes back and does some wizard type stuff and rides around on a horse, but it starts to veer into the realm of swords and sorcery cliche. For example, you see him sitting beside the king of the horse-realm, striking this sort of wizard-giving-advice pose, and it could be straight out of a Lord of the Rings parody.

In the first movie, Merry and Pippin are amusing side-characters, but in the second your main impression is of them staring around in awe or bewilderment and saying lines designed to remind you of the story's context.

The Faramir character is controversial because he's different from in the book, but my main problem with him was you don't get much of a sense of his character. He captures the hobbits, plans to take them to Gondor, and then changes his mind.

Overall, that is how the plot goes in the second movie. Situations are set up, and then they are taken down again. Saruman is set up as an evil power, and then he's defeated. Frodo and Sam are in danger, then they get out of danger, etc. But in the end you're left only marginally further ahead in the story, plot-wise. The lack of plot development is more obvious because the movie feels more like a summary of the important plot points, without a chance to really get into the atmosphere of what's going on. Also, because of the type of material that's being dealt with, when you simplify things too much it starts to feel like a string of clichés.

So, did the 45 minutes of added material make a difference to this? I need to watch it again to make sure, but I thought it did, surprisingly.

The new scenes aren't just extra battle excitement or filling in more background detail; they really change the impact of some of the key moments. A good example: there's a scene where everybody's on the road, tromping along, and Aragorn is flirting a bit with Eowyn. At the end of this bit, there's a shot of Eowyn looking lovingly at Aragorn - a real cornball moment. But in the extended edition, this shot is interwoven with a conversation between Aragorn and the horse-king, whose name I forget, where the king is telling Aragorn bitterly that he's failed Eowyn as a father-figure. So that shot becomes an ironic moment about the relationship between Eowyn and the king, rather than a corny reminder of Eowyn's feelings for Aragorn.

The other scene I have to mention is a new bit dealing with Faramir, where we actually see Faramir and Boromir together, and their relationship with their father. Not only does this make Faramir seem way more interesting, it makes Boromir seem far more sympathetic as well, not to mention introducing the character of the Steward of Gondor (their dad), who is a key figure in the third film. It's worth getting the extended edition for that scene alone, I'd say.

That's pretty typical of the way the new material is used. I'm not totally sure, but I think almost all the scenes that had seemed real weak points in the movie get this type of treatment. Gandalf is more human, Merry and Pippin's situation is fleshed out, Aragorn and Eowyn's relationship is less cheesy and more ambiguous, etc. It goes from being a fairly dry recital of adventures and battles to a story with a human element. I really can't believe what a difference it makes - it seems like a completely different, better film. Bravo, folks. Now I'm actually looking forward to the third film again...

Has anybody else watched it? What do you think?

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Actual email from the Los Angeles County Purchasing and Contract Services Director. People aren't allowed to use the term 'master' or 'slave' device because it's offensive.

The County of Los Angeles actively promotes and is committed to ensure a work environment that is free from any discriminatory influence be it actual or perceived. As such, it is the County's expectation that our manufacturers, suppliers and contractors make a concentrated effort to ensure that any equipment, supplies or services that are provided to County departments do not possess or portray an image that may be construed as offensive or defamatory in nature.

One such recent example included the manufacturer's labeling of equipment where the words ''Master/Slave'' appeared to identify the primary and secondary sources. Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label. We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment or components thereof that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature before such equipment is sold or otherwise provided to any County department.

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Breaking Up is Hard to Do

We broke up. I moved out. We divided our possessions. All the hardware was mine - the Xbox, the Gamecube, the PS2; most of the software, his. A sad sifting of the content of two lives once shared.

It all went fairly smoothly - until we discovered that we both had large game files on one Xbox. No problem, Justin said, I can probably copy them over using ethernet. So he bought a new Xbox and I brought over mine one afternoon and we tried to transfer our respective games. Just to be on the safe side, I had brought along an official Xbox-approved memory card.

Turns out the saved games we want the most - KOTOR, which we both love - won't fit on a Microsoft-licensed Xbox memory card.

Justin is a man of action. He promptly called customer support. "I have two Xboxes," he said breathlessly. "A memory card that's too small and an ethernet cable. Lets try to figure this out."

Impossible, he was told. There was no way to transfer my saved games.

"That's ridiculous," Justin countered. He doesn't back down easily. "There are a lot of brilliant people at Microsoft and you can't tell me that they didn't think of this problem. Now we're going to stay on the phone and fix it together."

Not possible.

"Well, could I get a bigger memory card then?"

That is the biggest memory card Microsoft makes.

Justin started to get frustrated. "Okay, maybe I could talk to someone else who would know how to help me?"

No one knows, because it's impossible.

"So you're telling me it's not possible for my ex-girlfriend to take with her her own saved games? I can't believe that! You make it sound like hacking my Xbox is a good idea!"

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Probably a joke, which is too bad.

Seattle, WA, U.S.A.-- Jones Soda Co. (the "Company" or "Jones Soda"), announces today that it will introduce a new seasonal flavor in its popular Jones Soda line-- Turkey & Gravy flavored beverage.

In time for the Thanksgiving holiday, Jones Soda will launch a limited production of the sugar-free and no carbohydrate Turkey & Gravy flavored beverage in the Washington and Michigan markets.

"We are really excited about the limited test launch of our new flavored Turkey & Gravy beverage. This seasonal flavor allows us to enter a new market segment, the meal replacement market. The new flavor will also appeal to new consumers, those who prefers a savory type flavor to the traditional soda flavors," says Peter van Stolk, President & C.E.O. "With consumers becoming more and more health conscious, Jones Soda's Turkey & Gravy flavored beverage is a zero calorie and zero carbohydrate beverage that can be served warm or cold with a full flavor that will meet and will exceed our customer's expectation."

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"Finally, the question is answered: What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? A designer with too much time on his hands uses his new method for graphically representing Strouhal numbers to clarify a truly pressing question for all armchair zoologists (and a few Monty Python fans)."

If the first diagram (St = 0.2) is accurate, then the cruising speed of the European Swallow would be roughly 16 meters per second (15 beats per second * 1.1 meters per beat). If the second diagram (St = 0.4) is accurate, then the cruising speed of the European Swallow would be closer to 8 meters per second (15 beats per second * 0.55 meters per beat).

If we settle on an intermediate Strouhal value of 0.3... We can estimate the airspeed of the European Swallow to be roughly 11 meters per second (15 beats per second * 0.73 meters per beat).

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# posted by Matt Broersma : 11:32 AM