Site Archives Musings

10 hands (aka Useless fact #436)

  • Posted by Ross
  • 1 February 2008

I’ve just been told that, if you use binary, you can count up to 31 using the fingers of one hand.
And if you use both hands (side by side), that number increases to 1023 - no, really!
Here’s the proof:

Betcha don’t learn *that* at McDonalds…

Swap shop?

  • Posted by Ross
  • 17 December 2007

I subscribe to a few Freecycle emails (always good to see what’s on offer locally, and helps me to maintain a healthy, planet-friendly conscience… yeah, right) and had to do a double-take when I saw this advert:

Now, are they wanting to swap? Enquiring minds need to know…

More word play

  • Posted by Ross
  • 1 November 2006

Following on from this post, and the regular mention of all-noun headlines over at the BBC’s Magazine Monitor, I’ve noticed a marked increase in the number of “verb-ed” nouns.
Just today, I’ve received an email that claims to have “excerpted” a section of another document.
Anyone else got any good examples? I may start collecting them….

A few of my favourite things… er, words.

  • Posted by Ross
  • 26 May 2006

I’ve always enjoyed words - the more unusual, the better. Sometimes it’s the meaning (especially true of words from other languages); where there is no English equivalent. Sometimes it’s the sound they make, or the way they roll off the tongue.
A few of my favourites:

Zeitgeist
Schadenfreude
Tmesis
Plinth

I’m also a fan of long-forgotten phrases… Things that were once commonly [...]

It’s here

  • Posted by Ross
  • 6 April 2006

It had to happen eventually. Strain H5N1 of the Avian ‘Flu virus has landed on our shores.
So, how much longer until the media frenzy kicks off, mentioning the “p” word[1] in every article? I give it 24 hours tops.
No point in running scared, I say - in fact, I’m off for a KFC…
[1] “Pandemic”, for [...]