Hard News: Farce About
93 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 Newer→ Last
-
Meanwhile, there are times when I really have to wonder whether politicians bother reading their press releases.
This gem from The Greens: **Business Roundtable member behind attack on reform**
A member of the Business Roundtable is behind the marches against campaign finance reform says the Green Party. The man paying an organiser to run the marches against the Electoral Finance Bill, John Boscawen, is a member of the Business Roundtable, as well as a former Act Party fundraiser.
FFS, and folks wonder why people like me wonder if supporters of the EFB have some serious paranoia issues that should be dealt with in a therapeutic environment rather than legislation? This is as pathetic as ACT putting out a press release darkly muttering that supporters of the EFB have links to (gasp!) unions, and left-wing parties or lobby groups.
-
And another gem from the Greens PR:
“The attacks on campaign finance reform around the world are always done under the guise of protecting free speech. But free speech is still alive and well in Canada and the UK, which both have adopted more stringent rules than those proposed in the Electoral Finance Bill.
Perhaps not the best time to be holding up the UK as a paragon of corruption-free electoral finance and free speech?
-
Craig, look I'm sorry but how has someone not said that this
*sigh* And when was the last time you tried dancing to The Intenationale, cherub? If you'll excuse me, I've got to go lay down the groundsheets for tonight's National Party branch meeting-slash-Black Mass. Otherwise it's impossible to get the baby blood and sulfur out of the carpet...
Is just outrageously damn funny - I'm pulling an all nighter... goddam new government and all that... and just can't stop chuckling ....
-
Music suggestions? Know Your Enemy.
"Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite".
More seriously though; how is it people don't know what a scientific theory is? How can people not believe in a thing which fits all the perceptible facts? Rhetorical questions, of course, it's the same way they believe in things with no perceptible facts whatsoever. FSM FTW. -
Some bank used Bittersweet Symphony recently, for reasons best known only to their ad agency.
Actually, I think they used the same Stones sample the Verve used, no?
-
Actually, I think they used the same Stones sample the Verve used, no?
The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" was based on a small sample of the Andrew Oldham Orchestra's recording of the Rolling Stone's song "The Last Time" (Yeah, I've never heard it either). But most of the orchestral stuff you hear in the song was written by Richard Ashcroft, and indeed that's what you hear in the music that was used in the old BNZ ad.
-
3410,
Stones sample
Andrew Oldham Orchestra sample. Ironically, given the Verve's loss of Bittersweet Symphony rights to Jagger/Richards, AOO's version of "The Last Time" bears virtually no relation to the Jagger/Richards song it purports to be.
</rock nerdity>
-
3410,
(Yeah, I've never heard it either)
here's a short, lo-res sample.
-
Real obscure personal anecdote coming up: I used to use 'the Last Time' as an egg timer in my first flat. because when it finished the egg would be just how I liked it: hard-boiled on the outside, still runny in the middle.
I really hold the anti-Verve lawsuit against the Stones conglomerate. Shit, they could have let that one go.
-
here's a short, lo-res sample.
Ooh, thanks for that. It's clear where the basic chords and melody structure comes from, but the main violin bit that gets repeated over and over in "Bittersweet Symphony" doesn't come from that sample - the Verve made it.
-
3410,
the main violin bit that gets repeated over and over in "Bittersweet Symphony" doesn't come from that sample
True. It really comes from the piano line in the second verse.
-
True. It really comes from the piano line in the second verse.
Ah, now it's making more sense. I had a really close listen to "Bittersweet Symphony" and I think I can hear the actual sample - it's the bit at the beginning of the first clip with the smooth violins and the chimes.
The piano bit is interesting because the Verve's violin plays 12 notes per bit*, while the piano only uses eight - the Verve's version fills in the gaps, while the piano is a bit more stuttery.
* I'm sure there are many technical terms I could be using, but music theory and me don't get along.
-
Damn! I've just watched/ heard that song posted by Rob Hosking. I watched the whole damn song, waiting for the punch-line. And now my head is infected with syrup sound AND images.
Thanks. -
Wendyf
Yeah, there was no punchline. They meant every word, every over-dramatic sweep of the violins...
It was a big hit when I was six. Won the Eurovision song contest, got a ton of airplay in NZ (in those days it was a ton, too, not a tonne)......the reason it was on my mind is I had a Sinead O'Connor collection out from the library and she did a version of it with Terry Hall (ex Specials/ FunBoyThree/Colourfield). They do it very deadpan. It's also on Youtube, I love their version, they are so obviously taking the piss.
-
But most of the orchestral stuff you hear in the song was written by Richard Ashcroft, and indeed that's what you hear in the music that was used in the old BNZ ad.
You learn something new every day - the Stones are a bit before my time. Perhaps the post-lawsuit owners weren't above spreading the intellectual property around as a bit of after the fact vengeance - wiki says Nike and Vauxhall had also used it.
-
More seriously though; how is it people don't know what a scientific theory is?
I blame the way science is taught. My experience of the scientific method at school was "Hypothesize theory taken from textbook. Conduct experiment with dodgy equipment under severe time constraints. Discard evidence not fitting theory". This was after doing what I actually consider science "Notice phenomenon. Hypothesize theory. Attempt to disprove by consequences of theory conflicting existing observations. Attempt to disprove via experiment or new observations. When disproved, hypothesize altered theory. Repeat until failure to disprove". Unfortunately this meant disproving just about all of accepted science (usually through experimental error) and landed me very poor marks.
My favourite example was proving that objects do not fall with constant acceleration. This was done with ticker tape attached to a falling object. A device made marks on the tape every 0.1 of a second. We then examined the ticker tape and found the acceleration was very strange indeed. Very dense collections of dots at both ends suggested it fell slowly at first, picked up speed, then slowed down, and then stopped. This was repeated 3 times.
It was only at the end of the year that we discovered how this had happened, when during a teacher's 10 minute absence we got into a ticker tape battle. We noticed that every single roll of ticker tape had already been used, probably for the acceleration experiment. We must have used ones in the reverse direction that they had been used before, presumably because a previous student (or an underfunded teacher) had rolled them up that way.
What was interesting to me about this was that no other students had concluded that the accepted laws of science were all wrong. Many of them must have had exactly the same thing happen to them as happened to my team. Everyone, without exception, had come up with the 'right' answer. Did they use the scientific method? Or did they simply conclude, as I did, that the scientific method being taught was to look stuff up in a textbook?
-
For quite a lot of my science A levels I calculated the theoretical expected results, applied a random error, and plotted the "results" out on graph paper as required. Never got pinged for it, either.
-
Did the same for my 7th form stats project. Never got pinged either. The method works.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.