Music seen on YouTube today: from the sublime to the ridiculous.

[Marvin Gaye clip via Bifurcated Rivets; Ogilvy anthem via Qwghlm]

Could you pass The Receptionist Test?

"When you work in computing services for a university, you spend about as much time on high-minded development as you do un-jamming printers and resetting passwords for faculty," Ed G. writes. "It's not ideal, but it's a living." It was time to get some new staff, and after being burned by some previous employees that could talk the talk, but not walk the walk, they devised a new litmus test for potential hires, called "The Receptionist Test."

It's quite simple, really. When an applicant arrives for an interview, (s)he spends at least five minutes waiting in reception. During this time, the receptionist stages a minor tech support problem and asks for the applicant's help. [...]

The Ubuntu enthusiast's idea of 'help' was my favourite: there's such a thing as a a proportionate response, you know…

David Byrne, on tour in Milwaukee, finds the time to collect tales of local eccentrics:

A group of us pile into Andi's car and head for the house of Andi's friend Paul, who lives in a boat that was built on dry land. [...] Paul's house was originally built by a man who accidentally sank an identical boat in the harbor. Out of remorse or sheer perversity, he decided to rebuild that boat, but on dry land, "where it could never sink again."

When he applied to the local city board to build this structure, the approval was denied, so he built it off site and surreptitiously dragged it up here one night. Needless to say, it's since become a local landmark; Paul says it's not uncommon for couples to consummate their relationship on the lawn. After that, a dentist lived in the boathouse. Not your ordinary dentist. We were told that this dentist had a fear of accidentally brushing against his female patients' breasts, so he fabricated a device, a way of working that would prevent that from happening. It consisted of a series of ropes and pulleys that would allow him to perform dentistry while suspended ABOVE the patient! (He didn't inform his female clients what his new contraption was designed to do or to avoid – he made up some other explanation). I wish I could have seen this device. Apparently at one point, he had a seizure or cramp while suspended, and the fire department had to come and cut him out. Can you imagine being the patient in the chair at that moment? Paul said this dentist also performed a root canal on himself. "Those damn dentists are so expensive!" he was quoted as saying.

The exquisite trailer for Swedish horror film Let the Right One In suggests that it's going to be well worth a look, a view reinforced by the positive reviews¹ I've seen.

I know the film showed up in the UK at a festival earlier this year, but I can't find any information about whether it'll be getting a proper UK release; it may turn out to be one to watch out for on DVD.

1. Manhola Dargis in the New York Times, Scott Weinberg at Cinematical. ↩

James Nicoll cites a mind-boggling statistic about US presidential politics:

The last time the Republicans won the White House without a Bush or a Nixon on the ticket was 1928.

Clearly Jeb Bush is a dead cert for a spot on the Republican ticket in 2012.

It's slightly daunting to see how easily Ron Howard drops 30-odd years to bring US citizens advice on how to vote in the presidential election. A quick shave and a wig make such a difference.

(Fun as Ron Howard's video is, for my money the best celebrity PSA in this election cycle has been Hayden Panettiere's 'endorsement'¹ of John McCain.)

[Ron Howard video via Amygdala]

1. NB: language used may be NSFW. ↩

MySociety founder Tom Steinberg talked to the Guardian about the organisation's first five years:

[...] Steinberg admits that he has shifted the culture of government "less than we might have hoped". On the other hand, he's pleasantly surprised by the survival rate of MySociety sites. "We were thinking in dotcom boom terms, that we'd have a 70% failure rate. In fact we haven't shut down anything at all." Another shock was the body that turned out to be most resistant to MySociety ideas. "I didn't think we'd see parliament being so crushingly slow."

The title sequence for Brat Bratu, an adaptation of Only Fools and Horses, bears little resemblance to the original. That's not meant as a criticism; I was never much of a fan of the show, so I feel no particular allegiance towards the BBC show's credits.

As with Polish film posters, I find it interesting to see a different take on a theme we're so familiar with.

50 Stunning Underwater Photos does exactly what the title promises.

My favourites: a Tiger Shark, Shelly, an Underwater canyon and a Translucent Cowfish.

[Via MetaFilter]

The NSPCC is worried about the internet. (Again.)

Policy adviser Zoe Hilton said the NSPCC was "alarmed" by how easy it was for children to access "disturbing internet material".

She said: "Children are just a few clicks away from innocently stumbling across upsetting or even dangerous pictures and films such as adult sex scenes, violent dog fights, people self-harming and children being assaulted."

Ms Hilton said that every child should be using a computer with child protection software.

High-security parental controls installed in their computers would help shield them.

"Currently computer manufacturers and retailers leave it to parents to find and install software that filters out material unsuitable for children. This can be a complicated process for customers."

Four points:

1. There's no such thing as 'child protection software': there's only software that attempts, whether using whitelists or blacklists or keyword filtering or whatever, to guess whether to block access to a page. Until we reach the point where every house has a resident Artificial Intelligence capable of understanding both the content arriving via the internet and the capacity of the residents to cope with said material, software can't 'protect' your children.
2. How much evidence is there that parents actually want this sort of software? Could it be that many parents are finding other ways to help their child cope with the potential trauma of seeing an image they find unsettling?
3. Let me see if I can fix this sentence for Zoe Hilton: "Children are just a few clicks away from innocently stumbling across upsetting or even dangerous pictures and films such as adult sex scenes, violent dog fights, people self-harming and children being assaulted all sorts of content on the internet." It's how the World Wide Web works, and it's probably a good idea to develop coping strategies instead of trying to pretend the Web works differently than it actually does.
4. It could be worse: at least the NSPCC aren't pushing for an Australian solution to the problem.¹

1. Note the findings EFA cites suggesting that a neither a lack of computer literacy nor the expense of the software is the primary reason consumers don't use some sort of third-party content filtering software. ↩

Natasha Desborough's Parental Advisory Manual offers a somewhat unorthodox technique for coping with babies that just won't sleep:

6. SLEEP DEPRIVATION – THE PARKINSON'S TECHNIQUE

Wilf (10 months) went through a phase of just not sleeping. Ever. He would cry and cry but would not sleep for longer than 20 minutes at a go. I tried everything I could think of; controlled crying, rocking him in his pushchair, driving him around for hours in the car, cuddling him, but nothing seemed to work. I was at my wits end. Then one day I dropped by with the boys to see my dad and his girlfriend. Wilf was screaming his head off as usual and I plonked him in the arms of my dad saying "here – take your grandson please". Then suddenly as if by magic, everything went quiet. Wilf stopped crying and oh my god, he'd actually broken into a little smile. A moment of glorious, golden silence. You see, my dad suffers from Parkinson's Disease and his relentlessly shaking arms must have calmed Wilf down. He was being shaken vigorously and quickly, his chubby cheeks rippling with the vibration and he absolutely loved it! He chortled and squealed with delight and then suddenly fell into a deep sleep. And relax! Gina Ford – stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

The section on CBeebies Sex Fantasies is a bit of an eye-opener too.

[Via GromBlog]

I don't follow squash, but I was vaguely aware that for most of the last half century the game had been dominated by a succession of Pakistani players. I just hadn't appreciated precisely how much that group of players had in common:

The small village of Nawakille (pop. few thousand) outside the frontier city of Peshawar in Pakistan boasts something that no other in the world can. Over the last half century, the village that does not have a single squash court, has produced six world number ones in the sport. In fact, since 1950 the six between them have won 29 British Opens (the Wimbledon of squash) and 14 World Opens (which started only in 1975).

It's as if Pete Sampras, Roger Federer, Bjorn Borg, Ivan Lendl and Boris Becker had all come from one small town somewhere in Eastern Europe.

[Via 3quarksdaily]

Truthful TV Title Cards.

I particularly like the ones for Battlestar Galactica and Pushing Daisies.

[Via kottke.org]

For my money, these are the three funniest unscripted moments in the history of British TV:

1. Richard Whiteley and the Ferret.
2. Parkinson meets Rod Hull & Emu.
3. The Blue Peter elephant.

10 Solar System Mysteries:

9. Why are the Martian hemispheres so radically different?

This is one mystery that had frustrated scientists for years. The northern hemisphere of Mars is predominantly featureless lowlands, whereas the southern hemisphere is stuffed with mountain ranges, creating vast highlands. Very early on in the study of Mars, the theory that the planet had been hit by something very large (thus creating the vast lowlands, or a huge impact basin) was thrown out. This was primarily because the lowlands didn't feature the geography of an impact crater. For a start there is no crater "rim." Plus the impact zone is not circular. All this pointed to some other explanation. But eagle-eyed researchers at Caltech have recently revisited the impactor theory and calculated that a huge rock between 1,600 to 2,700 km diameter can create the lowlands of the northern hemisphere [...]

[Via LinkMachineGo]

The Star Wars prequels got Jar-Jar Binks: the video games got HK-47. Definitely not a fair trade, as this page of HK-47's best lines clearly demonstrates:

"I would have congratulated him, if he had not been sizzling and incoherent at the time."

"His wife must have done something to truly upset him. I was ordered to terminate his wife, and any male companion with her."

"Statement: Just when I believe my photoreceptors have recorded the last potential aspect of your cruelty to my memory core, you commit a new atrocity that leaves me analyzing its impact for days."

"Clarification: It’s just that,you have all these squishy parts master! And all that water! How the constant sloshing doesn’t drive you mad, I have no idea."

"Expletive: Damn it Master, I'm an assasination droid, not a dictionary!"

"Recitation: First, weapon selection is critical. If I see one more idiot attacking a Jedi with a blaster pistol, then I'll kill them myself."

"Statement: Oh do shut up, you beeping little trash compactor."

"Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Statement: This definition, I am told, is subject to interpretation. Obviously, love is a matter of odds. Not many meatbags could make such a shot, and fewer would derive love from it. Yet for me, love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose, against statistically long odds."

On balance, I reckon it's probably a blessing that my web site doesn't attract search requests like these.

(It's not so much the search terms that makes Scaryduck's post worth linking to; it's the commentary.)

[Via Qwghlm]

Probably the best take on the presidential debates to date. (And quite possibly the geekiest, albeit in a good way.)

[Via fourth edition]

It turns out that I'm number 416,397,817 on the Global Rich List. Woo hoo!

[Via Amygdala]

I have no idea whether Oliver Stone's W. will turn out to be a Fair and Balanced^TM look at the life of the outgoing president.

What I can say is that the extended trailer [Apple | YouTube] uses the perfect song for this subject matter.

[Via Progressive Gold]