Moundsbar Updates

There are limits to what you can do with Higgins.

Exciting news from the world of linguistics. Apparently speakers of Koro have finally been located in (of all places) India!

Koro of course is one of the Moundsbar languages, as extensively researched by Metalleus. To quote from his classic essay Moundsbar Connections.

Turning to Moundsbar, there are at least three languages related to it, Aro, Sorno and Koro. Aro is spoken by a few hundred souls in an enclave in the “Fan” district of Richmond, Virginia; Sorno has been extinct since the third century but was spoken on Guam and Saipan in the last years of the Roman Empire, though you would never know it from Roman history; no speakers of Koro have been located but a Koro language must be hypothesized to account for certain telegrams received through the years by the Moundsbarians which they were unable to read.

It now appears that these telegrams were sent from the East Kameng district of Arunchal Pradesh in India. Take that Higgins!

As the great Metalleus himself once said, in these seas of ignorance, science splashes on.

Shooting Fish

Is it the closing ceremony yet?

Ah yes, the Commonwealth Games are on. This means I’ve had to totally rearrange my TV viewing since Channel 10 has dumped its regular schedule in favour of broadcasting the competition around the clock (do something else instead of watching TV? Are you mad?:))

I really find it hard to get excited about the Commonwealth Games. They’re really nothing more than a second rate Olympics with all of the serious competition removed. In several areas (the swimming in particular) Australia simply has the best athletes in the Commonwealth, which makes picking up medals akin to shooting fish in a barrel. What’s our tally so far? Nine gold, ten silver, five bronze, for a total of twenty four – putting us at the top of the medal count and thirteen ahead of current second placers India.

This sounds impressive, but with the big boys missing it’s all really kind of pointless. It even approaches embarrassing, particularly when the media try to get everyone all revved up about it. “Gold for Australia! Gold for Australia!” has a kind of hollow ring when there are no Americans, Russians or Chinese in the competition. Without meaning to put down our fellow Commonwealth members, it’s like wining a foot race against a bunch of amputees – crowing about it just comes across as pathetic.

So yeah, the Commonwealth Games. Is it the closing ceremony yet?

Lady in Red, and the Red is the Breath of the Beast and the Beast wears Seven Crowns…

Elevator music on the way down to hell (thanks Ryan!)

Chris de Burgh. When you think of Chris de Burgh, you probably don’t think “nightmare music that would scare Trent Reznor” (or maybe you do, what do I know about your, or indeed Trent Reznor’s musical tastes?). In any case if you didn’t think that before, you probably will after hearing what V/VM has managed to do to Lady in Red.

V/VM – Lady in Red

Whatever array of filters and transformations V/VM have inflicted on the song changes it from a romantic ballad into something Satan would sing in the shower.

Take a listen. It will haunt your dreams.

Ow! My Brain!

Super-Pump of Doom

Woke up this morning feeling like half my brain was missing (is this how the average IQ people feel all the time!? How can they stand it!?). This may have something to so with pushing my bike for 7 km through Midland in the blazing (well, warm anyway) sun yesterday looking for a cycle shop after Ryan insisted on pumping up my tyres with his fancy super-pump of doom, causing the rear one to explode.

(To be fair it wasn’t his fault. The jokers at the bike shop put the tube in at a funny angle the last time I got it replaced, resulting in the valve pressing against the rim in such a way that when it was properly inflated, it ruptured.)

Needless to say, it being Sunday and Midland, not one of the cycle shops we walked to was open, and my plans for visiting various Midland sites for Abandoned in Perth were pretty much scuppered.

Oh well, another weekend then.

Collingwood won the Grand Final. Boo, I suppose.

Tanzwut

Qui potare non potestis, ite procul ab his festis.

A German metal band (taking their name from the medieval dancing manias and featuring bagpipes) takes a medieval Latin drinking song and sets it to Bach’s Toccata and Fuge in D Minor.

Tanzwut – Toccata (the song begins at 1:50 if you’re impatient)

I can not think of a single thing about this that is not awesome.

Free Range Ablett

Some people don’t smell like they should

AFL ‘Superstar’ Gary Ablett Jr announced today that he’s leaving the Geelong Cats and moving to the Gold Coast Suns.

The movement of AFL players between teams is something that would normally rate on my interest radar somewhere below the antics of the fleas on Paris Hilton’s chihuahua, but I’m feigning an interest this time because it’s a great excuse to pull out a reference to a strange and obscure song by the strange and obscure (and probably defunct) Perth band O!, which goes by the name of Free Range Ablett.

It goes a little something like this…

Some people smell good!
Some people don’t smell like they should,
Some people smell like a free range Ablett…

Free Range! Free Range ababababa abababa,
Ababababa abababa,

And his faithful companion the…
Egg roll, Egg roll,
Free Range! Ababababa abababa,
Gary-gary-gray-gary-gary-gary Ablett!
And his faithful companion the…
Egg roll, Egg roll,

(Those lyrics may not be 100% accurate, and the song’s actually about his dad, but hey, let’s not let that ruin the fun :))

That’s better…

OK, my blog is now starting to look more like I want it to. Need to get that header sorted out, and rearrange the sidebar a bit, then I might finally be satisfied.

In my perambulations around the net the other day I stumbled over this quite remarkable page –The Neanderthal Theory of Autism. It’s a page outlining a theory that Autistic spectrum disorders are actually the legacy of breeding between modern humans and Neandertals in prehistoric Europe, and that the symptoms of autism are actually Neandertal traits.

It’s an interesting idea and there’s some interesting evidence in there (the much higher rate of autism in European as opposed to African populations for instance) but there’s also a lot of absolute fruit-loopery of the highest order dressed up in the garb of science.

The basic methodology seems to work like this…

1) Neandertals may have done things this way
2) Some Autistics do things this other way
3) The first way and the second way are kind of similar
4) Therefore Autistics must be Neandertals! It all fits!

For instance, this piece of crystal clear logic…

Most of the finds of Neanderthals are from caves. It’s possible that Neanderthals spent a lot of time in caves, or maybe they hibernated there during winter. Autistics have a fascination for caves. Many autistics are afraid of the sound of a motor-bike. A motor-bike sounds similar to a bear. It is possible that the instintive (sic) reaction of autistics when they hear the sound of a motor-bike triggers an ancient fear for cave-bears.

Uhhhh…. OK, let’s look at this bit by bit. Yes, most Neandertal finds do come from caves, but this has less to do with the habits of Neandertals and more to do with the fact that caves are very good at preserving old bones, so that’s where we tend to look for them. I mean sure, Neandertals may have been hanging out in caves all the time, but you can’t build a hypothesis around the fact that we’ve gotten very good at narrowing down our search for archaeology over the last 200 years.

Autistics have a fascination for caves“. We do?! No one told me this!? I shall have to start looking for a cave to be fascinated by right away!!! Honestly…

Motor-bikes, well, yes, the sound of a motor cycle does freak me out a bit, particularly if it comes tearing around a corner at full roar without any warning. But that’s not because it sounds like a bear, it’s because it’s a loud, sudden noise. Autistics don’t like loud sudden noises of any kind, be they engines, thunder, gunshots or – yes I suppose – cave bears. You might as well argue that Autistics are scared of the sound of motor cycles because the people who ride them tend to be large and hairy, and hence resemble cave bears.

The entire work is full of this kind of stuff. Particularly annoying (or laughable, depending on how you look at it) is the chain of supposition which will state tentatively that Neandertals might have behaved in a certain way, or might have had a certain trait, and then roll on into the next sentence on the confident assumption that they definitely did. That’s not science, that’s wish fulfilment.

So yes, an interesting theory, but let’s try and find some real evidence to back it up before we go riding off into the sunset clinging to the fur of a mammoth (which is apparently why Autistics like climbing over things…)

Sheeze!

Close Bitnami banner
Bitnami