BLURT thread

[jvcc]

Which of our British Spamusers live round London Town? Comedian Paul Foot just posted this advertisement on Facebook:

I require a personal assistant. 4 or 5 days a week. Organising my professional & personal diary, emails, errands, expenses and other admin. This is not a creative role, or one in which you need to be funny. It is about administration, organisation of the unorganisable, prioritisation of a plethora of equally urgent tasks, toil, perspiration, pressure, telephone, and more organising. London-based. Salary £18-24k (possibly pro rata), dependent upon age & experience. Apply to me at paulfoot@paulfoot.tv with your CV. Interviews will occur next week. The successful candidate will commence on Moonday 17th Decadence 2012 AD.

[ntw3001]

Hmm. That sounds terribly interesting. I'm on it.

I'll be on it tomorrow. It's midnight and I have work in the morning. But yes, good spot. Excellent.

[MysticalDescent]

Anno Domini? How passe. All the cool kids are saying Common Era now*.

*This actually irks me because I dislike this sort of small change to the norm.

[jvcc]

Anno Domini? How passe. All the cool kids are saying Common Era now*.

*This actually irks me because I dislike this sort of small change to the norm.

Well, isn't the logic behind the change that Jesus isn't everyone's lord, so it's unfair to expect all people to keep track of what year it is based on the year he was supposedly born? That seems very reasonable to me.

[ntw3001]

Bloody hell. Hope those stupid Australian dj's are pleased with themselves now that poor nurse is dead

I haven't spoken to this girl since school and we were on okay terms, but would it be a faux pas to reopen communication just to tell her how stupid this comment is? I'm obviously not going to, but I will bitch about it here.

Reference to this.

[chrismachine]

What's so stupid about what she said, other than insinuating that they should have foreseen the death? I mean, it was a rather heavy-handed prank that must have been known to have the potential to cost someone their job... Unless I missed something in my brief skim of the article.

[jvcc]

It may be that finals week has destroyed my brain, but that news article appears to be terribly written. From what I can gather, a nurse talked to two Australian DJs who were making a prank call, did not divulge any confidential information to them, did not lose her job as a result, and died shortly afterward for reasons unrelated to the incident.

Why is this news?

[ntw3001]

Because she's deeeead

Ok, the BBC article doesn't state, but heavily implies, that the prank call was what led to the death. It's now apparently generally thought to have been suicide (and whether that's actually been reported anywhere or it's a case of mass public assumption I don't know, but the hospital man's quote in the article seems to lead to that conclusion). What I'm objecting to is this girl holding the DJs responsible for the death, when what they actually did was put on silly accents and make a prank call on their radio show. Whether it's an indirect cause or not, they're in no way morally responsible because it's very clearly not a careless act of public endangerment. The worst thing they're guilty of is wasting airtime with weak filler material.

If we really, desperately need to blame someone (and, needless to say, we do), we'd do better to blame the desperate journalists who reported on this 'story' with enough excitement to convince the lady that she'd severely compromised national security through an act of unforgivable negligence. Not that it's their fault either of course, because there's no way anybody could have predicted that she may have been particularly vulnerable. What it actually is is a shame, and nothing else. Neither malicious nor reckless on the part of anyone involved.

The DJs, predictably, have lost their jobs, and the hospital have 'received advice that what the Australian broadcasters did may well have broken the law'. To me, that sounds like 'they haven't done anything that's clearly wrong, but we might be able to punish them for something'. So we're deciding to punish, then scouting round for an excuse. In that situation, can we not just admit that they're not at fault? Losing one's job is already a pretty harsh punishment for nothing. But I guess they also committed the crime of making a prank call to the UK relatively soon after another radio prank call in the UK had gone wrong on a slow news week, so it is now maybe uh first degree murder and arson? I'm not sure exactly how the trial-by-Facebook method works.

[MysticalDescent]

Anno Domini? How passe. All the cool kids are saying Common Era now*.

*This actually irks me because I dislike this sort of small change to the norm.

Well, isn't the logic behind the change that Jesus isn't everyone's lord, so it's unfair to expect all people to keep track of what year it is based on the year he was supposedly born? That seems very reasonable to me.

I know it's really perfectly reasonable, but a small petty change like that annoys me because it's not wholly necessary and I was brought up on Anno Domini, damnit. That's not that I'm massively opposed to the change and will be picketing those responsible or anything like that, I'll just keep on using it whenever I get the opportunity to. Come to think of it, I rarely have to use it anyway, since very little of the history I've written about has required some degree of flitting between BC (hang on a minute, why can't BC be in Latin as well?) and AD.

[EsBe]

Anno Domini? How passe. All the cool kids are saying Common Era now*.

*This actually irks me because I dislike this sort of small change to the norm.

Well, isn't the logic behind the change that Jesus isn't everyone's lord, so it's unfair to expect all people to keep track of what year it is based on the year he was supposedly born? That seems very reasonable to me.

I know it's really perfectly reasonable, but a small petty change like that annoys me because it's not wholly necessary and I was brought up on Anno Domini, damnit. That's not that I'm massively opposed to the change and will be picketing those responsible or anything like that, I'll just keep on using it whenever I get the opportunity to. Come to think of it, I rarely have to use it anyway, since very little of the history I've written about has required some degree of flitting between BC (hang on a minute, why can't BC be in Latin as well?) and AD.

While I was also brought up on Anno Domini, the fact remains that if we're going by historical data, there is a 5ish year period where the meaning of BC and AC are just plain wrong.

[Zombie Protestor]

Calling AD Common Era doesn't really disguise that you are still using the birth of Jesus as the starting point for the years. It's like calling the 13th floor the 14th.

C'mon people on the 14th floor, you know what floor you're really on. Jump out the window, you will die earlier.

Also,

Rhys Holleran, chief executive of SCA, the company which owns the station...

The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century.

I'm assuming/hoping that it's another organization with the same acronym, but it'd be funny if it weren't.

[sum yun gai]

Anno Domini? How passe. All the cool kids are saying Common Era now*.

*This actually irks me because I dislike this sort of small change to the norm.

Well, isn't the logic behind the change that Jesus isn't everyone's lord, so it's unfair to expect all people to keep track of what year it is based on the year he was supposedly born? That seems very reasonable to me.

I know it's really perfectly reasonable, but a small petty change like that annoys me because it's not wholly necessary and I was brought up on Anno Domini, damnit. That's not that I'm massively opposed to the change and will be picketing those responsible or anything like that, I'll just keep on using it whenever I get the opportunity to. Come to think of it, I rarely have to use it anyway, since very little of the history I've written about has required some degree of flitting between BC (hang on a minute, why can't BC be in Latin as well?) and AD.

i'm picturing a young MD shaking his fist at those kids to get off his lawn

also, if you use "Common Era", the correct time for "back then" is now BCE or "Before Common Era". that allows people who can't let go of BC to at least know (or infer) what BCE is in reference to when it appears near a date.

[IanC]

So while i was helping sort through donations today i found a condom in a boot. Yes, a condom. Thankfully it wasn't a used condom, because that would be HORRID.

It was way out of date though

[jvcc]

One of my best friends at school/one of my (new) best friends in general is a technical/professional writer. This means that she specializes in and enjoys proofreading and copyediting. Do you have any idea how much I am abusing my privileges as her friend? I finish a term paper, send it to her, and get expert feedback. It...it is glorious.

I've offered to pay for her ticket to The Hobbit which I shall be seeing Thursday at midnight, so it all balances out. It's nice to almost have the semester over. I only need to finish with some grading, input my students' grades, and then I have winter break free to write another chapter of my thesis.

[MysticalDescent]

Well, isn't the logic behind the change that Jesus isn't everyone's lord, so it's unfair to expect all people to keep track of what year it is based on the year he was supposedly born? That seems very reasonable to me.

I know it's really perfectly reasonable, but a small petty change like that annoys me because it's not wholly necessary and I was brought up on Anno Domini, damnit. That's not that I'm massively opposed to the change and will be picketing those responsible or anything like that, I'll just keep on using it whenever I get the opportunity to. Come to think of it, I rarely have to use it anyway, since very little of the history I've written about has required some degree of flitting between BC (hang on a minute, why can't BC be in Latin as well?) and AD.

i'm picturing a young MD shaking his fist at those kids to get off his lawn

also, if you use "Common Era", the correct time for "back then" is now BCE or "Before Common Era". that allows people who can't let go of BC to at least know (or infer) what BCE is in reference to when it appears near a date.

I fear that is exactly what I have become. Screw it, it's a good place to be. It (somehow) gets laughs at social occasions.

My old history tutor would probably say that the change was down to those who exclusively study modern history (specifically anything after the French Revolution, which covers the bulk of both history students and professors at my University) not being able to understand Latin. I liked my old history tutor. That's not to say that I can actually understand much Latin beyond the stuff that's pretty self-explanatory. For reasons that I can't quite understand, when I was in year 9, which is effectively halfway through high school and 12 months before you begin your GCSEs, my school decided to make nine students do GCSE Latin. The course was done with some academic from a long way away after school by video link and was a disaster. I think five of the students dropped out early and of those of us who were left, three failed (two of them answering the wrong set of questions in one of the optional sections) and I got an E. Then again, I was put in for the Higher Tier paper because the academic man was somehow convinced that we were all going to get 90%+ and I think that the rules for the Higher Tier are that any grade below a C is a fail. It might, therefore, be the case that we all failed. That was a very strange episode.

[Skimba]

I hate feeling like I am failing

[ntw3001]

you get used to it

[EvilJekyll]

Failing or feeling like you're failing?

[James]

Hating.

[jvcc]

I don't feel like a failure per se, but I'm getting pretty depressed again. I'm using that term in the non-medical sense.

[PonderThis]

So Jemry and Dusk are already in 2013. I wonder what next year is like.


Well OK Dusk still has 45 minutes to go, but by the time anyone actually reads this it'll be a moot point.

[ntw3001]

It's ok

[ntw3001]

I don't feel like a failure per se, but I'm getting pretty depressed again. I'm using that term in the non-medical sense.

Jeeesus i spent last night with a couple of particular folks and boy howdy don't they know how to make a dude feel like poopcakes. I think I shall have to avoid their company in future, which is a shame because I was pretty tight with them in Canada. But I spent the evening trying to convince a town planner and a receptionist that I'm worth knowing and that ain't worth the angst.

[jvcc]

Explain that anecdote in more detail when I'm more able to make sense of it.

[PonderThis]

It's ok

So this is the future. Wow it feels so different!