h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Cluedo kills off Mrs White:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36714720

I don't swallow this 'about time we refreshed the characters' nonsense. This is clearly in the interests of political correctness. Remember that the murdered character is named Black.

And if you were going to revamp the characters, why create another scientist (Dr Orchid) when you already have a Prof Plum?

Why not revamp Mrs. White as well? They could keep her as a cook and make her a celebrity chef. Or put her in a white lab coat and make her a mad scientist. The possibilities are only limited by their imagination (which seems pretty limited, to me).

I have an old Windows version of Cluedo that I keep meaning to get running again (compatibility issues). So Mrs. White will always be with me.

Yes, Marco Pierre White, maybe. Now there's a colourful character

Is that a 90s era Matthew Perry as Mr./Rev. Green?

Referring back to Icy's post about the BBC making a comparison between radiation around Jupiter and dental X-Rays (post 17510), here's another absurd and pointless comparison made by the BBC. The link is to a graphic included in a report on the Chilcot Inquiry, which does nothing more than explain how big the report is
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/FAD2/production/_90301246_chilcot_social_card.png

That one works for me.


My dad and I have a running dialogue about perplexing comparisons in the media. Specifically it's about the default units of 747s and football fields.

The 747 is typically and confusingly a unit of weight. That is such a bad unit. Sure, a 747 is big, but it's got a very low density so it is explicitly misleading. And who the hell knows how heavy a 747 is instinctively?

And football fields, specifically US football, is pointless. They're 100yds long. Close enough to 100 meters. Just use yards, feet or meters!

Oh, and height is nearly always either Empire State Buildings or Statues of Liberty.

I get Lusus point about that comparison chart. Yes, if you were to sit down and read Chilcot from cover to cover it would take many days. ok, it's big, and it took a long time to research and write. It's just such a ridiculously banal thing to say when the essence of it is whether a recent government was right to declare a war which resulted in the killing of many tens of thousands of people.

I thought that length was always measured in Titanics and height in Eiffel Towers...?

That reminds me of a fun entry: A1066484 (Don't worry, not one of mine)

<BB<

Vulture Central Standards: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/


These are my goto standards.

They'll never replace the beard-second...

<BB<

...units of exchange value, like the groat, of which the hundredth part is the groatime and the ten-thousandth part is the groatimesimal, units of exchange value equivalency historically achieved in the 1924 German inflation and more recently in Zimbabwe...

Ray Winstone will be voicing a Womble.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/07/ray-winstone-joins-cast-of-new-series-of-the-wombles

I had to check the date, but it's true!

Clearly it must be Madame Cholet

Tobermory Boo!

You'll never get the kids to sleep after Tobermory's disembodied head appears, telling you that the odds are 6-1 for Rooney to score next.

This could even be one for the headline challenge:

http://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.berufsverkehr-in-ludwigsburg-schnecke-legt-ampelanlage-lahm.f5f0db62-a3ee-4504-b9db-e088a4449073.html

Only available in German at the moment.

A snail or a slug left a slime trail in a transformer box near a motorway and shorted the traffic lights, causing traffic jams of up to 6 km in the rush hour traffic.

What's the world coming to? Now they want to ban homeopathy for animals:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36734179

Mutant mice become 'super sniffers'

What is it with scientists and mice? They just can't leave them alone. Is it a throw back to living in squalid accommodation as penniless students, where the only amusement they could afford was to toy with the mouse infestation?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36745483

I dunno, but I reckon this picture is photoshopped.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-36796185