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Uncategorized

Etymology

From the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 29 August 1941, pg. 14, col. 5:
_Shooting the Breeze_
by Joseph Driscoll
(…) But when the men of the U. S. N. have time to relax, they relax in a great big way. What is their favorite relaxation? Strange as it may seem to landlubbers, your naval man would pass up wine, women or song any time if only he be permitted to shoot the breeze.
Shooting the breeze is yarn spinning, only I never heard it called the latter on shipboard. When sailor-folk shoot the breeze they are not conscious of retailing fiction.
(Long article–ed.)

Categories
Uncategorized

Yahoo mail beta doesn’t support IE 7

Overall I’m finding the beta 2 of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 browser to be quite good. There are one or two flaws though that I’ve noticed particularly in it’s handling of CSS.
However, the yahoo mail beta doesn’t support it. It provides a

Sorry, Yahoo! Mail Beta does not support your browser

but helpfully advises me to try Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher with a link that takes me to the IE download page. From a brief examination of requests IE7b2 is throwing at our webserver Looks like Yahoo failed to psychically read MS’s intentions and got the HTTP_USER_AGENT test wrong. Hope someone tells them!

Categories
science

A very useful site indeed

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve used the Engineering Fundamentals website to research an engineering or financial calculation. It has some of the most practical and useful explanations of relatively complex concepts that I’ve seen. The calculators section is excellent and available here

Categories
humour

Reasons why Arsenal didn’t win the European Cup

With thanks to RedIssue.
I’m sure Johnny K will get a kick out of this.

  • Theirry didn’t use a new shaving blade and the drag factor slowed him down
  • Lehmann’s breakfast egg’s over-cooked by 5 seconds causing him to fall heavily for the red card sending off. The Arsenal board will sue the hotel
  • The coach taking them to the stadium was coloured green – which is bad luck
  • Wenger: “Our players didn’t get enough time to recover from the last game of the season” (two weeks ago)
  • Wenger: “Unsettled future of Campbell, Cole and Henry unsettled the team spirit”
  • Wenger: “The home advantage was clearily and unfairly in Barcelona’s favour as Spain is closer to France than to England”
  • Eboue didn’t dive. The TV camera lens had a slight distortion on them making it seem that was. Eboue will be out injured next season
  • The bright reflection from Eto’s smiling teeth momentarily blinded Almunia for the first goal
  • Campbell: “The second goal wouldn’t have happened if the England manager had allowed Walcott to room with me. I’ve been worried to death about him rooming all on his own.”
  • Eboue: “It’s about time the world footballing authorities did something about divers.”

Excellent game though. One of the most enjoyable in years.