There’s a blonde joke that’s been floating around the web, so in case you haven’t heard it, it goes like this:
Two men walk into a bar — the third man ducks
Archive for category Fun
The Blonde Joke
Jan 10
Laugh In Looks At The News
Dec 13
Mr Lileks proves once again that he can write: A 2005 Rollick:
An oppressive colonizer is forced to withdraw from occupied Arab land. This is initially met with dancing in the streets of Cairo, Paris, and Turtle Bay. Then everyone realizes it is Syria pulling out of Lebanon. You must understand that the Cedar Revolution, after years of Syrian domination, has nothing to do with the American presence in Iraq, you jingoist. It’s just one of those international coincidences like the moon being where it was when Apollo 11 flew past. A few months later, Israel voluntarily withdraws from Gaza, earning approximately 17 seconds of good will from the international community. Personal best!
And that’s just a small sample.
Speaking of good work if you can get it:
To best support breasts, a designer has to understand how they move. To that end, McGhee’s team in Australia, headed by biomechanist Julie Steele, tags women with light-emitting diodes and asks them to run on treadmills. (The women run with and without bras, so the laboratory doors are bolted to prevent uninvited people from bursting in.) Computer systems then track the breasts’ motions in three dimensions by following the moving lights. “We can actually work out exactly where they’re going, how they’re moving, and how this movement is affected by bras,” Steele says. Breasts move in a sinusoidal pattern, Steele has found, and they move a lot. Small breasts can move more than three inches vertically during a jog, and large breasts sometimes leave their bras entirely. “We have videos of women who, particularly if the cup is too low, spill all over the top,” Steele says.
Too bad Victoria’s Secret wasn’t hiring engineers back when I got out of college!
If you can get past the snicker factor, it really is an interesting article on the physics of bras, at least for me as it combines two of my favorite subjects.
But there is a more controversial part to the article
Evolutionary biologists aren’t sure why breasts evolved as they did – chimpanzees and other mammals develop them only when lactating – and no one knows what keeps them from sagging.
I’m sure the Intellegent Design people will be all over this to show female breasts prove that there really is a God. I’m waiting for the evolutionists to counter claim that women were once endowed with something even more delightful but they changed into breasts and that’s why it only appears as if there is no point to them from an evolutionary point of view.
Same As The Old Boss?
Oct 25
Republicans heaved a huge sigh of relief yesterday when President Bush named Ben Bernanke as his nominee to replace Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Bernanke pick surprised no one, as the man has impeccible credentials.
Rumor has it that President Bush was seriously contemplating nominating his longtime broker, and a draft of the President’s introductory remarks has been obtained by Funmurphys: “This is a man who understands the markets; and who by the way made a ton of money for me over the years. I’ll never forget his timing on Harken, that’s for sure. Cutiepie, come on up here. I call him Cutiepie because he sends Laura and me the cutest cards and notes, with cats and bluebonnets on them.” The Whitehouse and “Cutiepie” were unavailable for comment.
The Better Awards
Oct 13
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the Nobel and the Ig Nobel prizes, what with Mohamed ElBaradei winning the nobel peace prize with his winning slogan, peace through ignorance. But don’t miss out on the real thing – the Ig Nobel awards were held a week ago and the winners announced to much rejoicing (amongst the losers, that is).
Of the winners, my favorite is the story of a local (Missouri) boy making good – Gregg A. Miller who won in Medicine for inventing neuticals, which are replacement testicles for animals who have been neutered. I don’t know which is more surprising – that Mr. Miller wrote a book entitled Going Going NUTS! about them, or the fact that over 100,000 (thats over 200,000 neuticles for those keeping score at home) animals have been neuticled since 1995. And they say the age of miracles and wonders is over.
And while I have enjoyed the odd Pinter play made into a movie, I think again the Ig Nobels picked the better Literati by with their selection for Literature:
“The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters — General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others — each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them.”
As someone who has received many such one act plays via email, I can only say “Bravo” to their selection.
And finally, I have no idea what it was about, but James Watson (umm, no not THE James Watson, but some JW in New Zealand), the winner in Agricultural History should have won (and probably did) for the title of his paper alone: “The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley’s Exploding Trousers.” Now that’s a scientific paper that I want to read.
I Didn’t Get My Way
Oct 6
In keeping with my new policy of posting on issues after a delay to allow me time to (1) get accurate facts and (2) actually think about it, I’m now going to opine on President Bush’s supreme court nominee, Harriet Miers. OK, if I waited until the press got its facts straight, I’d never be able to post. But at least I thought about it, and the great thing is, I’m still as disappointed that the President didn’t pick Justice Janice Rogers Brown this time as I was when he picked Justice Roberts. Oh well. Just so you know where I’m coming from. No, I wouldn’t want 9 of her on the court, but we do need a counterbalance to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (of whom I would prefer to have a number less than 1 on the court).
Since I couldn’t actually name all the Justices of the Supreme court, I did a little research and discovered that far too many were undergraduates at Stanford (Kennedy, O’Connor, and Breyer) where none of them took the Physics 60 series, the wimps. Only Souter went to Harvard as an undergrad, and we know how he turned out. And all them have as their chief failing that they are lawyers. If not Justice Brown, why not Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman when there were openings for two justices?
And what is with the claim that we want judges who will be fair and impartial and oh by the way, what are their political views? Like we know that Supreme Court justices are going to vote their politics, principles be damned, but that’s OK as long as we agree with their politics? Isn’t that what 99% of the questioning by the Senate during confirmation hearings is about – tell me how you will rule on abortion, gays, guns, affirmative action, the environment, the little guy, unions, hats, etc? It’s even OK to talk in code somewhat, as long as you show your hand. But we have the nominees claiming that it’s inappropriate for judges to do so. Why, you can’t judge shop at the Supreme Court. You get all nine unless they have a conflict of interest. Politicians will tell us that its not right to have litmus tests for judges (too bad you can’t put a piece of paper up against a nominee and see “pro-abortion” or “pro-gun”) but why not?
I’d like to see a nominee come in and spell it all out in detail, not some wonkish “judicial philosophy” but to what stage of development they’d limit abortion at, is a loophole for the health of the mother really a “constitutional” requirement, under what exact conditions should parents be notified or minors be allowed to withhold information from them about abortion, gay marriage is constituitional yes or no or a matter for each state and what does the full faith and credit mean if states differ on this, etc. As long as judges are going to legislate from the bench, we ought to know what their agenda is. I’d prefer that to winks, evasions, silence, and “trust me”. And quite frankly, I think it would be educational hearing the nominees explain their views in detail on the leading issues of the day.
Enough process, I’ll have to tackle Ms. Miers herself another day.
Pure Fun
Oct 2
I’m sure this tells researchers something important about how the brain processes visual information, but I find it to be just pure fun. Stare at the + below, wait just a few moments, and voila! the fun begins.
If you wait long enough, not only do you see a green dot moving, but the pink dots disappear altogether. Blink, or move you eyes, and they come back.
Always Room For One More
Sep 21
Tom McMahon has a fun blog, but he has this bad habit of going to blogs and getting banned. First it was Electrolite. OK, he wasn’t banned, he just had all the vowels removed from comments the Haydens didn’t care for. Then it was Cynical-C blog where the proprietor banned him from commenting. But that was just the warm up, because when he was banned at NoodleFood, he wasn’t just banned, he was condemned to hell along with it. I kid you not. The craziest thing about it is that Tom is such a mild commenter – calm, patient, insult free – which seems to drive wackos nuts. I mean, what set off Diana at NoodleFood off was that he, brace yourself, quoted a line from Amazing Grace which caused huge foaming at the mouth, and when she discovered that he had a link, a link mind you, to National Review, which periodically runs a negative review of Atlas Shrugged, that’s when she fell over backwards, and not only banned Tom from her site, but in full atheist majesty flung him straight into the pit of hell with Whittaker Chambers. As Dave Berry would say, you can’t make this stuff up.
It sounded like so much fun, I linked to my negative review of Atlas Shrugged (which the online version of National Review ran seven years ago – my how time flies) in his comments. So Tom graciously has reprinted my review of Atlas Shrugged so that I too can go straight to hell with him and Whittaker. Since I knew it was coming, I made pitcher of ice water to take with me for Tom and Whittaker. And if you want to join us there, you can let Tom know of your negative review of Atlas Shrugged.
Talk Like A Pirate Day
Sep 19
I discovered it was Talk Like A Pirate Day when somebody managed to sneak a Talk Like A Pirate slide into the weekly staffmeeting slideshow this morning that would appear whenever a slide sat there long enough. Shiver me timbers, that was like finding buried treasure, mateys.
Come What May
Sep 9
Just in case the Katrina coverage has you all flipped out, for a mere half a million dollars you can buy a place where you can be safe and secure come what may – even if that includes nuclear bombs and anthrax spores. Not recommended for people who like people.
