“You’re T. S. Eliot,” said a taxi driver as he stepped into his cab. Eliot asked him how he knew. “I have an eye for celebrities,” he replied. “Only the other evening I picked up Bertrand Russell, and I said to him, ‘Well, Lord Russell, what’s it all about?’ And, do you know, he couldn’t tell me.”
— Valerie Eliot (her favorite story about her husband) Continue reading “Funny”
Pictures and videos of cats and babies makes up for the socialist idiocy one comes across on the internet.
I like baby animals, the most favored being human babies. Human babies in animal suits are the best. So I share with you this picture of a baby in a porcupine suit.
I am not too sure about the suit. It could be a piggy suit — notice the snout and the hoofs. But then it has spiky things all over it. So it could be a porcupine suit. It looks like it to me. And then this old favorite song popped into my head: Porcupine Pie by Neil Diamond. Continue reading “Porcupine Pie”
Magic tricks are fun. It could be because it is fun to be deliberately fooled and there’s the bonus we get when we figure out how and why we get fooled. I have spent long hours watching videos of magic tricks. An outstanding show is Penn & Teller’s “Fool Us” series. The format is standardized: magicians do their act, and then Penn & Teller have a shot at figuring out how the trick was done. If they can’t guess — if they get fooled — then the successful magician gets a trophy and gets to appear on P&T’s Las Vegas show.
Some of the acts are truly baffling. I marvel at the range of human creativity, talent and skill. It’s not mere harmless entertainment but it makes you think and learn something about human psychology. The art and science of misdirection is on full display. From it we can learn a lot about how not to get fooled when politicians, faux gurus and other charlatans chuck bullshit at us. Continue reading “Magic is Fun”
I like planes. My desktop background is invariably the picture of a plane. My favorite commercial jetliner is the Boeing 747.
Been a few days since the last entry on the blog. To jump start this stalled system here’s an open thread. What’s on your mind?
The purple flowers on the left are from a friend’s kitchen garden in Westmont, IL. Click on the image to embiggen in a new tab. Below, just for fun, I’d like to present two quite unrelated videos. I imply nothing by the conjunction. I hope you get a laugh out of them. Continue reading “Open Thread — Ask me Anything”
Summary
Sky Map comes with no warranties! If you choose to use it to navigate the high seas and you hit an iceberg, it’s your responsibility. If you tell your kids that the bright thing in the sky is Jupiter and it turns out to be a UFO and you are subsequently kidnapped by aliens – not our responsibility. If your kids subsequently fail their science homework – not our responsibility. If it wipes all the data in your phone, including the photos of the UFO that were going to make you rich – not our responsibility. If it causes your phone to tear a hole in the fabric of space and time, OK – that one is on us. Any other calamities not listed above — not our responsibility. Don’t use it while driving or carrying scissors.
Continue reading “Ask me anything – The disclaimers edition”
A comp sci joke claims that there are 10 kinds of people: those who understand binary numerals and those who don’t. Being a former computer science student myself, I find it tickles my funny bone. Continue reading “There are 10 Kinds of People”
I tell you, kids these days . . .
The description of this video says, “The whole world was watching for the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States: Donald J. Trump. Because we realize it’s better for us to get along, we decided to introduce our tiny country to him. In a way that will probably appeal to him the most.” Hilarious.
Now that the humor and silliness is done, it’s time to get serious. What’s on your mind?
Time for a comic relief from all the seriousness this place has descended to. The typewriter monkeys have been complaining. A bit of levity would do them good. So here’s a bit of humor and silliness. It’s one of my favorite stand-up comics, the incomparable Eddie Izzard. Since I mentioned typewriter monkeys, this excerpt from one of his shows is appropriate. To fully appreciate it, it is good to know a bit of French. I understand only a bit — un peu — of French. Mostly safe for work but he does use the occasional 4-letter word.
Life is a Random Draw 