Humor

One of my friends recently asked for help in designing a giant squid costume to be worn by multiple people. So I sketched this up: In case you can't read my AMAZING handwriting, here's the text: - one person per arm + tentacle OR arm tips on roller skates- uses handles to rotate eyes- waves arms to move fins- arms could be stuffed or just flat fabric- use sturdy fabric the GIANT SQUID MULTI-COSTUMEfits 2-12 lunatics

Rough days like today demand a little humor. I've long wanted a Madonna in a tub in honor of my grandmother (who was Catholic and from New York), but these are hard to come by in West Texas so I made do with a Buddha frog and a tub figurine. 

Zombies Ate My Research Assistant Now it can be told: the hidden truth behind the climate change hoax.  Global warming may not be real, but zombies are!  If you don't believe me, go argue with America's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention: Zombie apocalypse survival guide published by US government. As any fool knows, the climate change hoax is a conspiracy started in the 21st century by Al Gore and the IPCC.  Their claim that the planet's climate is being changed by human actions is supposedly based on peer-reviewed "science".  Nuts!  It's a simple matter of…

Serious cursing was heard in the Wombles household when Blogger inexplicably failed yesterday and still wasn't fixed today. I wailed. I nashed my teeth. I seriously thought of getting off my arse and doing something else. And then I remembered. I am on other sites. That's right: besides the fourteen bloody blogs I've got on blogger, I have several at wordpress. I'm at Open Salon. I'm at Before It's News (I want to open a site called After No One Gives A Shit). And let us never forget, I'm at Science 2.0 (my favorite place for sciency-ness, like truthiness, only better). Of course, this last…

XKCD makes fun of the fact that a 95% certain test is to 5% uncertain, and so, if one just often enough tests, a false positive will at some point result. Ha ha ha, good message, but I have to poop on the party, sorry – party pooper – don’t know me yet? I mean, I would applaud if this were directed at misusing error analysis and statistics, as I criticized before, but this seems to go against the media again, not the scientists. The comic kind of insinuates that a 5% uncertain test needs only 20 repetitions (count the panels!) in order to have one false positive. The naïve calculation here…

Manchester Confidental postedd a rather creative April Fool's Day article called Squid ink is the new Garra fish. Garra is the genus of fish, sometimes called doctor fish, that will nibble all the dead skin off your toes if you go to a fancy spa. That's real. This is not: The squids, which are sourced from off the west coast of Indonesia, have been found to produce a rare ink that stains even the fairest of skin a beautiful olive colour when applied from precisely 23cm away. But it's pretty funny. The beautician, or Squidologist as they are aptly named, removes the squid fresh from a tank…

Relic Finds Reveal Zulu War Cover-Up Paleontologists searching for fossils in a remote area of South Africa were astonished to find spent bullets and cartridge case remnants in an area not previously known as a battle site.  A chemical analysis of the cases and traces of propellant identified the items as being from the time of Britain's wars with the Zulus and the Boers.  Investigators seeking further information about the previously unrecorded presence of British soldiers in the area have found papers in British Government archives which show that a third battle was fought after…

New Energy Source Discovered ... what do we find today, now that the internet is so common and so many people are using it to communicate and share ideas? A new energy source, that's what. Ahren Paulson has recently published his discovery of a new source of energy which could fuel the world's power stations. The new energy source has the added advantage of reducing the incidence of trolling on climate - related blogs. Hat tip to Daniel Bailey for - indirectly - leading me to the above news story.

How many beans make five? 6.25 Caveat: the above answer is only a ballpark statistical assumption. In many jurisdictions there are statutory requirements relating to the sale of goods.  Of relevance to this discussion are the laws regarding 'fitness for use'.  Regulations covering the sale of seeds commonly require a germination rate of at least 80% under some set of standard conditions. 80% of 6.25 seeds produces how many bean plants?  You do the maths. Of course, there are many varieties of beans.  Then there are various climatic conditions, soil types, fertilizers etc.…

Yesterday I had to explain what a light bulb joke is - to somebody from Mongolia – they seem to not have discovered that joke yet or don’t find it funny. The joke in question was already highly on the meta level, that is, the answer was not involving a number at all and only funny if you already heard at least a few of those typical how many to screw in or change a light bulb jokes: Question: How many Feminists does it need to screw in a light bulb? Answer: THAT’S NOT FUNNY! [Actually, it was this one, but then one cannot post it without having to explain how much one is aware of that…