I cannot brain, I haz teh dumb : Laelaps

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Laelaps is the blog of Brian Switek, a freelance science writer based in New Jersey. This blog frequently features his musings on paleontology, evolution, and the history of science. Switek also blogs for Smithsonian magazine's Dinosaur Tracking.

Switek's first book, Written in Stone, will be published on November 1, 2010 by Bellevue Literary Press.

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I cannot brain, I haz teh dumb

Category: Blogging • Humor • Nonsense
Posted on: February 17, 2009 3:01 PM, by Brian Switek

There are times when it becomes abundantly apparent that I have been spending far too much time on the computer.

Yesterday afternoon I was preparing a "cheat sheet" for my statistics exam (don't fret; we were allowed one page of notes to bring to the test). I decided to write it up with a pencil rather than type it, and about 3/4 of the way through I thought "I'm thirsty, I think I will get a drink. I had better hit 'save' to preserve my work."

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

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Comments

If I read something on paper, e.g., finish a chapter in a book, I always want to click on "post comment" at the end ;-)

Posted by: Coturnix | February 17, 2009 3:42 PM

Have you ever had a dream about arguing with infamous creationist trolls? That one got me to step away from the Blogohedron for a few days. . . .

Posted by: Blake Stacey | February 17, 2009 3:43 PM

Blake; I haven't had that one yet. Most of my nightmares involve Billy Madison type scenarios in which I am not only expelled from college but am forced to repeat high school. You can probably guess why.

Posted by: Laelaps | February 17, 2009 3:45 PM

That's far better than smearing white out on your screen because you made a typo, as per the old joke.

Posted by: Amber | February 17, 2009 3:55 PM

I catch myself looking for the "find" button when I want to locate a passage in a book.

Posted by: sbh | February 17, 2009 6:09 PM

You must write tiny! A sheet in 8pt arial vs handwriting?

Posted by: The Ridger | February 17, 2009 6:52 PM

That's funny. Now if only I could have sent my kids' diapers to the recycle bin with a click. Fortunately they're way beyond that stage now.

Posted by: Lilian Nattel | February 17, 2009 7:55 PM

ZOMGZ =gasp= ROFL =snort= MAO!1!!1!

Posted by: The Mad LOLScientist, FCD | February 18, 2009 12:03 AM

I've caught myself thinking I should tidy my apartment up a bit so I'd have more free disk space.And wanting to save pictures I find in books onto my desktop.

Posted by: A. Willow | February 18, 2009 3:11 AM

I have found my self drawing something on paper, making a mistake and reaching out for 'Ctrl Z' !!
Reality's overrated.

Posted by: Steve O'C | February 18, 2009 8:09 AM

I am always saying that I would love for there to be a Ctrl F in real life- also spell check.

Posted by: bmurph | February 18, 2009 11:26 AM

I once had a T-shirt that said, "On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key."

Laelaps:

I think you're far from alone on that one. Tom Robbins's novel Villa Incognito has a character, a middle-aged man, who's happy he's finally "graduated from dream school".

The Ridger:

I bet the notes for a statistics exam would be full of formulas and graphs and stuff which it'd be simpler to do by hand.

Posted by: Blake Stacey | February 18, 2009 2:08 PM

Laelaps: I don't think I've ever done that particular one. But I have done some other things that are equally, well, daft.

Blake:

Your first comment reminds me of the reflex action of good Apple ][ geeks on hearing the floppy drive stuttering or some other symptom of impending doom. I forget the exact shortcut now, but it was something awkward like shift-command-escape-delete, and experienced geeks could hit it in a pure reflect action. (And beat the floppy drive before it destroyed everything!)

This is common knowledge, so excuse my mentioning this, but there are a number of applications that you can type in equations and have them rendered as an image or PDF, etc. (usually via LaTeX). LaTeXiT is one example.

Posted by: Heraclides | February 19, 2009 5:07 AM

Heraclides:

Funny you should mention that. . . .

(-:

Posted by: Blake Stacey | February 19, 2009 9:52 AM

Laugh, for sure! That is so funny - and we've all had those moments!! Thanks for sharing the story, most of us could use a good laugh every now and again. :) Cheers, ctenotrish.

Posted by: ctenotrish | February 19, 2009 12:40 PM