humor
omnibrain | December 3, 2007I've always heard that a beard can keep you warmer during the winter months but how can you really know?! After all, if you start with a beard and then shave it off there might be some strange adaptation effect going on. And who knows the memory of cold might be completely inaccurate anyway. That's where Pete Hickey from Canada comes in (of course he lives in Canada).
I had only one choice. Shave half of my beard.
The experiment
I shaved the right half of my beard. The result can be seen in the picture above. I then proceeded to perform my various outdoor activities.
Weight
I…
evolvingthoughts | December 2, 2007
The Institute for Intellectual Disco Dancing has spun its recent debacle at Minnesota thus:
The dyspeptic and ad hominem blogger/biologist Dr. P.Z. Myers was there and brought a Darwinist claque.
Note that in passing it is not a fallacy to be ad hominem if the point is relevant to the argument. But let's focus on dyspepsia. A friend recently noted my own dyspepsia on matters religious (not nearly as strong as PZ's though). It occurred to me that dyspepsia is a really great condition: it stops you swallowing shit uncritically. Now intellectual coprophagia may be necessary to ensure that…
pharyngula | December 2, 2007
We're winning everything but the spelling bees, apparently.
(via My Confined Space)
oracknows | December 2, 2007Apparently Jack Dempsey was his generation's Chuck Norris, who, as we know, doesn't read books but stares them down until he gets the information that he wants. Here he is in a 1934 Modern Mechanix article boasting how he can "whip any mechanical robot":
Of course, I still think it would hurt like hell to try to punch steel, regardless of how good a boxer you are.
mikethemadbiologist | December 1, 2007:By way of moonbat, I came across this diagram that explains intelligent design creationism perfectly:
Nuff said.
evolvingthoughts | November 30, 2007
This guy is a great drinker, ranconteur, and wit, all with an Irish accent. It turns out he's also a great teacher.
sb admin | November 30, 2007Anaesthetist's Hymn performed by the comedy duo Amateur Transplants, set to the music of Total Eclipse of the Heart.
[P.S. What's this got to do with the brain? Consciousness.]
grrlscientist | November 28, 2007tags: dateline, parody, humor, to catch a predator, streaming video
This amusing parody of a scene in Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" TV show was banned, and so, it will make you laugh. Lesson learned? Make sure the predator isn't wearing Nikes [1:06]
evolvingthoughts | November 26, 2007
This little piece by netfriend Richard Harter, who apparently predates coal, serves to demonstrate that philosophers really aren't clever enough at thinking up counterexamples...
The sentence, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously", was presented by Chomsky, as a great example of a series of words strung together randomly. Not only is it grammatical according to the lexical classification, and non-sense on a semantic level. Or so goes the claim. But is the claim correct?
A green idea is, according to well established usage of the word "green" is one that is an idea that is new and untried…
pharyngula | November 26, 2007How can you possibly make the Creation "Museum" look sillier?
This may not be a LOL image, but I thought it was hilarious.
If you're having trouble reading the blurry print, it says:
According to God's Word, thorns came after Adam's sin, about six thousand years ago, not millions of years ago. Since we have discovered thorns in the fossil record, along with dinosaurs and other plants and animals, they all must have lived at the same time as humans, after Adam's sin.
How can you argue with logic like that that?
grrlscientist | November 26, 2007tags: star wars, star trek, lego, streaming video
This is an amusing fan-flick using starships made from legos, showing a battle between the starship enterprise and the x-wing fights from star wars [3:16]
terrasig | November 25, 2007We discussed in a post the other day about the use of a class of anti-glaucoma drugs for cosmetic purposes to increase the number and thickness of eyelashes.
Well, we can always count on The Onion to provide us with levity and witty parody on current events.
I'm not sure what is more difficult: interpreting the science or consistently coming up with satire. Hats off to Onion writers.
While you're at the website for The Onion, see also Orac's post about their take on acupuncture.
oracknows | November 25, 2007As usual, The Onion gets it right, particularly the part about all acupuncture being "fake" acupuncture.
By the way, this is the study the article is referring to. Meanwhile, Mark Crislip weighs in on this study and some other recent acupuncture studies.
Hmmm. Why should Dr. Crislip have all the fun. True, counting the study above, I have covered three of the studies1, 2, 3 he discussed in his podcast, but maybe I should take a look at the others...
evolvingthoughts | November 25, 2007
From Henry Gee's blog:
Dear Professor Trellis
Thank you for your manuscript entitled “On the positively negative interaction between one abbreviation and another abbreviation, conditional on the negatively double-negative interaction between a third abbreviation and one or other of the first two abbreviations”.
Please be aware that I am a Servant of the Secret Fire, Wielder of the Flame of Anor, and in that capacity I’m afraid to say that the Dark Fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun. I regret that your manuscript must go back to the Shadow. I am sorry to be the bearer of what must be…