Showing posts with label just for fun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label just for fun. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Wednesday Links



Have you bought your Waboba yet?

Eloquence fatigue.

Finding color in fossils.

Home really alone.

Maybe Roger Simon is no longer alone?

The world's smallest snake.

Neuroeconomics.

Snoozing makes you smarter. Has anybody looked into drinking beer?

Stuff your brain.

The Springfield years and what they say.

Does quantity trump quality?

The Google of criminal searches.

SpaceX finds that space is still hard.

The dawn of artificial photosynthesis?

Extinct in 12 years?

Saving the crumbling Timbuktu manuscripts.

Are men neutered?

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

What my cadaver is worth?

$4590.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online Dating

Mingle2 - Dating Site




Don't go gettin' any ideas.

From the Email Archives

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter. The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups. These are known in the United States today as (1) Democrats and (2) Republicans.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor the aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Republican party. Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the Republicans by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Democratic party. Some of these Democratic men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girliemen.

Some noteworthy Democratic achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that Republicans provided. Over the years Republicans came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Democrats are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern Democrats like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard Democratic fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men.

Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are Democrats. Democrats invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Republicans drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Republicans are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, pilots, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively.

Republicans who own companies try to hire other Republicans who want to work for a living.

Democrats produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production.

Democrats believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the Democrats remained in Europe when Republicans were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Where is this?

My humble apologies, gentle readers, it would seem that in my zeal to stump Skookumchuk I only succeeded in stumping everyone. It was a pyrrhic victory I assure you. I promise to try to refine the process as we proceed.



Answer to last week's puzzle: Ft. Worth, looking south from the Heritage Park along the river.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Weekly Links


False memories have been stored in artificial neurons for the first time.

Wildlife is returning to Chernobyl.

Honda is discontinuing the hybrid Accord.

A list of the most overpaid CEOs in America.

The world's latest tallest building.

Bullet points kill your presentation.

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati says that aid to Africa does more harm than good.

New uses for the Internet.

Normal skin cells can be reprogrammed into becoming stem cells. No need for embryos.

Paper that talks to you.

What the world eats.

The Picture.

A major advance in our understanding of the genetic basis of many diseases.

Everything you ever wanted to know about video codecs.

Were puddles of water discovered on Mars?

Bob Dylan wrote all the pop songs of the last 35 years.

High wages in India are forcing Tata Consultancy Services (one of the largest Indian consultancy firms) to outsource to Mexico.

Why Iran won't compromise.

Why your kids expect to be rich.

25 most popular blogs.

Massive volcano pluming into space.

America's best and worst paying jobs.

The company which Privacy International has called "an endemic threat to privacy", worst on their list.

Where is this?

Skookumchuk is just too darn good for me and it's forcing me to become more obscure, which means it's even less likely that anybody else will recognize the place. Still, we have to continue to try to stump Skook, don't we?



Answer to last week's puzzle: Ottawa.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Saturday Ant Facts

All of the following are taken from the Wikipedia article on ants. Things I never knew.

- There are more than 12,000 species of ants with more diversity of species in the tropics.
- Ants are not native to Hawaii.
- Ants evolved from waspoids about 150 million years ago.
- Ants lack lungs and a heart; their central nervous system is mostly a column of nerves, similar to the spinal column in humans.
- In addition to their compound eyes, they also have three small "oceli" on the top of their heads for detecting light and dark. They can aee polarized light and use it for geolocating themselves.
- It is estimated that, pound for pound, they constitute something between 15% and 25% of all terrestrial animal biomass.
- The genetic system in ants is "haplodiploidy" which means there are no sex chromosomes, and the sex is entirely determined by the number of chromosomes: males are haploid and females are diploid.
- Ants communicate through chemical signals sensed in the antennae, and unlike us they are able to smell in stereo and use that information spatially.
- Ant males have no fathers and no sons; their genetic material is entirely derived from their mothers.
- Most ants bite for defense but fire ants are unique in having a poison sac. Jack Jumper Ants found in - - - Australia have stings that cause several fatalities yearly.
- This one is a little scary: "ants may be the only group of animals besides primates and some other mammals in which interactive teaching behavior has been observed".
- Ant societies exhibit a wide variety of diversity. Some, like Protestants, are practically solitary; others are well-known for their aggressive warlike ways. War seems to be perfectly natural and endemic among some ant species and sugar ants are famous for their aggressive sidewalk battles which may leave thousands of ants dead. Some enslave others; very similarly to the Ottoman Emperors, Amazon ants are incapable of feeding themselves and must rely on captured slaves from other species to survive.
- Some ants farm fungus and some farm aphids.
- Many species of birds exhibit a peculiar behavior called "anting", in which they pick up and drop ants on their wings, which is not fully understood.
- Siafu ants function as natural insecticides: they will completely clear a field of insect pests and then move on.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Where is this?

Skookumchuk was much faster to solve the puzzle than I expected yesterday so I'm going to have to start making these a little harder.



Answer to yesterday's puzzle: Indianapolis

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Where is this?

I'm going to do a daily game for a while. I'll post a picture of a city each day and then the next day I'll post the name. Let's see who can get the most right.

Here's the first one (click to enlarge).



Answer tomorrow.