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It is my contention that any politician who runs on a "tough on crime" platform should be investigated for corruption.…
Apologies for the rambling but I have a half-formed thought I wanted to work through here. It feels like a…
Thanks! Done partly for realism, and partly so I'd have one word less to fit in the balloon. :-p
I like the realistic touch where you have the Republican congresscritter say "ban trans from participating in sports," instead of…
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Category Archives: Mind-blowing Miscellania and other Neat Stuff
You Can Create A Language, But You Can’t Control It
From Wikipedia: Ithkuil is a constructed language created by John Quijada, designed to express deeper levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and clearly, particularly with regard to human categorization. The language is notable for its grammatical complexity and extensive … Continue reading
Family in Siberia Lived For 42 Years Without Seeing Anyone Else
Via Sullivan, a fascinating article in The Smithsonian, about the Lykovs, a religious fundamentalist family that hid in deep Siberian forest to escape Bolshevic persecution. There were four of them – wife, husband, and 2 small children – when they … Continue reading
The Coolest Self-Portrait Photo Ever Taken (Open Thread)
From NASA’s picture of the day, astronaut Aki Hoshide’s self-portrait. I just am not getting tired of looking at this image. That’s actually not the entire photo – click on the image to see the whole photo. May as well … Continue reading
George Herbert Walker Bush Would Win The Presidential Knife Fight
I found this post at Face In The Blue, going through each of the 44 presidents and asking which would win in a 44-President knifefight melee — oddly entertaining. The rules, as set by redditor Xineph: * Every president is … Continue reading
A Taxonomy of Apologies
I’m a regular reader of Ethics Alarms. Jack, the blogger there, is a great deal more conservative than I, although I think he might describe himself as a centrist. But he posts opinions I find unpredictable now and then (Jack’s … Continue reading
The Jerk-O-Meter
From an article in New Scientist: To capture these signals and depict them visually, Pentland worked with MIT doctoral students Daniel Olguín Olguín, Benjamin Waber and Taemie Kim to develop a small electronic badge that hangs around the neck. Its … Continue reading
Smash All The Traffic Lights! Burn The Stop Signs!
Would we be better off if many intersections were redesigned, to get rid of most of the traffic signs and the traffic lights? Many traffic engineers think so, following in the example of the late Hans Monderman. From The Wilson … Continue reading
What would happen if the earth stopped spinning?
This might make a fabulous setting for a science fiction novel. From Esri.com: If earth ceased rotating about its axis but continued revolving around the sun and its axis of rotation maintained the same inclination, the length of a year … Continue reading
Quote: Close buttons in elevators
In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. … Continue reading
Cool Needs No Excuse
If you’ve ever studied anything related to fractals, you’ve no doubt come across the Mandelbrot set. Named for its progenitor, mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, the image takes a simple formula, repeats it, studies how quickly or slowly results approach or escape … Continue reading
Sweeney is the perfect accompaniment to a tough-on-crime comic. I bet the Judge had invested money in the prison industry.