I’ve often said that mathematically inclined people generally get that way because God takes everything in their skulls and pushes it over to the left. Tensor calculus? No problem. Understanding that it’s disturbing for a grown man to speak Klingon? Sorry, the part of the brain that ordinarily handles that is busy thinking about the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
Steve H., “Star Wars Still Sucks: ‘Quick, Someone Put More Minwax on Natalie'”, Hog on Ice, 2005-05-26.
December 22, 2023
QotD: Mathematically inclined people
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December 21, 2023
9 Ways to Slice a Pineapple
You Suck At Cooking
Published 6 Sept 2023There are many ways to cut a pineapple, but only nine of these are officially supported by the Pineapple Slicers Association of The World. None of those methods are depicted here.
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QotD: Wine bores
Pam Droog, letter to Vines magazine, May/June 2005.
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December 20, 2023
QotD: Washing the dog
“No, I can do those now, in ten minutes.”
“That’s okay. It will give me an excuse not to do it today.”
“Ha ha! I’ll be right back, just take ten minutes.”
“No really I’m serious I — ” but he was already on the job. Damned efficient conscientious local hardware store. I also exchanged a propane cylinder, even though it still had some gas in it. I can never tell. If I worked with these things every day I could tell by hoisting it, but it seemed light.
“Probably some in it,” I said to one of the 39 youths who work the store, “but if I can hoist it one hand it’s probably almost done.” To demonstrate my manliness I hoisted the cylinder chest high a few times. Ha! See! Am not old. Strong like bool!
I have a red line of pain running from my scapula to my kidney right now.
Went home, did not paint, because it was supposed to rain. It did not rain. Fixed a few things, napped hard — had got up early for the Roseville jaunt — then grilled kababs, wondering exactly what I was missing that would have added SHISH to the KEBABS. Helped Friend Wife give the dog a bath; it’s amazing how he knows a bath is imminent, and will brook no subterfuge. Anytime someone tries to get him upstairs with a treat, he’s suspicious. If you try to get him in the bathroom with a treat, he is convinced that this will end with humiliation and wetness for no good reason at all, I mean, c’mon, why? He just got to the point where he’s a walking embodiment of all the interesting things that have happened and the interesting places he has been, and we’re just going to erase that? A shower for a dog is like the little amnesia pens the Men in Black use.
James Lileks, The Bleat, 2019-09-16.
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December 14, 2023
What Top Gear Really Meant
Aididan
Published 13 Aug 2023Top Gear is one of the most bizarre shows to ever exist. Not because of the quality of the show or anything, but rather because of how it evolved over the course of its existence. What exactly is it about Top Gear that makes it so special? Well, watch the video and find out.
Or don’t, I’m not your mother.
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December 12, 2023
Rolling a Reliant Robin | Top Gear | BBC
Top Gear
Published 26 Nov 2010Jeremy takes the extreme sport of Reliant Robin rolling to the streets of Barnsley, aided by a string of celebrities who just happen to be on hand to help keep the fabled three-wheeler upright.
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December 4, 2023
Jeeves and Wooster, in a nutshell …
Barcode
Published 11 Oct 2021A summary of the entire Jeeves & Wooster series in roughly 6 minutes.
P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves (played by Stephen Fry) and Bertie Wooster (Hugh Laurie) have been lauded as one of the greatest comic double acts of all time. Set in the late 1920s-1930s, Jeeves and Wooster (1990-1993) follows the hilarious misadventures of Bertram Wilberforce Wooster — a young, affable English gentleman of the idle rich — and Jeeves — Bertie’s omniscient and resourceful valet. Jeeves discreetly takes control of his “mentally negligible” employer’s life, while Bertie Wooster finds himself pushed and reeled into countless imbroglios, fiascoes, and romantic entanglements led by his hapless friends and imperious aunts. But each disaster is drawn to its own satisfactory conclusion through a concatenation of intriguing coincidences … or so they would seem. Until, that is, the silent force behind every “coincidence” is revealed to be none other than the brilliant and inimitable Jeeves.
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November 29, 2023
QotD: The children of the revolution
As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up. What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn’t be a revolution or a riot. It’d be people who were frightened and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning, and all the little rules broke down. And when that happened, humans were worse than sheep. Sheep just ran; they didn’t try to bite the sheep next to them.
Terry Pratchett, Night Watch, 2002.
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November 8, 2023
Mel Blanc on How He Created His Iconic Voices | Carson Tonight Show
Johnny Carson
Published 27 Jun 2023Original Airdate: May 26, 1983
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October 30, 2023
Halloween Special: Dracula
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 31 Oct 2016It’s creepy! It’s classic! It’s surprisingly infrequently read! It’s everyone’s favorite gothic horror, Bram Stoker’s Dracula!
Wanna bypass the intro? Skip straight to 3:16 and party on!
For those asking, the outro song is “I Love The Night” by Blue Oyster Cult.
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October 15, 2023
History Summarized: The Castles of Wales
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 23 Jun 2023Every castle tells a story, but when one small country has over 600 castles, the collective story they tell is something like “holy heck ouch, ow, oh god, why are there so many arrows, ouch, good lord ow” – And that’s Wales for you.
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QotD: The two eras of Jazz
Dylan Jones, “The 100 best jazz albums you need in your collection”, GQ, 2019-08-25.
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October 7, 2023
QotD: Saudi princes
Abdul-Rahman was a longtime Deputy Defense Minister, whose catering company, by happy coincidence, held the catering contract for the Defense Ministry. The first Saudi prince to be educated in the west, he was a bit of a cranky curmudgeon in later years, mainly because of changes to the Saudi succession that eliminated any possibility of him taking the throne. But he nevertheless held a privileged place as the son of Ibn Saud, the man who founded the “nation” and stapled his name to it. When I say “the son”, I mean a son: Ibn Saud had approximately 100 kids, the first born in 1900, the last over half-a-century later, in 1952, a few months before ol’ Poppa Saud traded in siring for expiring.
Abdul-Rahman’s mother was said to be Ibn Saud’s favorite among his 22 wives — or, at any rate, one of the favorites. Top Five certainly. She also had the highest status, because she bore him more boys — seven — than any other other missus. They’re known as the Sudairi Seven or, alternatively, the Magnificent Seven. She also gave him seven daughters. They’re known as the seven blackout curtains standing over in the corner. This splendidly fertile lady’s name was Hussa bint Ahmed, and she was Ibn Saud’s cousin once removed and then, if I’m counting correctly, his eighth wife. But she’s a bit like the Grover Cleveland of the House of Saud — in that he’s counted as the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, and she’s the eighth wife and also either the tenth or eleventh. He first married her when he was 38 and she was 13. But he divorced her and then remarried her. In between their marriages she was married to his brother, but Ibn Saud was a sentimental lad and never got over his child-bride-turned-sister-in-law, so he ordered his brother to divorce her.
Don’t worry, though: In the House of Saud, it’s happy endings all round. Two of their daughters wound up marrying two of the sons of another brother of Ibn Saud. The Saudi version of Genealogy.com must be a hoot: “Hey, thanks for the DNA sample. You’re 53.8 per cent first cousin, and 46.2 per cent uncle.”
Mark Steyn, “The Son of the Man who Put the Saud in Saudi Arabia: Prince Abdul-Rahman bin Abdulaziz al Saud, 1931-2017”, Steyn Online, 2017-07-18.
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October 2, 2023
Why Web Filters Don’t Work: Penistone and the Scunthorpe Problem
Tom Scott
Published 6 Jun 2016In a small town with an unfortunate name, let’s talk about filtering and innuendo. And use it as an excuse for as many visual jokes as possible.
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September 29, 2023
History-Makers: Plato
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 9 Jun 2023For the best experience, project this video onto the wall of a cave.
SOURCES & Further Reading:
Five Dialogues by Plato, translation and introduction by G.M.A. Grube – Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, Second Edition, edited by C.D.C. Reeve and Patrick Lee Miller – Plato Vol I: Euthyphro Apology Crito and Phaedo from Loeb Classical Library, Edited and Translated by Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Plato https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pl…
I also have a degree in Classical Studies, specifically in “Classics and Philosophy”
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