Category: Funny

Why I use a Mac when possible

Overheard while on the phone ordering some stuff for work from a certain computer company based in Round Rock, Texas: “Man, it’s going to be one of those days with my computer…”

Yep, that’s why I use a Mac and keep rooting for Linux.

The truth doesn’t hurt all that much…

Thanks to Kate for pointing this out. And, now that I look again, that picture even kind of resembles me…

Your Score: Pure Nerd

78 % Nerd, 47% Geek, 34% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the “dork.” No-longer. Being smart isn’t as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos

Dialogue

Setting: A three-year old’s bedroom, morning, before work. We’ve been watching Zabomofoo, and Nate is putting on pants (YES!)

Characters:

Daddy

Nate (the three-year old)

D: (Sings) While walking with the Nate one day, Daddy and Jacob saw something strange, a bouncing little creature who loved to jump and play… (Spoken) Nate, what do you think we saw in our yard?

N: A monkey.

D: (Laughs) That would be cool, but I was thinking a squirrel. You know there’s no monkeys in our yard.

N: (seriously) There ought to be. (Smiles)

Exunt

Forgotten Literature

I’ve been following the RSS feed of Project Gutenberg for a while. Don’t read much of what comes across, but I’ve been “thumbing” through any old magazine that comes across. Today, they published an old issue of the Atlantic Monthly, featuring a tale of alien abduction:

 After supper my captor led me to a separate arbor, and pointed to a bed of soft, white straw, upon which I immediately stretched myself, and he retired. Presently I arose and attempted to go out, but found that he had fastened the door on the outside. It was not pleasant to find myself a prisoner; but that subject was instantly driven from my mind as I looked out through the lattice and saw Sagittarius, with no signs of the planet Mars. I returned to my straw; and, after the excitement of the day had subsided, I fell asleep and slept until after sunrise. 

No Agent Scully, though.

It was the blurst of times

The summary:

Your tax dollars at work. Well, if you’re British.

The long story:

There’s an old saw about probability that “Given enough time, a monkey and a typewriter will produce the works of Shakespeare.”

It’s a little bit of a fallacy on two counts: First, if you work the math, the likelyhood of even one of the works occurring randomly is such that it likely wouldn’t happen in the life of the universe. Second, a monkey already did it, just using quill and parchment, as typewriters weren’t invented in the 16th century.

However, public arts councils being somewhat unschooled in either probability or art, a group in the UK funded a University team for six months to see what, exactly, would happen if you did lock six macaque monkeys in a room with a typerwriter.

Predictably, they didn’t come up with the works of Shakespeare, or even Dan Brown. The results were (from the article)

“The alpha male bashed hell out of the computer with a stone and the other monkeys did little else but urinate and defecate on the keyboard. Nevertheless, the monkeys did produce the equivalent of five pages of type with a predilection for the letter S. One researcher said that proved the monkeys were not hitting the keyboard at random, so were part of the way towards literacy. Defending the expenditure, a lecturer said the filmed experiment made very stimulating and fascinating viewing and was cheaper to produce than reality TV, but there was no sign of Shakespeare.”

I’d watch it.

However, gentlemen, we do need to take a firm lesson from this. Work like this needs to get public support in the United States. It’s a matter of national security. This article, my friends, is the finest example of how America is losing its lead in screwball humor. Sure, we’ve got “Country Fried Videos” on CMT, and we do still hold presidential debates once four years, but cutting edge research like this is needed to ensure we keep our technical superiority.

Props to my buddy Christian for sending it over.

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