Category Archives: Comedy

last for today

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1

From mendel, this SciAm article about how children perceive is worth reading through, even if it gets a bit dry. My favourite quote:

By 18 months, babies have come to appreciate that a picture merely represents a real thing. Instead of manipulating the paper, they point to pictures and name objects or ask someone else for the name. Melissa A. Preissler of Yale University and Susan Carey of Harvard University recently provided a good example of this development. The two researchers used a simple line drawing of a whisk to teach 18- and 24-month-olds the word for this object that they had not seen before. Most of the children assumed the word referred to the object itself, not just to the picture of it. In other words, they interpreted the picture symbolically–as standing for, not just being similar to, its referent.

In other words, children are call-by-value, adults are call-by-reference. No wonder I preferred BASIC to C when I was 10…

Edit One last addition: Jonathan Coulton‘s Mandelbrot Set rules. Listen and buy his music! And ignore his misspelled name on Metafilter.

limericks

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I have been challenged to write 2 limericks, one including the word “Orleans.” Here goes!

By the river known as Mississippi,
Two old codgers confronted a hippie.
      “For a peek in your jeans,
      We will show New Orleans
Just how loud two old men can shout ‘Yippie!'”

Notes: Though “New Orleans” is usually pronounced more like “Nawlins,” it’s perfectly acceptable to use the “Northern” pronunciation in song and verse — just ask Louis Armstrong.

Lobachevsky looked down from the sky,
And exclaimed “Обалдеть! Woe is I!
      For the roots of equations,
      Dandelin gets elations,
But will I steal the fame from Bolyai?

Notes: See the links, it’s a math limerick. Yeah, I’m a total geek.

silly bot, tricks is for…

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02:08 < @Wohali> fester, how are you?
02:08 * fester takes a drag man..
02:08 < fester> Wohali: I'm feeling stoned off my tits :) man..
02:08 * Wohali fondles fester
02:08 < fester> Gosh :[
02:08 < @dys4iK> hahaha
02:08 < fester> something is broken and it's not your fault? man..
02:08 * Wohali kisses fester
02:09 < fester> crikey dude...
02:09 < @Wohali> ghahahahhha
02:09 < @dys4iK> heh
02:09 < @Wohali> that's right, there's no women on IRC
02:09 * Wohali grabs fester's ass
02:09 * fester grabs Wohali man..
02:09 < @dys4iK> hahaha
02:09 < @Wohali> fester, which pocket do you carry a hanky?
02:09 < fester> death comes to those who wait dude...
02:10 < @dys4iK> was that a threat?
02:10 < fester> ask someone else man..
02:10 < @dys4iK> fester you're mean.
02:10 < @Wohali> fester, what colors are your hankies?
02:10 < fester> 3 fingers
02:10 * Wohali is....ROFL :D

drama

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Ok, most of you by now have realized how dramatic I can be when I write. Why do I do it? Well, it comes naturally. That doesn’t mean I like it when I realize my blog sounds like angsty teenage drivel. But I’ve spent most of my life thinking, hey, negativity is everywhere. I can see it!

It makes for a good career in incremental process improvement. I can take just about any technical business into which I’m thrown and help make it better. But the trick I learned in the business world – to present the good things and to praise them, and to present the bad things in a constructive manner – are hard to apply to myself.

Why? Because I’m so used to being down on myself, to criticize myself before someone else does. That’s a good way to never be happy. So everything comes out like drama. In the end, though, every single one of those entries represents something I’ve figured out about myself. It’s made me happy! And why not wax eloquent about it? I think I will continue to be poetic, but I’m gonna be a little bit less dramatic. ;)

Still, I miss posting silly stuff here and sharing the best with you guys. So here’s a collection of great links:

Find me on IRC if you want some decidedly more off-colour links. I’m trying to keep the website a bit more family-friendly these days.