Children often respond to someone saying something hurtful by reciting “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me”. But it seems like adults are less mature than children because alleged grown ups can be aroused to a violent and even murderous rage simply by being called names. [Read more…]
Some years ago, two friends and colleagues of mine in different academic departments, both divorced, started living together and had children. They did not pretend they were married nor did they advertise that they were not. The female member once told me that since they were not married, she referred to the other person as her ‘partner’. She discovered that when she did so, people assumed that her partner must be female as well, [Read more…]
I have noticed that when I make calls on Skype, I sometimes hear a small echo of my voice. This has a remarkably discombobulating effect, making it almost impossible to continue speaking.
I learned that a Japanese company has used this effect to create a speech jamming gun that you can use to silence speakers whom you find annoying. [Read more…]
In the northern hemisphere, the official seasons are as follows: winter goes from the winter solstice (December 21) to March 19 (the day before the spring equinox on March 20), spring from March 20 until June 19 (the day before the summer solstice on June 20), summer from June 20 until September 21 (the day before the fall equinox on September 22), and [Read more…]
When I moved to this site in January, I had to transfer my nearly seven years worth of posts from my old site. I was technically incompetent to do this but Jason Thibeault at Lousy Canuck has the skills and worked tirelessly to make the transfer. Since the data file was huge, it required [Read more…]
A member of the custodial staff in a Berlin art museum came across what looked like a water stain on the floor and after diligent efforts managed to scrub it away. Unfortunately, it turned out that the ‘stain’ was part of an exhibit by artist Martin Kippenberger titled When it Starts Dripping from the Ceiling, valued at $1.1 million.
Oops.
In order to reduce spam, I have a policy that the very first comment that is submitted must be approved by me. Once approved, that commenter is free to comment without prior approval.
This means, however, that I must judge if the first comment is genuine or not. So people who are commenting for the first time should make sure that it is relevant to the post that they are commenting on and does not look like it could be misjudged to have been generated by a spambot.
I have had to turn down some comments because they were too generic. If yours was one that was turned down by mistake, I apologize and urge you to resubmit with the above in mind.
Thanks.