humour
illconsidered | November 16, 2007Okay, so I've used this before on the old site, it is just too hilarious not to call to attention at least one more time! Steven Colbert's Tek Jansen shows us the (f?)utility of time travel to alter the past.
[UPDATE] There seems to be a problem on the Comedy Central end of things, hopefully it will be resolved!
neurophilosophy | November 15, 2007From KMBC:
Clay County sheriff's deputies said David Theiss, of Kansas City, possessed a Colorado River toad with the intention of using it as a hallucinogenic.
Experts said it's possible to lick the toad's venom glands to achieve psychedelic effects.
Most pet stores don't sell the Colorado River toad because the venom can sicken humans and kill household animals.
"People used to do it all the time, but it got faded out awhile, but came back as a fad. Not a smart one," animal expert Danny Snyder told KMBC's Dion Lim. "The toxins in it can kill a lot of stuff."
Authorities said this is the…
sb admin | November 12, 2007There's a revolutionary mental health claim in a hot new article - Therapeutic Efficacy of Cash in the Treatment of Anxiety and Depressive Disorders: Two Case Studies (e-pub ahead of print).
The first case report involves a man who was laid off and lost his pension; after treatment with various SSRIs and sedatives with numerous side effects, the patient came into the office free of depressive symptoms. He claimed to have won the lottery, which fMRI brain scans [shown here] confirmed with evidence of a complete remission. In the second case, a single mother of four found her anxiety and…
sb admin | November 9, 2007The Onion News Network brings us In The Know: Is The Government Spying On Paranoid Schizophrenics Enough? Satire of a talk show with pundits who promote more and better spying on people diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
Note: It's "people diagnosed with" (or just "people with") and not "schizophrenics" as people are more than their differences and labels. But that's not as funny, is it?
illconsidered | November 2, 2007Via Andrew Dessler on Gristmill, we have this quoted material:
At the World Climate Conference in Geneva this week, the United States blocked consensus on specific goals for reduction of carbon dioxide emission. As What's New predicted a month ago, the US sided with such backward nations as China and the Soviet Union, and oil producers like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Our traditional allies, Western European nations, Canada Japan, New Zealand and Australia, said they could cut emissions through energy efficiency measures at no net cost. A German study even concludes they can make money --…
illconsidered | October 30, 2007Okay, that headline should really say "What if...", but hey, this is one of "the internets" and I'm just one of those irresponsible activist bloggers, so what do I care? But let's get to the point...
Today's Dilbert cartoon offers some sound advice to Exxon Mobile, half of which they are already following.
Now, true to my vile, hate-spewing nature, I must say "I can't wait til they get to the second half" or something similar...but I just don't have the committment and follow-through required to reach blogger bigtime.
illconsidered | October 18, 2007In the Daily Show's brilliant style we get a quick overview of the right wing's hysterical reaction to Al Gore being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (co winning with the IPCC).
(YouTube video below with a H/T to CrooksandLiars)
(money quote: "Mother Teresa, f**k her!")
neurophilosophy | October 5, 2007The U.S. military has been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for its alleged plans to develop the "gay bomb".
The device was proposed in 1994 by researchers from the U.S. Air Force Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. The plans for its development are contained in a 1994 document entitled Harassing, Annoying, and "Bad Guy" Identifying Chemicals, which was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act about 3 years ago:
Chemicals that can affect human behavior so that discipline and moral in enemy units is adversely affected. One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong…
aardvarchaeology | October 4, 2007
Over at David Nessle's, his witty readers are discussing translations -- more particularly, bad translations. I collect crap translations from English to Swedish, so I decided to offer some to you, Dear Reader. To make this palatable to non-Swedish-speakers, I'll add a second step to explain what the Swedish mistranslation means literally in each case.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Main character drives around on a rainy night looking for a place called Cornflower. Meeting someone, he asks for directions, but the other guy just drives off and our hero yells an insult after him."Excuse…
aardvarchaeology | September 27, 2007From today's issue of free subway paper Metro, I translate:
Hey there...
... Martin Rundkvist, 35, the archaeologist who has found a unique 16th century sword in the woods.
How did you make the find -- through cutting-edge methods?
-- I sat down in the lotus position and took in the vibrations with my astral antennae.
Astral antennae?
-- You've got to have long hair to take in the vibes. All hair dressers are paid by the government to cut off the astral antennae. They've got a hidden agenda, them hair dressers.
Really? So, how many lives do you think the sword has taken?
-- Well, it really…
aardvarchaeology | September 14, 2007From Tor yesterday (and I translate):A short while ago I sat down in the subway beside a sixtyish lady, opened my backpack and got out a book titled From Frege to Gödel. A conversation ensued.
"Oh my, that's a thick book! Is it maths?"
(Tor sighs silently and pulls out his ear plugs.)
"Yes, mathematical logic."
"It's like a brick!"
"Yeah, but you don't have to read it from cover to cover, it's an antholo..."
"Have you read Wittgenstein's Taractus?"
"The Tractatus? Well, bits and..."
"When I am on the operating table, under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs, Bertrand Russell keeps me…
aardvarchaeology | September 13, 2007
Seen this? A mashup of a filmed conversation between atheist crusader Richard Dawkins and meth-user cum charismatic preacher cum gay john Ted Haggard, set to audio from Monty Python's parrot sketch. W00t! Many thanks to Dear Reader Martin C for the link.
neurophilosophy | September 8, 2007ABC News has posted a transcript of Osama bin Laden's videotaped statement, in which he refers to Noam Chomsky as "among the most capable" of commentators on the Iraq war.
And in a Mind Hacks exclusive, Vaughan has posted a deleted portion of the statement, in which bin Laden lays out his demands for psycholinguists.
aardvarchaeology | September 8, 2007Hot on the heels of my paean to the Stockholm Sluice, here's something about the Hornsgatan street in Stockholm. Be warned, though: this work has been deemed substandard by the Swedish editor of Vice Magazine.
HORNSGATAN
By Martin Rundkvist, 19 March 2007
Hornsgatan, the Street of the Horn, used to be Stockholm's Wild West. It starts sedately enough at the 17th century South Town Hall but then ploughs straight through the churchyard of St. Mary, the bones of poets and burghers flying. Gathering speed, it passes Marijuana Square (as St. Mary's square was known in the 70s) and shoots off west…
aardvarchaeology | September 1, 2007
My Norwegian buddy Torkel reminded me of the wonderful site TOP 10 MOST RIDICULOUS BLACK METAL PICS OF ALL TIME. These guys are beyond words. And there's a second collection that I hadn't seen before! Satan laughing spreads his wings, as TV comedian Ozzy Osborne used to sing back when I was just an evil twinkle in my dad's eye. Oh lord, yeah.
aardvarchaeology | August 31, 2007
Internationally reknowned evolutionary biologist and legendary party animal Professor Steve Steve is on tour in Scandinavia. In the above image, taken moments ago, the professor and I discuss evo-devo on the Rundkvist family's balcony in Fisksätra outside Stockholm. I hear he's got some radical new discoveries in zebrafish teratology in the publishing pipeline, apparently the fortuitous result of dropping a bottle of Bushmill's into a bar aquarium. Tomorrow we're off together to the Sachsensymposium in Trondheim, Norway, the main conference for post-Roman, pre-Viking archaeology in northern…
aardvarchaeology | August 28, 2007
Dear Reader, you of course know that there's a rare moss named Anomodon attenuatus. But did you know that its Swedish name is piskbaronmossa, "Whip Baron Moss"? I wonder if it grows upon the grave of the Marquis de Sade.
aardvarchaeology | August 1, 2007Recent discoveries by my friend Lars got me thinking about New Age archaeology. The Mid-summer hippie/druid vs. police battles for Stonehenge are legendary. A few years ago I was given a guided tour of the Salisbury Plain's finest sites by my charming scholar friend Rebecca Montague. Entering the West Kennet long barrow's megalithic burial chamber, I felt a marked scent of joss sticks. Becca told me about Mid-summer nights at Silbury Hill, when she was posted to kindly ask hippies not to scale the vulnerable monument. Many agreed not to, but one greying lady became very irate. Before stomping…
aardvarchaeology | July 28, 2007Our local newspaper Nacka-Värmdö-Posten for 24 July has an item by Evelina Stucki that I would be remiss to keep from you, Dear Reader (and I translate)."Last summer, three Värmdö girls went to Brighton in Great Britain. Before leaving, they had tried to contact their host family, but the phone number they had been given did not work. When they arrived, it turned out that there were thirteen people living in the house. [...] the family was prone to fighting, and the girls allegedly did not get much to eat.
The host father had changed his name to Elvis Presley and the host parents were…