friday fun
jdupuis | July 6, 2012This one is both kinda funny and kinda sad, from the "so funny it cycles around the funniness circle to not really funny anymore" file. It's basically a bunch of survey questions that someone can take to figure out if they're a troll. And they're a pretty good indicator.
Do you dare? Do I dare? Have at it: How to tell if you’re a troll
Here are a couple of the questions. You'll have to check out the link for the possible answers and the scoring system.
1. You read something on the internet you disagree with. How do you respond?
3. You read a new book recommended by others but you don’t…
jdupuis | June 29, 2012One thing you have got to give to the more-than-slightly unhinged staff at The Cronk of Higher Ed is that they have a bizarre and hilarious take on the most important issues in higher education.
And sort of dead-on too.
This is a case of So Funny It Hurts.
U-Va. Rector Dragas Aims to Remove God from Notre Dame
“Notre Dame has been operating like an exceptional university of higher learning,” said Dragas in her announcement. “Unfortunately the world has changed and colleges need CEO-minded leaders. God is a great motivator, but He’s no CEO.”
As an example, Dragas explained that God had been…
jdupuis | June 22, 2012Since it's convocation season, I thought I'd share this one from the ever-amusing, never-lets-me-down-late-on-a-Friday-afternoon-looking-for-something-anything-to-post-for-Friday-fun.
Family of Graduate Sets New Standard in Love-Showing Unruliness
Families at Kennebunkport State University’s commencement ceremony left in shame, realizing they had failed to show enough love for their respective graduates.
“After watching the Forrester family’s display of support for their son Lester, we realized the unworthiness of the flowers and gifts we brought for our graduating daughter Jessica,” said…
jdupuis | June 15, 2012I always thought Wolfgang Pauli's famous remark was the ultimate insult to scientists, but apparently I was wrong. Perhaps I was not even wrong given the plethora of scientific insults you can find out there.
In any case, many "thanks" to the Knoepfler Lab blog for their descriptive, specialized, perhaps overly ambitious but somewhat derivative middle-author list of insults. The moderate length list shows their solid commitment to being good science educators. They seem to be very good scientists to have come up with such a list, but their trainees don't seem as rude and insulting and…
jdupuis | June 8, 2012This past week one of the true giants of fantastic literature died: Ray Bradbury.
I like what Gregory Benford had to say on the Tor.com blog:
Nostalgia is eternal for Americans. We are often displaced from our origins and carry anxious memories of that lost past. We fear losing our bearings. By writing of futures that echo our nostalgias, Bradbury reminds us of both what we were and of what we could yet be.
Like most creative people, he was still a child at heart. His stories tell us: Hold on to your childhood. You don’t get another one. In so many stories, he gave us his childhood—and it…
jdupuis | June 1, 2012It's unseemly to revel in the misfortunes of others. Words to live by, ones I usually take very seriously. Of course, all bets are off for my Friday Fun posts, so let's revel a bit in the misfortunes of Facebook and the man seated at the throne in King's Landing.
As its share value continued to plummet towards zero in its first week of trading, social media giant Facebook has seen off a major revolt by thousands of furious shareholders by issuing a series of heartwarming and whimsical posts featuring kittens and other adorable internet memes.
*snip*
A number of disgruntled investors used…
jdupuis | May 25, 2012Christopher Lee -- long one of my absolute favourite actors -- is celebrating his 90th birthday on Sunday May 27.
I have fond memories of Lee as Dracula in the Hammer films of the 1950s and 1960s which I watched on TV as a very terrified little tyke. In fact, I can't imagine that today's parents would indulge their kids as much as mine did when it comes to watching extreme horror on tv. I mean, I was probably 7 or 8 when I started watching those old Hammer and other horror films.
Anyways, I seem no worse for wear.
And of course more recently I've really enjoyed his roles in the Star Wars and…
jdupuis | May 18, 2012Yes, it's been that kind of day.
"Fussy" dung beetles refusing to eat shit any more
To zoologists, they are nature's great recyclers, the 5,000 or so species that feed on faeces and maintain the ecological balance of the deserts, farmlands, forests and grasslands of the world. However, this may be about to change, as a younger generation of dung beetle tell their parents they 'are not eating that shit'.
The generation gap has truly struck in the Scarabaeoidea world. Older dung beetles point out that millions of generations before them have been happy to eat shit and they are lucky not to have…
jdupuis | May 11, 2012Longtime followers of this blog will know that I'm a fan of genre fiction, and the more genres the better: science fiction, fantasy, horror, hard boiled and noir. And in a lot of ways those genre boundaries are fluid, and sometimes the authors themselves embody that fluidity.
Walter Mosley is one of those authors, writing with great success in both the mystery and science fiction genres.
Here's what he had to say recently in the Tor.com blog: The Case for Genre.
In my opinion science fiction and fantasy writing has the potential to be the most intelligent, spiritual, inventive, and the most…
jdupuis | May 4, 2012This seems like a fun one for May the Fourth: Jedis disappointed with new "energy-saving" lightsabers
Jedi knights have expressed anger at plans to phase out traditional lightsabers in favour of new, more environmentally-friendly models.
'These new lightsabers are rubbish,' complained Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. 'They take ages to light up and when they do you can barely see anything with them.'
*snip*
'I refuse to switch to these new low energy sabers,' said a typically petulant Luke Skywalker. 'By the time they've reached full brightness you may have already had your hand chopped off by a…
jdupuis | April 27, 2012Klout is kind of evil. Basically, it's the impact factor for the Web, where this random company uses a mysterious algorithm to quantify and rank people's standing on social media -- Twitter, Facebook, etc.
There's been some interesting commentary about it on teh interwebs these lasts few days, such as It's terrifying how important your Klout score has become, Klout Is Important Even If You Aren't Using It and What Your Klout Score Really Means. Lots of interesting and mostly measured and rational commentary and analysis.
And along comes Klouchebag.com into the fray and blows it all up.
From…
jdupuis | April 13, 2012Yes, well, we've all had days like that, where we've admired our furry friends' abilities to wonder through life, tail-wagging, mouth-drooling, yip-yapping.
Fortunately, today is not one of those for me as I'm quietly at home preparing for a presentation next week and working on an ebooks post which will hopefully see the light of day one of these decades.
Oh, yes, but then I do check my email and want to be a dog.
Scientist discovers "being a dog" is key to reducing stress
'Modern life gives people far too many things to worry about,' claims Dr Nigella Gresley. 'But it may already be too…
jdupuis | April 6, 2012I love me some private eye novels, that's for sure. I also love me some lists of books.
So combining them is pure heaven!
Anyways, an old friend of mine, Kevin Burton Smith, the proprietor of The Thrilling Detective web site and zine decided to celebrate the 14th anniversary of the site by running a poll to find out his reader's 14 all time favourite private eye novels.
On April 1st he published the results. And here they are:
THE 14 BEST PRIVATE EYE NOVELS OF ALL TIME
(Links on the private eye's name lead to the profile on Kevin's site. Check it out!)
The Taste of Ashes by Howard Browne (…
jdupuis | March 30, 2012Undergrads, we all love'em, right? You bet.
Of course...
Undergraduate Research Assistant Finally Sharpens Perfect Pencil
After months of stupefying repetition, undergraduate research assistant Thomas Floyd, 19, emerged from the Nelson Physics Laboratory this afternoon to announce that his faculty supervisor, Dr. Demetri Schulman, had declared his 4,394th sharpened pencil "perfect."
"I'd like the thank the academy," said a humbled Floyd, "for creating an educational experience that let me sit in Dr. Schulman's lab storage room and sharpen pencils day after day until I got it right."
jdupuis | March 23, 2012I've always been a big comics and graphic novel fan. In particular in my youth I was a huge superhero fan.
So this one was just a natural for me. Especially since one of the heroes that is profiled was one of my youthful favourites: The Incredible Hulk!
6 superheroes who got their powers from being lousy scientists
The Incredible Hulk
His Origin: Bruce Banner runs onto a gamma bomb testing facility to save a trespassing teen. He shoves the teen into a ditch, but gets hit with the full powers of radiation.
Note in the pic above that it says Banner was miles from the detonation of the bomb.…
jdupuis | March 16, 2012This one is clearly inspired by the recent Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs op-ed in the New York Times by Greg Smith.
But this parody is clearly much funnier.
Although, maybe not?
From the Smith article:
I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making…
jdupuis | March 9, 2012I'm kinda hoping my provost isn't reading this (Hi, Patrick!)...
Students Still No Closer to Knowing What the Heck a Provost Is
While a leading Washington think tank maintains that its recent survey of college provosts offered fresh insights into the role of these decision makers in academia today, some students across the country remain puzzled at its implications and, even, just what a provost does anyway.
*snip*
Jody Day of Wilson Community College whipped out her cell phone and hit a few keys. "Aha. I know that the origin of the word means 'keeper of a prison.' Therefore, I'm sure the…
jdupuis | March 2, 2012Personally, I find it inconceivable that any writer could come up with such a wonderful list.
Lines from The Princess Bride that Double as Comments on Freshman Composition Papers.
Here's a few to refresh your memory:
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
"At a time like this that's all you can think to say?"
"Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."
The Princess Bride (memorable quotes) is one of my favourite films and I'm sure it's one of yours. There are no doubt lines from other films that could be re-purposed as essay comments or…
jdupuis | February 24, 2012The actual content of the post I'm highlighting isn't really all that amusing. It's actually quite pertinent in a real-world context.
But I really love how they've taken actually useful information that might be a bit dry and businessy and using a Star Wars / pop-cultural reference made it into something a little easier to wade through. A spoonful of sugar and all that.
Anyways, here's one of the five from: Five Leadership Mistakes Of The Galactic Empire:
Mistake #1: Building an organization around particular people, rather than institutions.
Perhaps the biggest mistake of the Galactic…
jdupuis | February 17, 2012Given all the fuss and bother going on in the library world these last few days about ebooks, I thought this one would be a pretty fine choice to highlight today.
I just love me some Cracked!
8 Unexpected Downsides of the Switch to E-books
You Can't Hide a Gun in a Kindle
You Need Physical Books for Physical Tasks
No More Flipbooks and Mustaches in Textbooks
It May Change the Perception of the Necronomicon and Other Mystical Books
Book Burnings Will Have Less Visual Impact
How Will People Open Secret Passageways?
Seriously, if you can't pull a cleverly titled book out of a bookcase to get…