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Category Archives: Funnybone
Murphy’s Laws for theoretical physicists
1. Fix a mistake in one mammoth calculation, another mistake elsewhere is inevitable (mathematical whack-a-mole law). 2. If you base your results on the work of others, a flaw in one of those works will be the worst possible for your work. 3. The longer your paper, the more likely you are to forget where [...]
…And you thought global warming couldn’t be funny…
I don’t believe in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. My husband’s been producing them for years, and the house doesn’t get any warmer. How many dead light bulbs does it take before a global warming denialist changes one? Ha! Everybody knows that light bulbs never burn out. Global warming is more serious than [...]
The utility of dead horses
A couple of common expressions in English are “to ride a dead horse” or “beating a dead horse.” Generally these expressions are not meant to be extremely ironic. In fact, a piece of tribal wisdom passed down by the Dakota Indians of the American prairies states that: “When you discover that you are riding a [...]
Posted in Funnybone Tagged academia, corporate bureaucracy, dead horses, government, humor, politics Leave a comment
Bill Gates Dreams of Heaven
Now and then everyone has weird dreams, even Bill Gates. He dreamed he had died…and gone to heaven. (Yes, that would be a surprise to everyone.) However, heaven wasn’t what he’d envisioned, or even read about in the Economist. For one thing, it wasn’t awesome and well lit. Instead there was an amorphously very large [...]
Unfair to compare
Ten points in common. Drug Dealers: …..Computer Software Industry: 1. Refer to clients as ‘users.’ …..1. Refers to clients as ‘users.’ 2. “The first one is free!” …..2. “Download a free trial version!” 3. Use lots of jargon: ‘stick,’ ‘rock,’ ‘dime bag.’ …..3. Use strange jargon: ‘bits and bytes,’ ‘RTFM,’ ‘Java.’ 4. Exploit the 14-25 [...]
How to spot a geologist
Observation is a core skill of science. When you are out in the field (e.g. bar, food store, restaurant, movie theater) and you see or meet another scientist, how can you identify a geologist? Here are some tips: - Look for a belt buckle, pendant, or bola tie clip with inlaid stones (not gems). - [...]
Close-out Curios from the Little Shop of Science
The Little Shop of Science finds inventory bargains. We’re passing the savings on to you! Forever Flywheel Every laboratory and science classroom needs one of these. As a talisman or juju symbol, nothing beats a “Forever Flywheel” the only PMM (perpetual motion machine) ever briefly acknowledged by the AAAS. It’s the perfect reminder for science [...]
The Road Crossing Chicken Test
Simple rules: You will be given an answer by a famous scientist to the question of why the chicken crossed the road. You figure out which scientist. This is not easy, and sometimes sneaky. Answers are below the break. Question: Why did the chicken cross the road? #1. Answer: It thought it would be illuminating. [...]
Computer password of a California Girl
The young lady smiled rather vacuously at the tech. “You want my password?” “Yes. I have to audit all the passwords on this floor.” “You’re official?” The tech pointed to his badge. “Yes.” “Well, okay.” She wrote out the password on a post-it. It took a while. “I have trouble remembering it,” she said. MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento [...]
Biology punishment
- What did the microbiologist give his biologist girlfriend for her birthday? Designer genes, of course. You were expecting flowers? - An English major taking his biology exam referred to a microtome as an ‘itsy bitsy book.’
A black hole of good news – bad news
Tucson, Arizona – Astronomers at the University of Arizona have dubbed a new observation – the “chaos cloud.” Discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope on March 1, the swirling, 10 million kilometer wide cosmic cloud has been likened to nothing ever seen before. Although measurements are preliminary, astronomers said the cloud would sweep through Earth [...]
DNA for fun and nobody’s profit
Scientists in Scotland cloned a sheep. “Dolly” became very famous, but was rarely seen in public. There are rumors. It is said there was a mistake in the lab when they worked on the clone DNA. Somebody reversed a small portion of the DNA (probably a gene or two were backwards). Unfortunately, as a result [...]
To the Moon with reservations
The year is 1966. NASA is preparing the Apollo astronauts for a landing on the Moon. No opportunity to have realistic Moon-like experiences is too cumbersome or expensive, so the astronauts are trucked out to the desert near Tuba City in Arizona. They go a batch at a time to bake their spacesuits and wander [...]
Signs of LRF (Lab Rat Fever)
Work in a modern biochemistry lab has its good sides and bad sides – like most workplaces. On the other hand, people who have never worked in a ‘laboratory’ (which is most of us) may be surprised by some subtle, and not so subtle, differences between the lab and other places of work. For example, [...]
Research paper subtext
It has long been known that… (I didn’t have time to look it up.) It seems of great practical and theoretical importance… (Could be kinda interesting) While it was not possible to answer… (The experiment failed.) The XYZ system was chosen as especially suitable… (The guy in the next lab already had the setup.)
Long tern paper
Terns have been in the news lately – they’re the champs of long distance migrating. So research about terns is not likely to win any “Ig Nobel Prizes.” There once was an undergrad biology student who was studying the coordinated flight patterns of sea birds, focusing specifically on terns. For his research paper, he proposed [...]
Cats, buttered toast, and anti-gravity
Assumptions: Assume that if you drop a buttered piece of toast, it will fall to the floor butter-side down. (You could say this was a certainty, overlapping somewhat with Murphy’s Law.) Also assume that if you dropped a cat from a second floor balcony, the cat will land on its feet. Question: What if you [...]
A Mad Experiment
Experiment: A mad social scientist kidnapped three colleagues: an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician. He took them to an abandoned laboratory and locked them each in a bare room provided only with a bed, toilet, six boxes of canned food (but no can opener), and water. Result: A month later the mad scientist returned, [...]
Modern sagacity
People don’t write commandments any more or attempt to expound laws of behavior. Too bad, we could use more like these… Style is its own reward Do not attempt to find substance in everything. Some things are done only for the sake of form. This is especially true of mathematics. Those who frame the conversation, [...]
The Amateur Astronomer’s Commandments
1. Thou shalt have no white light before thee, behind thee, or to the side of thee whilst sharing the night sky with thy fellow stargazers. 2. Thou shalt not love thy telescope more than thy spouse or thy children; as much as, maybe, but not more. 3. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s telescope, [...]
Only real and positive
George, a physics professor, waving a sheet of paper, runs into the office of Ken, a math professor. “Ken. I’ve got it. I’ve finally got an equation that explains my data! Can you check it out for me?” Accustomed to George’s enthusiastic outbursts, Ken nodded. George handed him the paper. Ken scanned it for a [...]
True utterances
Teachers and professors say the darndest things. Maybe it’s a test – to see if anyone is listening. More likely, they just like to be clever, or inadvertently dumb… “If what I said makes any sense to you, you have a big problem.” “The algorithm to do that is extremely nasty. You might want to [...]
Smoke runs electronics…
Kids these days are smart. Or at least they have more familiarity with electronics. Yesterday a boy and girl from the 2nd grade approached me after a science class. They looked very pleased with themselves. The girl said, “We know what makes these electronic things run…” She paused. Then the boy said, “Smoke!” They looked [...]
Astronomers. Light Bulb.
How many astronomers does it take to change a light bulb? “Change a light bulb? What for? Dark is good.” “Oh, if you insist. Ah…” “One, to measure the bulb’s black body radiation at room temperature to verify it is totally dead. Then…” “One to argue about the measurement’s calibration.” “One to analyze the pre-failure [...]
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