Saturday, August 31, 2013

Things I learned lately 31 August

  • The solution to the world's food crisis is quite simple: Eat insects.
  • If you drive an El Camino down El Camino Way, you're (translated) basically driving a car called 'the way' down a road called 'the way way'.
  • The Boy Scouts now offers 131 merit badges. I wonder if 'IP subnetting' is one of them?
  • FedEx created the tracking number 40 years ago.
  • There are 923 words that break the 'i before e' rule. Only 44 follow it.
  • The new Chevrolet Spark EV (fully electric) can go 82 miles (132km) on a full charge. The car is expected to cost $25,000. Claims of an 80% recharge in 20 minutes. As a comparison, the Tesla Model S can go 265 miles (426km) on a full charge and costs $72,000.
  • Allied Irish bank filmed a 30 second TV ad using only an iPhone 5 to emphasize the bank's mobile capabilities. 
  • You know the picture of the McDonald's burger that didn't rot after 14 years? Turns out it has nothing to do with chemicals or preservatives and everything to do with lack of moisture. Home-made hamburgers under the exact same conditions won't rot either.
  • You can put used tea bags in a jar and place in your refrigerator to absorb odours.
  • Soak your smelly feet for about 30 minutes in enough black tea to keep them covered (about three bags boiled in a quart should do the trick – add cold water to cool).
  • Olive oil makes a great alternative to shaving cream for women's legs.
  • This is the last year VW will make the Microbus. The production run lasted 64 years.
  • The Tesla Model S now commands 12% of the luxury car market in California (4714 cars registered). Only the Mercedes E-class and the BMW 5 series have a larger market share.

The world without mobile

Qualcomm, you guys are alright.....

I especially loved the Angry Birds game and the Facebook profiles in this ad.

BP angry birds


Friday, August 30, 2013

Thursday, August 29, 2013

A reply to Bell's open letter

I know this is a bit late, but it's still noteworthy for its excellence. The 'Big 3' cell phone companies in Canada had been whining about how unfair it is to let any future entrant into the Canadian market (namely Verizon) get access to all that cheap frequency spectrum in a few months. This is the beautiful reply from a less than satisfied customer.

Excerpt:

"Amongst your many traits as CEO of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), tenacity, enthusiasm for your trade, and perseverance top the list. Conspicuous in its absence from your letter, however, is your sense of irony.

You begin the “unusual step of writing to all Canadians” (Strange, isn’t it, that “Canada’s Top Communication Company” should find it unusual to communicate with its customers?) with a history lesson, ostensibly in the interest of helping us “understand a critical situation” now facing the wireless industry: the potential entrance of an American company into the Canadian market."

"Is this coffee, or is this Fight Club?"

A guy wrote a letter to Tim Horton's about their abysmal coffee cup lids. Someone had to do it.

The pic only captures the first bit. Go here to read the rest.

Peter Dinklage as Batman


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Roots

It occurred to me lately that the longest I had ever stayed in one place was 18 years, in the Montreal area, growing up. Then came Kingston (14 years) courtesy of the military. But now I realize that I've been in Calgary for 19 years. So I've been here longer than anywhere else in my life. It sure doesn't seem like it....

The European Union explained (mostly)

Man, it's complicated.

Seriously.

Logö


Sunday, August 25, 2013

Let me lay it down

The youth entertainment market see through the CRTC, they see through every regulation, bundle and blackout that big entertainment have devised. They get what they want when they want it and now they're bringing their parents along with them too.

Want to make money in the new era? Give customers what they want, let the broadcast filler die out and add value by making content available on any device at any time. Only when content can be accessed easier than stealing it will the stealing stop.


That's not a statement condoning stealing. It's an observation that when consumers are taken advantage of, eventually they stop chasing the carrot and go raid the garden.

Operation Box Top

It seems that someone finally made a decent video about CFS Alert. I spent 6 months there, from September 1989 until March 1990. 4 months of that time was in complete darkness.

While I was there, the only aircraft landing there were Hercules transport planes. Our military hadn't bought the nice jet-powered tranports yet.

What internet users get like on a flight


Friday, August 23, 2013

Things I learned lately 23 August

  • The 9th anniversary of the White Noise blog passed and nobody noticed, not even me......
  • Of the 22,000 man-made objects orbiting the earth (10cm or larger), only 5% of them are functioning satellites.
  • The ozone hole is shrinking.
  • Only 3% of the water on earth is fresh.
  • There are 68 cities in California with populations over 100,000. There are only 31 such cities in all of Canada.
  • Calgary has 31% more land area than Toronto (proper).
  • Electric cars come with seat heaters because they're a more efficient way to heat up the body rather than warming the air.
  • The exterior windows of the RBC Plaza tower in Toronto are made from glass baked with a layer of gold totalling 2500 ounces (71,000g) in the 14,000 windows.
  • A doctor at an eating disorder clinic in Stockholm claims that modeling agents wait outside to recruit new 14 and 15 year old girls.
  • PC industry partners aren't too happy with Microsoft, claiming that they're single-handedly ruining the PC market with Windows 8.
  • 37% of Americans believe that global warming is a hoax.
  • 13% of Americans believe that Obama is the Antichrist.

Canada & the US - Bizarre Borders

Interesting facts about the longest undefended border in the world.

For example, there are disputed islands!

For reals!

Sorry, was busy....


Wednesday, August 21, 2013

SpaceX Grasshopper

On June 14, SpaceX's Grasshopper Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) rocket climbed to an altitude of 1066ft (325m), hovered, then came back down to the ground in a controlled landing - on the pad.

Elon Musk has a dream of future rockets being able to achieve orbit and return to their launchpad to be re-used.

[Update: Since I found this video, the Grasshopper has performed some other neat feats too, including moving horizontally while hovering and yet still coming back to the launch pad.]

Caps Lockness monster


Monday, August 19, 2013

Barber's final test

I think that when a barber does his/her final practical exam, they get evaluated on certain aspects of the haircut. I believe that they get bonus points for this classic barber move:

The barber stops cutting your hair, apparently finished, then lifts up the hand mirror so you can see the back of your head. You nod and say something positive and they suddenly notice something they missed, something very small. They pick up the clippers or scissors and perform one last touch-up before letting you out of the chair.

Werd


Sunday, August 18, 2013

Trip full of surprises

Darlene and I decided to go for a drive. The forecast looked fantastic and I was in the mood to head to the mountains. The planned destination was Invermere in the Kootenay valley, but after having a look around via Google Streetview, I decided that I also wanted something a little quieter.

Using Google Maps, I took a look across the lake at the Windermere area and spotted a nice shady park right on the lake with picnic tables, so I made a not of where it was and off we went. I asked Darlene which spot she wanted to visit first, Windermere or Invermere and she picked the quieter one. We made it to the park (see picture) and had a nice, breezy, relaxed rest there for a while.

Back to the car, the next planned destination was Invermere, but Darlene had spotted a garage sale sign on our way to Windermere, so we kept on eye out for it on the way back up the highway. We found it at the entrance to an area marked as Timber Ridge III. Just from the homes we could see from the highway, I could tell this was going to be a high end neighbourhood. We followed the signs and found the garage sale. It had some decent stuff and Darlene scored some very expensive clothes and very expensive perfume for a steal. While she was browsing, I started talking to the owner and asked him about the neighbourhood. His descriptions made it clear that this was a posh destination for Calgarians and Edmontonians alike and that homes sold very fast. I asked what the best way to take a quick tour around the area was and he said, "By golf cart!" He was tired of hanging around the garage sale so he asked us if we wanted to go for a tour in his golf cart. Of course we did.

He told us where to park the car so as not to be a nuisance (nobody parks on the street) and showed us how to walk through the pathway system back to his house and through his back yard. When we got back to his place, he already had the cart out and ready to go. We hopped on and we were off. The entire neighbourhood has paved pathways just wide enough for a cart weaving through the whole area. In fact, as we saw throughout the tour, getting around by cart along the paths is the easiest way to get around. So what is there to go and see along these paths? Beautiful forests, tennis courts, a community centre with a pool, a giant children's playground, hoodoos, and a private beach on the lake. You can only get to it by the cart pathway. He gave us a 30 minute tour at least, then brought us back to his place.

So lesson learned: If I had not checked out the best looking lakeside area via Google Maps, we never would have found the quiet park in Windermere, nor found the exclusive neighbourhood (Lakeview Meadows) and gotten a personal tour.

Things I learned lately 18 August

  • The number of cabs in Calgary hasn't changed much over the decades. The city capped the number of cabs in 1986 at 1311. Today there are 1466, despite the population nearly doubling since then.
  • There's enough gold in the earth's core to form a 1.5 foot coating across the entire surface.
  • Olympus Mons on Mars is 27km tall - 3 times the height of Mount Everest. It's so tall it sticks out of the atmosphere. It is 550km across at its base - so wide that if you were standing on the edge of the caldera, the base of the volcano would be beyond the horizon.
  • If the Andromeda galaxy were visible to the naked eye, it would be 6 times bigger than a full moon.
  • You can rent 'The Islands' of Copperfield Bay on Musha Cay in the Bahamas (owned by David Copperfield) for only $37,500 per night (for up to 12 people) during low season. If that's too rich for you, there are other islands in the Bahamas starting at only $12,000 per night.
  • At Facebook, if you're having an issue with work tools like your keyboard or you need a laptop charger, there are vending machines scattered around the campus where you can swipe your badge and get what you need right away.
  • Facebook lets its employees work on any type of computer they want. Mac, Linux, Windows, tablet, whatever.
  • Jay Leno's last Tonight Show will air 6 Feb 2014.
  • The Prime Minister of Norway dressed as a cab driver and took people around Oslo to find out 'what people really think'.
  • Another newspaper apparently doesn't mind the possibility of losing customers and becoming irrelevant, as The Toronto Star just announced that they'll go behind a paywall soon.
  • Seattle police tried a new idea to reach out to pot users at the city's 22nd annual Hempfest. They are handing out 1,000 bags of Doritos with a link to a website entitled "Marijwhatnow? A Guide to Legal Marijuana Use In Seattle." Washington state legalized marijuana last year.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

The charcoal argument

Joe Brown, a Wired magazine editor, explains why food tastes better grilled over charcoal:

"What charcoal brings to the party is a healthy heaping of aroma compounds, the other half of the power couple that is flavour. In fact, aroma might be the super starlet in that relationship, because our tongues are actually pretty limited. Anything else you perceive while eating — is courtesy of aroma.

Aromas are released when you bite into your food. They travel up your retronasal cavity, and light up your olfactory receptors. That neurological signal mixes with whatever your taste buds are saying and tells your brain what’s going on in your mouth. Food grilled over a charcoal flame has a special aroma: guaiacol. Guaiacol is an aroma compound produced when you use heat to break down lignin, the resin responsible for holding strands of cellulose together to form wood. It has a smoky, spicy, bacony aroma. In fact, the flavor that most people associate with bacon is largely degraded lignin.

Translation: Cooking over charcoal makes your food taste like bacon. Let me repeat that: blah blah charcoal blah blah BACON."

Youngest performs for the oldest

5 year old Ryan Wang performs for his oldest fan. Dorothy Landry is 101. She doesn't care for rock 'n roll, but she loves this kid's playing.

Who wouldn't?

When your eyes are bigger than your stomach


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Alright Windows 8, let’s do this

As an IT instructor and someone who looks after peoples’ computer issues on the side, I need to learn the latest and greatest software and hardware. Now that Windows 8 has been around for a while, it was time to immerse myself in its eight-ness. I have a virtual machine at work in my classroom,  running Windows 8 (8.1 Preview actually). Connected to a SmartBoard no less (fun). But now I need to get up close and personal with the new operating system, since most of my clients and potential new ones will be getting Windows 8 if they buy a new computer this coming fall and winter holiday season.

So, with a few hours to spare last night, I threw in the new Windows 8 Pro 64 bit DVD and sat back. Luckily I had done my research and determined that since I was running Windows 7 Ultimate edition, I needed Windows 8 Pro, not the base version. Not one minute into the installation, I get a message that reads “Windows 8 cannot install on this computer. There is not enough space on the system partition.” Perfect.

I had to think about that for a minute, because my 500GB hard drive is barely half full, so disk space shouldn’t be an issue. After a little internet research and opening the disk management utility, I discovered the problem. At the front end of my hard drive is a 300MB system partition, followed by the large partition the computer recognizes as C:. This small system partition is in reality what Windows 8 was complaining about. I had read that other users were simply expanding the size of this partition to solve the problem. So that was my next goal.

Although Windows 7 comes with a disk management utility, it is not capable of moving partition data to make room for an expansion of the first partition. So I took a recommendation and downloaded the free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It worked like a charm. The partition resize / move took about an hour and then I had enough unallocated space right after the system partition to grow it by 30GB. Now back to trying the Windows 8 installation again.

The second attempt went better. Then about 2 minutes into the installation, I was informed that Microsoft Security Essentials had to go. I knew in advance that this was coming after having read some articles, but I could see this taking a consumer by surprise. I chose to uninstall MSE and at the conclusion it told me it would have to reboot to finish. Fine, reboot. I was greeted by a Windows 7 login screen. WTF!? I tried not to panic, and thankfully, as soon as I logged in and saw my old familiar desktop, Windows 8 popped back up offering me the chance to continue with the install. I could sure imagine a typical user being freaked out though when they see the Windows 7 login screen.

It was very late by this point, so I left my computer in the capable hands of the installation routine and went to bed. That’s right; I let the installation continue unattended. I woke up around 1am and went to see how things were proceeding and just as I had expected, I was greeted with the scheme colour choice screen. After that it was just a few minutes of configuration option selections and I was staring at the oft maligned Windows 8 Start Screen. I went to the desktop and all of my program icons were there along with my beautiful desktop background wallpaper.

I decided that before going back to sleep, I would at least make sure that Windows Defender (the now default anti-virus and anti-malware software built-in to Windows) was up-to-date and functioning. I opened the program and noticed that the virus definitions were dated June 2013, two months out of date. I ran the update (2 times unsuccessfully because of background indexing and updating tasks using up all of my disk, network and CPU power) and then charged Defender with doing a full scan of my files. Then I went to bed.

Microsoft still has a lot to learn in the development of new operating systems for the masses. First of all, a typical user is not going to know why they’re seeing “Windows 8 cannot install on this computer. There is not enough space on the system partition.” Nor are they going to know what to do about it. Windows 8 should have been designed to detect that a too-small system partition exists and offer the user to grow it to sufficient size (a potentially long and risky process) or just forego the system partition and put everything on the C: drive. Even Linux distributions are savvier than Windows 8 when it comes to partition management during installation.

Second, if it’s necessary to uninstall MSE during the Windows 8 installation, just do it. Inform the user, let them acknowledge the process, and do the rest silently in the background instead of giving them a heart attack by teasing them with a Windows 7 login screen after the uninstall reboot.

Third, as soon as the installation is finished and the user is staring at the new start screen, Windows Defender should be updating itself. Automatically. Before anything else. Then it should run a full scan. Automatically. Because all while the Windows 8 install was happening, there was technically nothing protecting the PC. Especially after MSE was uninstalled.

That's no moon.....

This is supposed to be what Jupiter would look like if it were where the moon is.

I try to imagine what the tides would be like if our moon were that big. More like we would be the moon. Can you say earthquakes?

Karma


Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Thieving bastards.....

"Back in 2012, the major US banks settled a federal mortgage-fraud lawsuit for $95,000,000. The suit was filed by Lynn Szymoniak, a white-collar fraud specialist, whose own house had been fraudulently foreclosed. When the feds settled with the banks, the evidence detailing the scope of their fraud was sealed, but as of last week, those docs are unsealed, and Szymoniak is shouting them from the hills. The banks precipitated the sub-prime crash by "securitizing" mortgages -- turning mortgages into bonds that could be sold to people looking for investment income -- and the securitization process involved transferring title for homes several times over. This title-transfer has a formal legal procedure, and in the absence of that procedure, no sale had taken place. See where this is going?

The banks screwed up the title transfers. A lot. They sold bonds backed by houses they didn't own. When it came time to foreclose on those homes, they realized that they didn't actually own them, and so they committed felony after felony, forging the necessary documentation. They stole houses, by the neighborhood-load, and got away with it. The settlement sounded like a big deal, back when the evidence was sealed. Now that Szymoniak's gotten it into the public eye, it's clear that it was a tiny slap on the wrist: the banks stole trillions of dollars' worth of houses from you and people like you, paid less than one percent in fines, and got to keep the homes."

From BoingBoing.

Rent Seekers

"Rent seekers are individuals or organizations that have succeeded with existing business models and look to the government and regulators as their first line of defence against innovative competition. They use government regulation and lawsuits to keep out new entrants with more innovative business models. They use every argument from public safety to lack of quality or loss of jobs to lobby against the new entrants. Rent seekers spend money to increase their share of an existing market instead of creating new products or markets. The key idea is that rent seeking behaviour creates nothing of value.

These barriers to new innovative entrants are called economic rent. Examples of economic rent include state automobile franchise laws, taxi medallion laws, limits on charter schools, auto, steel or sugar tariffs, patent trolls, bribery of government officials, corruption and regulatory capture. They’re all part of the same pattern – they add no value to the economy and prevent innovation from reaching the consumer."

Sounds pretty much like the entire entertainment industry.

Or whatever.....


Sunday, August 11, 2013

Things I learned lately 11 August

  • Oil shipments by rail in Canada are up 28000% since 2009. Not a typo...
  • The average markup on bottled water in a store is 4000%. That's not a typo either.
  • It is suggested that if McDonald's restaurants (US) doubled the wages of their employees (to $15 per hour), the Big Mac would rise in price $0.68. It was also argued that they could just take less profit. In 2011 McDonald's profit was $5.5 billion.
  • Intel, which up to now has been making computer chips, formed Intel Media, to try and upend the pay-TV business. Their plans include a server farm that would record every TV show aired, and store it in 'the cloud' for at least three days. With an Intel-designed set-top box, people wouldn't have to own DVRs or even plan to record programs.
  • A soccer player will run 7 miles on average during a game.
  • Less than 0.1% of North Koreans have access to the internet.
  • There are 338,189 foreign workers employed in Canada.
  • Because of climate change, turbulence on trans-Atlantic flights could increase 10-40% in strength and 40-170% in frequency by 2050.
  • Researchers at Wake Forest University are developing a fabric that will generate electricity from both heat and vibration in the order of around one milliwatt per square centimeter of fabric.
  • Austin Texas is the next US city to get Google Fibre. Bastards! Google Fibre provides 1Gb/s internet access, typically 75-100X faster than cable broadband.
  • In 1836, Richard E. Locke claimed that an astronomer had discovered life on the moon, including bat-men, moon maidens (with luna-moth wings), moon bison, etc.
  • 1998-2004, 50% of the US Senate left to become lobbyists. 42% of the House of Representatives left to become lobbyists. The average increase in salary for those who became lobbyists was 1452%.
  • The CEOs of Bell Canada (BCE), Rogers and Telus earned a combined total of $24 million in salary in 2012.

Self siphoning beads

These beads siphon themselves out of the jar. It's not a trick.

Instead of sending you to the original video, I'm sending you to the even more amazing explanation video.

Cha Ching!


Friday, August 09, 2013

It's very rocky

If you ever wanted to see a very high definition panorama of Mars, here's where you go.

I've read some descriptions of what Mars landscape is like and that mountain you see in the picture apparently is small compared to the bigger ones like Olympus Mons.

Facebook, you bitch!


Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Why I think I would make a good Senator

I've been talking to people close to me semi-seriously about this and I thought maybe I would put it out there. I think I might actually like to be a senator. In fact, unlike some of the characters we've seen the news in the last few months, I think I would actually make a good senator.

For one thing, I still believe in what the Senate originally stood for: the house of sober second thought. Even though I may be liberal leaning, I would consider any good law coming out of the House of Commons. More importantly, I would actually do my job. I would sit on committees and I would attend the meetings. All of them. While staying awake.

I would spend time in my province of representation not as a cheerleader for the sitting government, but as an ambassador for political process, especially among the youth. I wouldn't try to make monetary claim to things that I'm not entitled to. My guiding principle would be that my work and my decisions should be benefiting the citizens of my country and not the other way around.

A list of Canadian food

Poutine; ketchup chips; maple syrup; bacon; butter tarts; beavertails (queues de castor); Nanaimo bars; game meat; BC salmon; wild blueberries; blueberry blossom honey; oysters; Canadian (McIntosh; Cortland; Gala; Fuji; golden delicious) apples; PEI potatoes; Nova Scotia lobster; Alberta beef; Montreal bagels; arctic char; bannock; Kraft Dinner; tourtiere; Saskatoon berries; fiddle-heads; Swiss Chalet sauce; Montreal smoked meat; Halifax donairs; cod tongue; pemmican; Red Rose tea; foie gras; Oka cheese; tarte au sucre (sugar pie); Kik cola; Coffee Crisp; Smarties; blueberry grunt; Girl Guide mint cookies; rappie pie; chokecherries; SK lentils; Yukon sourdough; purple garlic; PEI mussels; President's Choice brand anything; mustard; hormone-free milk.

But they already know it's me....


Monday, August 05, 2013

Want to run this

This is exactly the kind of place I want to own/run. Exactly. Except with added hired help. A software trainer / help desk person. A barista. Some admin folk / document gurus.

Here's an article of a great one in NYC called Fueled Coworking Space with tons of photos.

What do they have in common?

What do Judd Nelson, Dee Snider and Rikki Lake have in common?

You know, besides the obvious answer.

This is the weirdest collection of people singing (are they really?) a Beatles song ever recorded I think.

The Corporate States of America


Saturday, August 03, 2013

Trendy and Google-y at the same time

Check out the new visualization version of Google Trends.

It shows what people are searching for in real time.

Things I learned lately 3 August

  • The first city in Canada to offer city-wide gigabit internet.......... Olds Alberta! Say what!? Guess which of the big providers is offering it? None of them. The city built its own ISP, called O-Net.
  • Thorough cough - what you call a simultaneous cough and fart.
  • Ziff - another word for beard.
  • Resistentialism: The seemingly spiteful behavior shown by inanimate objects. 
  • Groak: To silently watch someone while they are eating, hoping to be invited to join them.
  • Jirble: To pour out (a liquid) with an unsteady hand.
  • Lunting: Walking while smoking a pipe.
  • Wonder-wench: A sweetheart.
  • Snoutfair: A person with a handsome countenance.
  • At the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State, there is enough solid radioactive waste (710,000 cubic metres) to fill more than 4750 rail freight cars. That doesn't include the 200,000 cubic metres of liquid high-level radioactive waste.
  • 3rd party identification methods, like stickers and etched numbers, often added as mandatory extras to new cars, are not only redundant and ineffective, law enforcement don't even use them to track down stolen cars.
  • Did you ever notice that although there are recommended daily allowances for sodium and fat, there are none for sugar? Three words people. The sugar lobby.
  • Hawaii is going to send some of its homeless back to their home state, where (hopefully) families can help them get back on their feet again.
  • Spike Lee is trying to finance his next film on Kickstarter.
  • So not only did the Grace Foundation board members who went on about wanting Trudeau's speaking fees back get booted off the Grace Foundation's Board, the foundation no longer wants the money back. Also, none of the other non profit organizations took Trudeau up on his offer to pay back any fees he charged from speaking at benefits. That just about wraps up that little pile of partisan nonsense.

This is what real poutine looks like


Thursday, August 01, 2013

Intellectual jokes

  • A photon is going through airport security. The TSA agent asks if he has any luggage. The photon says, "No, I'm traveling light."
  • Shortest joke in the English language: "Pretentious? Moi?"
  • A logician's wife is having a baby. The doctor immediately hands the newborn to the dad. The wife says, "Is it a boy or a girl?" The logician says, "Yes."
  • I'd tell you a UDP joke, but you may not get it.
  • How can you tell the difference between a chemist and a plumber? Ask them to pronounce "unionized." (The chemist pronounces it 'un-eye-oh-nized')
  • Two women walk into a bar and talk about the Bechdel test.(The Bechdel test is a measure of gender equality in the media. A piece of media is considered to pass the test if it includes at least two women who talk to each other about something besides men. This joke passes the test.)
  • Heard about that new band called 1023 MB? They haven't had any gigs yet.
  • Heisenberg was speeding down the highway. A cop pulls him over and says "Do you have any idea how fast you were going back there?" Heisenberg says, "No, but I knew where I was." (Heisenberg was a German physicist and one of the key figures in quantum theory. His famous "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal" states that we can know either where a quantum particle is or how fast it's moving, but it's impossible to know both at the same time.)
  • A linguistics professor says during a lecture that, "In English, a double negative forms a positive. But in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, in no language in the world can a double positive form a negative." A voice from the back of the room pipes up, "Yeah, right."
  • How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A fish.
  • What does a dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac do at night? He stays up wondering if there really is a dog.
  • I could tell you a joke about TCP, but I'd have to keep repeating it until you got it. 
  • A hundred kilopascals go into a bar. [end unit conversion]
  • A Roman walks into a bar, holds up two fingers, and says, "Five beers, please".

3D printed bow tie

So what kinds of cool stuff could you make with a 3D printer?

How about a super-lightweight bow tie that just slots right onto your top button.

A little biased perhaps?