Archive for the 'Humor' Category

Some History Lessons


A bit of history:

  • One day in the 16th century, a student at Oxford University was sitting in the woods reading a volume of Aristotle, when he was attacked by a wild boar. The student saved himself by shoving the volume down the throat of the boar and choking it to death. He brought the boar back to Oxford, where it became the centerpiece of a great feast. The anniversary has been celebrated at Oxford ever since, with an annual Boar’s Head Dinner.
  • One day in 1934, someone at the University of Rochester decided that Rochesterians should celebrate these anniversaries as well. Ever since, with a few interruptions, the University has been the site of an annual Boar’s Head Dinner, where a member of the University community is called upon to re-tell the story of the brave Oxford student, perhaps with some embellishment.
  • One day in 2005, I was the one who was called upon. The event was filmed, but the sound quality was horrendous. (So was the video quality, but that seems less important.) I’ve therefore almost never shared it.
  • One day a couple of months ago, I mentioned this to my awesome friend Rowan McVey, who volunteered to take the video, improve the sound quality, and add captions. (Note: Rowan was already entirely awesome even before she jumped on this task.)

Herewith the fruits of Rowan’s labors. The two videos linked below are identical except that the first has captions and the second doesn’t. The sound quality is still surely imperfect, but it’s a vast improvement over the original.

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This is not a blog post

From the Twitter feed of my brilliant friend (and Usenet legend) Tim Pierce:

timp

CAPTCHA: Click on all the squares that are not a pipe.

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On Backward Induction

A Guest Post

by

William Carrington

(Note from the proprietor—I am delighted to present this guest post from my correspondent William Carrington, who might or might not have been inspired by the puzzles in Chapter Nine of Can You Outsmart an Economist?. — SL)

Like zombies and Russian spies, there are more economists among us than you might think. This can be dangerous because studies show that economists are more likely than normal people to graze their goats too long on the town commons, to rat out their co-conspirators in jailhouse interrogations, and to show up drunk on their last day at a job. This appears to be both because unethical people are drawn to economics and because economics itself teaches people to be both untrusting and untrustworthy. This feedback loop has led to the creation of famously difficult economists like John Stuart Mill and….well, it’s a long list. Like halitosis and comb-overs, the problem is worse in Washington.

Can you protect yourself against this unseen risk? Sadly, no, as economists often look all too normal and are hard to pick out from the maladjusted crowds that attend us. This is known as the identification problem in economics, and Norway’s Trygve Haavelmo was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work on this issue. Related work by Ken Arrow, also a Nobelist, proved that an infinitesimal group of economists will bollix up the welfare of an arbitrarily large population of otherwise normal people. It’s most disheartening, but I’m here to offer you a failsafe method for identifying economists. You’ll need an old refrigerator.

Continue reading ‘On Backward Induction’

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Applied Economics

Click image to go to original site.

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Non-Hansonian Prediction Markets

Having a baby? Want to predict its gender? Amazon.com offers just the product:

Does it work? Well, check out the distribution of customer reviews:

A delighted hat tip to our reader Mark Westling of Inuvi.com, who remarks that

The most interesting comments are along the lines of “It was wrong so I only gave it three stars”.

and then goes on to propose a business model:

Offer baby sex prediction over the web, charge $75 (so consumers know it’s good), and offer a full refund if you’re wrong (upon review of relevant documents).

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Unclear on the Concept

Mike Rizzo at The Unbroken Window reports spotting these two bumper stickers next to each other — on the same car.

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So That’s Why It’s Called Graphic Design

A few years back, the British Office of Government Commerce wanted a new logo for etching on (among other things) mousepads and pens, and paid a graphic design firm over $20,000 to come up with this:

Apparently it never occurred to anyone that mousepads and pens are frequently turned on their sides.

Et voila:

Continue reading ‘So That’s Why It’s Called Graphic Design’

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Meta-Limerick

There once was an X from place B,
Who satisfied predicate P,
The X did thing A,
In a specified way,
Resulting in circumstance C.

—Hat tip to our occasional commenter Alan Wexelblat, who hat-tips the author of the webcomic Partially Clips, who hat-tips Wikipedia, which offers no citation.

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Consumer Tip

sudafedHaving trouble getting Sudafed? Does your local pharmacy close at night? No problem: all you need is a set of simple step-by-step instructions for synthesizing Sudafed from crystal meth, which is readily available 24 hours a day in most American cities:

Continue reading ‘Consumer Tip’

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Laugh of the Day

It’s been a while since I laughed out loud quite this hard.

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Friday Humor

Three logicians walk into a bar.

The bartender says: “Would any of you guys like a drink?”

The first logician says: “I don’t know.”

The second logician says: “I don’t know.”

The third logician says: “No.”

Hat tip to Adam Merberg, who isn’t sure of the source.

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Llamas in the News

Here. Be sure to read through to the very end.

Hat tip to my sister, who once had her dress pulled off by a llama.

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Police News

My favorite news story of 2010, from the “Police News” section of the Hudson Hub Times:

Hudson — A Sullivan Road resident called police to report a “suspicious package” on his front porch Nov. 2 at 3:20 p.m.

The resident said he observed an unknown person leave the package and called police, according to the police report.

The officer said he could see the package was clearly labeled with the Amazon.com logo and asked the man if he had ordered anything from the firm recently.

The man reportedly said “Why yes, I did.”

The officer told the resident his order had arrived. The resident then said he was comfortable opening the box. The officer then left the scene, according to the report.

Hat tip to my sister.

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Quantitative Easing Explained by Cartoon Characters

I can’t really endorse the content, but I like the presentation:

(Original here .)

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Is Obama a Keynesian?

I realize everybody else in the world has already posted this, but just in case mine is the only blog you read:

Hat tip to our frequent commenter Ken B., who pointed me to this before everyone else had posted it.

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This is Just to Say…

William Carlos Williams is a really bad roommate and I’m tired of sharing an apartment with him.  

A hat tip to my buddy Rosa, with hat tips once and twice removed to Tim Pierce and Doctor Memory.

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The End of Racism

I was delighted last month to learn that racism in America has been thoroughly vanquished, as evidenced by the NAACP’s having nothing better to do than complain about a greeting card that shows cartoon characters encountering black holes as they hurtle through space. (“It’s very demeaning to African American women”. See if you can guess why, then watch the video below to check your answer.)

I realize that some will criticize the NAACP for over-reacting here, or for mis-reacting. But cut them a break. You don’t see them doing anything truly loonytunes, like, say, commanding the amorphous Tea Party movement to “expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take full responsibility for all of their actions.” Right?

A hat tip to our frequent commenter Ken B. for pointing me to the video.

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The Star of the Phillipines

One year ago today, somewhere in the Phillipines, a reporter checked his web logs and wondered where all the new readers were coming from. Today we celebrate the first anniversary of one of the most unfortunately worded headlines in the history of journalism.

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