Month: March 2008

My favorite story recently is about the lawsuit to stop the $8 billion Large Hadron Collider out of fear that it might shrink the universe to the size of a gnat turd. And I don’t mean the plump and juicy kind. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/science/29collider.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin One of the reasons I like my job…

Today I am going on a two-night trip with the family. The destination promises to be lots of fun. But it takes a lot of research and planning to figure it all out. Then there is the packing and the traveling to and fro, including airports and rental cars and…

Someone needs to invent a Dilbert doll for the office that mirrors your mood during the day as the life force is drained from your body. I imagine the little doll sitting there looking all bright and fresh when you come in to work. Over the course of the day,…

Researchers have discovered that people who are incompetent generally lack the knowledge that they are incompetent. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/01/18/MN73840.DTL [no longer available] This lack of self-awareness is the glue that holds democracy together. As long as people feel capable of evaluating complex economic and geopolitical policies, they will keep voting. And as…

Imagine a 200-pound human traveling by elevator from the 5th floor to the lobby. That is a lot of energy potential that isn’t getting captured. Your descent should be turning a generator or compressing gas or doing something else to power the grid. How hard could that be? I also…

A man in Italy is allegedly hypnotizing store and bank clerks to give him all of their money. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7309947.stm I’m a trained hypnotist myself, so my first reaction was skepticism. You can’t hypnotize someone that quickly and reliably. But then I put on my criminal mastermind hat and tried to…

You readers are sick people. Many of you forwarded me the article about a German woman went to the hospital for a leg operation and got an anus operation instead, as if I would make light of such a thing. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,339270,00.html [no longer available] When the woman complained to the…

I’m no historian, but it seems to me the path to democracy always goes through a warlord stage. The warlords have different names in different places. In the United States we had the robber barons, media barons, unions, and organized crime who effectively controlled the government. In England they had…

As a vegetarian, I often find myself drawn into debates about whether humans are natural meat-eaters. I’d have to say “almost.” Clearly meat is nutritious for humans, our teeth can handle the job, and most meat-eaters love a well-cooked steak. But to say we are natural meat-eaters, I would think…

The key to happiness is setting achievable goals. For example, I think a bad goal is trying to find enlightenment, or becoming one with the universe. That has hard work written all over it. I was thinking about this recently because of the story in the news about the 35-year…

This week’s series in Dilbert caused quite a stir. It featured a new guy in the office whose name is pronounced hay-soos and spelled Jesus. I drew those strips a few months ago, and in my typical careless way I didn’t realize they would be running around Easter time. Oops….

Dr. Kervorkian, the 79-year old doctor who helped 130 people die is running for congress in Michigan. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080312/ap_on_el_ho/kevorkian_congress [no longer available] Obviously he has no chance of being elected because he believes in personal freedom. And he’s so old he probably carries his own little suicide kit around in a…

I love hearing about science conspiracy theories. My new favorite, that I stumbled across the other day, is that Earth is increasing in size, and that expansion is the only plausible explanation for what looks like the continental drift. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjgidAICoQI&feature=related [no longer available] This interests me because years ago I…

In the news, a building contractor was caught seducing a shop vacuum. The vacuum has two large cartoon eyes and a hose that represents its nose. The model is called a Henry Hoover. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/03/nhoover103.xml [no longer available] This story raises many questions. Was this a spontaneous act, or did the…

Let me try a little test with you. I’ll ask you a question, and you answer within 5 seconds. The point is to see how different your first reaction is to the answer you eventually settle on. Here’s the setup. Imagine a baby born today, who ends up living to…