dhabuh
06-07-2006, 09:52 AM
More How to Keep a Healthy Level of Insanity in the Workplace
- Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. "That's a good point Sparky." "No I'm sorry I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Chachi."
- Suggest that beer be put in the soda machine.
- Include a piece of your children's artwork as a cover page for all reports that you write. (If you don't have children, draw stick figures yourself.)
- Schedule meetings for 4:14 pm.
- Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
- Agree to organize the company Christmas party. Hold it at McDonald's Playland. Charge everyone $15 each.
- Send e-mail to the rest of the company telling them what you're doing. For example "If anyone needs me I'll be in the bathroom."
- No matter what anyone asks you, reply "Okay."
- Put your garbage can on your desk. Label it "IN."
- Plant a hedge around your cubicle.
- Build models of the Seven Wonders of the World using empty soda cans.
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Of Cats, Toast, and Antigravity
If you drop a buttered piece of bread, it will fall on the floor butter-side down. If a cat is dropped from a window or other high and towering place, it will land on its feet.
But what if you attach a buttered piece of bread, butter-side up to a cat's back and toss them both out the window? Will the cat land on its feet? Or will the butter splat on the ground?
Even if you are too lazy to do the experiment yourself you should be able to deduce the obvious result. The laws of butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline aerodynamics demand that the cat can not smash its furry back. If the combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox. Therefore it simply does not fall.
That's right you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you have discovered the secret of antigravity! A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.
Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies.
The one obvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs they will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good, since right after they make their graceful landing several tons of red-hot starship and ticked off aliens crash on top of them.
And now a few words on solving the problem of creating a ship using the aforementioned anti-gravity device.
One could power a ship by means of cats held in suspended animation (say, about -190 degrees Celsius) with buttered bread strapped to their backs, thus avoiding the possibility of collisions due to tempermental felines. More importantly, how do you steer, once the cats are all held in stasis?
I offer a modest proposal:
We all know that wearing a white shirt at an Italian restaurant is a guaranteed way to take a trip to the laudromat. Plaster the outside of your ship with white shirts. Place four nozzles symmetrically around the ship, which is, of course, saucer shaped. Fire tomato sauce out in proportion to the directions you want to go. The ship, drawn by the shirts, will automatically follow the sauce. If you use t-shirts, you won't go as fast as you would by using, say, expensive dress shirts. This does not work as well in deep gravity wells, since the tomato sauce (now falling down a black hole, perhaps) will drag the ship with it, despite the counter force of the anti-gravity cat/butter machine. Your only hope at that point is to jettison enormous quantities of Tide. This will create the well-known Gravitational Tidal Force.
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Playing Blind
Stevie Wonder and Jack Nicklaus are in a bar. Nicklaus turns to Wonder and says, "How's the singing career going?"
Stevie Wonder says, "Not too bad, the latest album's gone into the top 10, so all in all I think it's pretty good. By the way, how's the golf?"
Nicklaus replies, "Not too bad. I m not winning as much as I used to but I'm still making a bit of money. I had some problems with my swing, but I think I've got that worked out now."
"I always find that when my swing goes wrong I need to stop playing for a while and think about it, then the next time I play it seems to be all right," says Stevie.
"You play golf!?" asks Jack.
Stevie says, "Yes, I've been playing for years."
"But I thought you're blind! How can you play golf if you are blind?" Jack asks.
"I get my caddie to stand in the middle of the fairway and call to me. I listen for the sound of his voice and play the ball towards him, then when I get to where the ball lands the caddie moves to the green or further down the fairway and again I play the ball towards his voice," explains Stevie.
"But how do you putt?" Nicklaus wondered.
"Well," says Stevie, "I get my caddie to lean down in front of the hole and call to me with his head on the ground and I just play the ball to the sound of his voice."
Nicklaus says, "What is your handicap?"
"I play off scratch," Stevie assures Jack.
Nicklaus is incredulous and says to Stevie, "We must play a game sometime."
Wonder replies, "Well, people don't take me seriously, so I only play for money, and I never play for less than $100,000 a hole."
Nicklaus thinks it over and says, "OK, I'm up for that. When would you like to play?"
"I don't care - any night next week is OK with me."
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Musings
- Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?
- Does the Little Mermaid wear an algebra?
- Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
- How do I set my laser printer on stun?
- How is it possible to have a civil war?
- If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
- If God dropped acid, would he see people?
- If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
- If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
- If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?
- Make up nicknames for all your coworkers and refer to them only by these names. "That's a good point Sparky." "No I'm sorry I'm going to have to disagree with you there, Chachi."
- Suggest that beer be put in the soda machine.
- Include a piece of your children's artwork as a cover page for all reports that you write. (If you don't have children, draw stick figures yourself.)
- Schedule meetings for 4:14 pm.
- Encourage your colleagues to join you in a little synchronized chair dancing.
- Agree to organize the company Christmas party. Hold it at McDonald's Playland. Charge everyone $15 each.
- Send e-mail to the rest of the company telling them what you're doing. For example "If anyone needs me I'll be in the bathroom."
- No matter what anyone asks you, reply "Okay."
- Put your garbage can on your desk. Label it "IN."
- Plant a hedge around your cubicle.
- Build models of the Seven Wonders of the World using empty soda cans.
Printer Friendly Version | Send this story to a friend | Back to Top
Of Cats, Toast, and Antigravity
If you drop a buttered piece of bread, it will fall on the floor butter-side down. If a cat is dropped from a window or other high and towering place, it will land on its feet.
But what if you attach a buttered piece of bread, butter-side up to a cat's back and toss them both out the window? Will the cat land on its feet? Or will the butter splat on the ground?
Even if you are too lazy to do the experiment yourself you should be able to deduce the obvious result. The laws of butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline aerodynamics demand that the cat can not smash its furry back. If the combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox. Therefore it simply does not fall.
That's right you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you have discovered the secret of antigravity! A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in equilibrium. This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.
Most of the civilized species of the Universe already use this principle to drive their ships while within a planetary system. The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies.
The one obvious danger is, of course, if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs they will instantly plummet. Of course the cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good, since right after they make their graceful landing several tons of red-hot starship and ticked off aliens crash on top of them.
And now a few words on solving the problem of creating a ship using the aforementioned anti-gravity device.
One could power a ship by means of cats held in suspended animation (say, about -190 degrees Celsius) with buttered bread strapped to their backs, thus avoiding the possibility of collisions due to tempermental felines. More importantly, how do you steer, once the cats are all held in stasis?
I offer a modest proposal:
We all know that wearing a white shirt at an Italian restaurant is a guaranteed way to take a trip to the laudromat. Plaster the outside of your ship with white shirts. Place four nozzles symmetrically around the ship, which is, of course, saucer shaped. Fire tomato sauce out in proportion to the directions you want to go. The ship, drawn by the shirts, will automatically follow the sauce. If you use t-shirts, you won't go as fast as you would by using, say, expensive dress shirts. This does not work as well in deep gravity wells, since the tomato sauce (now falling down a black hole, perhaps) will drag the ship with it, despite the counter force of the anti-gravity cat/butter machine. Your only hope at that point is to jettison enormous quantities of Tide. This will create the well-known Gravitational Tidal Force.
Printer Friendly Version | Send this story to a friend | Back to Top
Playing Blind
Stevie Wonder and Jack Nicklaus are in a bar. Nicklaus turns to Wonder and says, "How's the singing career going?"
Stevie Wonder says, "Not too bad, the latest album's gone into the top 10, so all in all I think it's pretty good. By the way, how's the golf?"
Nicklaus replies, "Not too bad. I m not winning as much as I used to but I'm still making a bit of money. I had some problems with my swing, but I think I've got that worked out now."
"I always find that when my swing goes wrong I need to stop playing for a while and think about it, then the next time I play it seems to be all right," says Stevie.
"You play golf!?" asks Jack.
Stevie says, "Yes, I've been playing for years."
"But I thought you're blind! How can you play golf if you are blind?" Jack asks.
"I get my caddie to stand in the middle of the fairway and call to me. I listen for the sound of his voice and play the ball towards him, then when I get to where the ball lands the caddie moves to the green or further down the fairway and again I play the ball towards his voice," explains Stevie.
"But how do you putt?" Nicklaus wondered.
"Well," says Stevie, "I get my caddie to lean down in front of the hole and call to me with his head on the ground and I just play the ball to the sound of his voice."
Nicklaus says, "What is your handicap?"
"I play off scratch," Stevie assures Jack.
Nicklaus is incredulous and says to Stevie, "We must play a game sometime."
Wonder replies, "Well, people don't take me seriously, so I only play for money, and I never play for less than $100,000 a hole."
Nicklaus thinks it over and says, "OK, I'm up for that. When would you like to play?"
"I don't care - any night next week is OK with me."
Printer Friendly Version | Send this story to a friend | Back to Top
Musings
- Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?
- Does the Little Mermaid wear an algebra?
- Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
- How do I set my laser printer on stun?
- How is it possible to have a civil war?
- If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
- If God dropped acid, would he see people?
- If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
- If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too?
- If the #2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still #2?