Building on failure

Adam Savage, one of the two heads of the show “Mythbusters”, talks about his job, and how two major failures have affected and shaped everything he has done since them. Very interesting and thought provoking.

Adam’s failures.

Great programming cartoons

Ah! Humor! Gotta have it!

Corporate trolls have Dilbert. He tells tales of corporate life.

Army guys had Beetle Bailey (is he still around anymore?). He tells tales of military life.

The little kid in us has Charley Brown. He tells tales of our childhood.

Childish adults had Calvin and Hobbes. They told tales of what we would have liked to do when we were children.

Programmers have — lots, including Dilbert, who is, after all, an engineer. And this helpful article collected some of the best programming/programmer humor for us.

10 things never to say to a nerdy guy

I thought this is an interesting list. I especially like #6, and didn’t know about #2! #8, #7, #4 & #3 are also very interesting in a turning the tables kind of way.

Ok, ok, you want to know what they are: here are the 10 things never to say to a nerdy guy.

Calvin and Hobbes

One of my All Time favorite cartoon strips, Calvin and Hobbes is sorely missed.

And, obviously, not only by me. This guy is such a fan he has quantified why he misses C&H, and shares with us his top 5 reasons. Very well done, and I hereby adopt his reasons as some of mine.

Lol! Internet comics

I enjoy the off kilter brand of humor popular on the internet. Couldn’t put them in family newspapers, of course, but there are plenty of great comics that can fill the pages of traditional media: Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbs, The Far Side – oh, I guess those are all gone. OK, Dilbert, Zits, Doonesbury, Sherman’s Lagoon, Non-Sequitor, Speed Bump.

On the internet is the ever popular XKCD, and Cyanide and Happiness. Of the later, here is a little gem for today’s grin.

Face plant or Transformer?

I can’t tell whether this is a face plant, or the biker is transforming into a bike…

I think it’s an Ouch!

Beyond Punk’d

Punk’d is a popular TV show where a famous celebrity pulls jokes on some other famous celebrity. Though there is a lot involved in the setup and execution of the pranks, I would not call these “elaborate pranks”. They are, rather, grade school level.

Real pranks involve intelligence, knowledge, and dedication. The resulting prank should live on, admired by others, and provide fodder, incentive even, for better pranks.

In other words, it take a geek to pull off a truly outstanding prank.

In the annals of academia, the top tier of intelligentsia come from schools such as, but not limited to, MIT and Caltech. And MIT has a tradition of pranking that goes back over a century. Alumni even make donations to a standing fund designated specifically to pranking. (THAT’s dedication!)

The top pranks? Well, you’ll have to go here to check them out….

Pranks are not confined to the student body, either. Mature scientists are given to practical jokes, some of which are documented in the book, “A Random Walk in Science“.

And, of course, there are the well known Easter Eggs in programs, DVD and video games.

And pranks are not just for fun. Operation Meatball in World War II, documented in “The Man Who Never Was“, was a deadly serious prank foisted on the Germans by the Allies prior to D-Day.

Plagiarism revenge

Bwahahaha!!!!!

I love it!

I’ve not been plagiarized – my content isn’t that original or outstanding – but I think it would tick me off of someone was using my material as my own. This is a slickly subtle way to find the culprits, and then the size and scope of the revenge is up to you.

Fight global warming – repeal daylight savings

Yes, the real key to reversing global warming is simply to repeal daylight savings time, and here’s the proof.

Limericks

There once was a girl from Nantucket,

But you knew that. And you have ideas about the way the limerick ends up. Yeah, not safe for children. But #22 mocks that idea.

However, there are other limericks, limericks that are actually pretty good, and on a variety of topics.

Programmer? Yep, check out #296, among quite a few others.

Insomnia with programmer? Yep, #282.

Physicist? Cosmologist? #380 covers a Brief History of Gravity. (Yeah, there are several jokes there.)

But maybe you are a punctuation freak, in which case #418 has you covered.

Mathematicians might read #398, and spend the rest of their lives trying to prove it.

Yes, all your limerick are belong us! That’s #396.

Oh, and the Nantucket one? Well, one variation is #189.