Not a joke, but still interesting ...
"Col. Bruce Jette, the Army's point man on robot deployment, said, "I don't have a problem writing to iRobot, saying, 'I'm sorry, your robot died; can we have another?' That's a lot easier letter than to write than to a father or mother."
from the "Virginian Pilot
.....
A message I've been geting from friends lately
found by Alqua Kalina, source unknown
"My fellow astronauts..."
--former Vice-President Dan Quayle, beginning a speech at an Apollo 11 anniversary celebration.
from Clean Laffs
When it was decided NASA to go Nuclear, there was a joke going around that there'd be little green men picketing with "No Nukes" signs.
Now it seems the aliens have given up and gone home. Not because they changed their minds, though.
Problem was, "In space, no one can hear you protest."
In the news, Bush gave NASA permission to develop a nuclear-powered rocket - "NASA to go Nuclear"
And already, Hubble is getting images of little green men picketing with "No Nukes" signs.
" Fans Howl in Protest as Judge Decides X-Men Aren't Human"
This was a result of a Marvel subsidary pushing to declare them nonhuman so they would be labeled "toys" rather than "dolls" as toys have a lower tarrif. In short, for tax purposes and not civil right ones.
But to Marvel fans and writers alike, this smacks too close to the comic plots where the characters have to struggle for acceptance.
from the "Daily Illuminator"
"The Klingon Chef" aka "The Brutal Gormet."
"Today is a good day to fry."
Can ten bucks get you a ride into the future?
You have to hear it to believe it. - http://astro.temple.edu/~kmr/Chauffe2.mp3 - (download)
First you'll hear a 10-cylinder, 750 horsepower Asiatech F1 engine being warmed up. Then it performs a rousing version of "When The Saints Come Marching In", to the delight of assembled pit staff and journalists.
Here's how the magic was achieved (technical/musical details via F1 Racing magazine):
As we all know, a V10 engine produces five combustions per revolution at a frequency per second of 60/(5 x revs per minute), which equals 12/rpm. Therefore, to work out the revs you need to hit a particular musical note, you multiply the note's frequency by 12. To play a 440Hz 'A', for example, you need 5,280rpm. For 'C', use 3,139rpm, for 'F' 4,191rpm, and so on.
Asiatech's French technicians (the engine, despite its name, is derived from a Peugeot design) simply programmed their engine to run through the various rev/note ranges in the correct sequence. The result is delightful. And think of the possibilities - BMW's F1 engine, which howls all the way to 19,050rpm, could rip through the entire Hendrix songbook.
Even better: imagine a massed NASCAR choir performing "The Star Spangled Banner"! Being eight-cylinder engines, the frequency per second would be 60/(4 x revs), which means you'd multiply the note frequencies by 15 instead of 12: 'A' would arrive at 6,600rpm, 'C' at 3,923rpm, 'F' at 5,238rpm, etc.
Mark my words, someone will be getting rich at Daytona next year selling a CD of NASCAR patriotic anthems.
from "Archae99"
.....
Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies, and Munchkins - A funny look look at "the four types of roleplayers."
The Real Man - The tough macho type who walks up to the attacking dragon and orders it to leave before he gets hurt.
The Real Roleplayer - The intelligent cunning guy who tricks the constable into letting you all out of prison.
The Loonie - The guy who will do anything for a cheap laugh, including casting a fireball at ground zero.
The Munchkin - Need we say more?
"Julia [Roberts], I miss our phone calls. But it seems like ever since you got Caller ID you're never home."
--Steve Martin from Clean Laffs
A planet with a 29 hour year, 14 times closer to its star than Mercury, and the size of Jupiter. - News Item.
"I feel like the summer was just yesterday." "Actually, it was this morning."
An investigator claims a Russian software company has a major piracy problem. News Item .
The eye-patches and calls of "yo-ho-ho" must've been the tip-off.
Smelling out terrorists:
"Different people emit different body odors. DARPA, aka the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is seeking a machine to detect different terrorists by their odors. At airports, travellers may be sniffed as well as searched. A person's odor lingers in a room for hours, or even days, so a person-sniffer might be useful for catching not just terrorists, but criminals. If scientists knew how a dog's nose works, they'd be well on their way to building a sniffing machine. But they don't know, so building the device will be hard.
"Once we have the machine, the other side may devise ways to cloak its agents' odors, in which case we would have to build a more sophisticated machine. The other side then might then improve its cloaking methods, leaving us in need of a still stronger sniffing machine.
"Call it the 'underarms race.' "
from the Virginian Pilot
" You think your computer has problems ... "
From Wiliam J. Lee
A recent article in an American Heart Association magazine sugested a protein in vampire bat saliva could be used to make a better clot-busting drug - News Item.
I wonder if we'll soon be seeing scientists with German accents chasing these bats with nets, taunting, "I vant your spit!"
.....
"Next time you send me an e-mail ..."
from the webmaster's Dad
"Industrious clock" - New meaning to "minute hand."
"Technomancy" - Ever hear the expression about technology and magic?
from Dr. Bob
A high-school student recently got an "A" for hacking into the school computer. - News Article
And young hackers everywhere are lining up for transfers.
"The FBI has a new way of tracking terrorists"
"Prince Harry, the teenage son of the late Princess Diana, has been warned of a plot to steal some of his hair in a bid to obtain a sample of his DNA genetic makeup, a Sunday newspaper reported." - AOL News
A "hair-raising" story indeed.
Using a technique called astrometry, a group of scientists (including some from the University of Texas) have determined the weight of a planet in another solar system. - News Item
And embarased, it's going on a diet.
from the Daily Illuminator
.....
"I've located the source of all that annoying spam ..."
It seems those against the US converting officially to metric have a new argument - The Meter is a Crock
The man assigned by the post-Revoulution French government made a mistake in his data and spent years covering it up, only to be driven crazy by guilt and tried to explain it to other scientists. Problem was, it didn't matter. They wanted a unit of measurment close to the French yard, that it was "wrong" didn't matter much to them.
With all those studies about Global Warming and the Ozone Hole, I wonder if there's a lesson here?
With all the hoopla about that strange cult claiming to have created the first human clone at the behest of the wishes of aliens, a recent cartoon by Oliphant shows little green men leaving Earth in a hurry, "We better run before they blame us for something else!"
Morris realized he needed to purchase a hearing aid, but he felt unwilling to spend much money. "How much do they cost?" he asked the salesperson.
"That depends," he said. "They run from $2.00 to $2,000."
"Let's see the $2.00 model," said Morris the miser.
The salesperson put the device around Morris' neck. "You just stick this button in your ear and run this little string down to your pocket," he instructed.
"How does it work?" , asked Morris.
"For $2.00 it doesn't work," the salesperson replied. "But when people see it on you, they'll talk louder."
from topgreetings.com
Early 00's Vocabulary
SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.
SQUIRT THE BIRD: To transmit a signal to a satellite.
STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
SWIPED OUT: An ATM or credit card that has become useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
TOURISTS: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. Example: "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."
TREEWARE: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.
XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.
ALPHA GEEK: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group.
.....
CHIPS AND SALSA - Chips = hardware, salsa = software. i.e.: "Well, first we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."
DEINSTALLED - Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voice mail of a Vice President at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of a deinstalled vice president. Dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance.
VULCAN NERVE PINCH - The taxing hand position required to reach all the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm re-boot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key and the Power On key. Sometimes referred to as the "THREE-FINGERED SALUTE."
CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles.
PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.
from Clean Laffs