Month: December 2013

Laughter and MIRTH

This is excellent trolling, a study on the damaging effects of laughter. To lol or notlol is the question

Laughter is not purely beneficial. The harms it can cause are immediate and dose related, the risks being highest for Homeric (uncontrollable) laughter. The benefit-harm balance is probably favorable. It remains to be seen whether sick jokes make you ill or jokes in bad taste cause dysgeusia, and whether our views on comedians stand up to further scrutiny.

Renouncing the anarchist cookbook

i remember the idiotic glee i had when i discovered the anarchist cookbook on some bbs in 1993 (typical teenager bs). this is one of the best retractions in a while:

The Cookbook has been found in the possession of alienated and disturbed young people who have launched attacks against classmates and teachers. I suspect that the perpetrators of these attacks did not feel much of a sense of belonging, and the Cookbook may have added to their sense of isolation.The continued publication of the Cookbook serves no purpose other than a commercial one for the publisher. It should quickly and quietly go out of print.

DARPA Skynet

poindexter tried to build what the nsa has today. of course he was fired for it, but nsa still built it.

From 1983 to 1993 DARPA spent over $1B on a program called the Strategic Computing Initiative. The agency’s goal was to push the boundaries of computers, artificial intelligence, and robotics to build something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to the dystopian future of the Terminator movies. They wanted to build Skynet.

DC oompa loompa

Speaker of the House John Boehner has long denied that his perpetual tan skin color is the result of sunless tanning. He just spends a lot of time outdoors, the Ohio Republican is known to say. But despite his repeated denials of using tanning beds, Boehner has ties to the industry. Not only has he accepted campaign contributions from a group called the Indoor Tanning Association, Boehner actually lives in a D.C. apartment owned by a lobbyist for the American Suntanning Association.

i never understood this. is boehner from the jersey shore? does the orange-american constituency even vote?

Bananas will collapse

if you liked cavendish, should have put some anti-fungal genes in it.

Scientists have long feared that Tropical Race (TR) 4, a soil fungus that rots the Cavendish banana, will reach Latin America. That’s where the vast majority of the multi-billion $ banana export trade is based, and the source of nearly all the bananas consumed in the United States. And now, there’s more reason to worry.