I dare you!

)

I dare you!  My mom sent this along with a note: “I dare you to watch this with your mouth closed!”  It's pretty amazing, all right...

Liberal Logic...

Liberal Logic...  Via my mom, who sent along quite a few examples along these lines.  Warning: the web site referenced in the photos is on malware blacklists – don't visit it with any computer you care about...

Smart jokes?

Smart jokes?  Friend and reader Simon M. passes along these “20 Jokes That Only Intellectuals Will Understand”.  That's more than a little pretentious, but there are some funny ones in the collection.  One oldie-but-goodie that's geek-friendly:

Why do engineers confuse Halloween and Christmas?
Because Oct 31 = Dec 25.

Translation: 31 base 8 (OCTal) equals 25 base 10 (DECimal).
Here's one I hadn't seen before:

Entropy isn't what it used to be.

Ha!

Perspective...

Perspective...  Acquiring a little perspective (aka “wisdom”) may be the main benefit of getting older.  I've been a working engineer long enough to see several engineering management fads come and go.  These are all about managing the process of engineering, rather than doing the actual engineering work itself.  The broadest need for such processes these days is for software engineering, which often has large teams of engineers working on the same product (or parts of it).

All of these processes have the same objective: to reduce the process of engineering to something predictable, measurable, and manageable.  So far as I can tell, all of them can be successful when used by a gifted manager, of which there are approximately 3 in the world at any given time.  The rest just impede the engineers' work, frustrate both the engineers and their managers, and provide fodder for Scott Adams (Mr. Dilbert).  Meanwhile, so far as I can tell, most successful engineering management is driven by one of three things: the teams are small and cohesive (so process is much less needed), there's a gifted leader of the team who holds the whole effort together single-handedly, or the team had a run of amazingly good luck.  I've never – not once – seen an engineering methodology actually work well myself.

The last company I worked for was in the throes of kind of, sort of, but not really adopting “agile” methodologies when I retired.  This post could have been written about them...

Story of the day...

Story of the day...  Via ScrappleFace:

Reports from the International Space Station (ISS) indicate that Russia has effectively annexed several modules of the orbiting laboratory, allegedly at the invitation of a Russian-speaking scientist aboard.

President Vladimir Putin said his forces moved in “peacefully and are committed to protecting the interests of pro-Russian persons on the ISS” — which currently comprises cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, who felt threatened by some laboratory rodents run amok. 

Scott Ott cracks me up :)

AGW skepticism is going mainstream...

AGW skepticism is going mainstream...  Here's an article in Forbes, reporting something as news that was actually reported by several AGW skeptics (Steve McIntyre, Anthony Watts, Jo Nova) well over a year ago.  To me, the most interesting thing here is that this quite skeptical view is being reported credulously as straight-up news...

At-will out-of-body experiences...

At-will out-of-body experiences...  Seems that out-of-body experiences are explainable after all, and without invoking magic, deities, or hallucinations.  This is another in a large set of examples where a single human (or occasionally, an animal) has provided the means to study and explain a phenomenon that was previously completely mysterious...

Progressive racism?

Progressive racism?  Some of these are a stretch, but there's enough that's plausible to make a thought-provoking read...