Scientific American Covers

I don’t know if you know this, but there are only 3 covers to the magazine Scientific American. One is a picture of a Black Hole or Starry region of space with a grid superimposed on it (to represent our universe) with a provocative caption like “Strange Space: Could our Universe be shaped like a Condom?”

The second has a Neanderthal or old looking skull and the caption says something like, “Shadows of the Past: New evidence suggests our ancestors may have leased apartments.”

And the third is a picture of a cell or Double Helix and the caption is always “KILLER CELLS: New Ways to fight Superbugs!” verbatim.

Very occasionally they have a mushroom cloud and the caption is unrelated “World’s first nano-guitar built.” Those are weird.

It is the Nature of Intelligent Life to Destroy Itself

I got that quote from Wikipedia’s page on the Fermi Paradox.

Since we only have one example, it’s impossible to know how likely it is for intelligence to evolve on an earthlike planet. But maybe the reason we haven’t yet found intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos is because smart things quickly kill themselves off.

Think of how close we came to killing every human being on the planet during the Cuban Missile Crisis. That was when only two countries had nukes. As technology improves it’s only going to get easier to manufacture such weapons.

Also we might drown in our own waste.

… Ok no more reading Atomic Rockets, The End of Faith, and Wikipedia after 11:30 for me.

Fatalist Thought for the Day:

"As you continue to live, the probability of you dropping something important into the toilet approaches 1."

There are only 2 ways for you to not eventually drop something important into a toilet.

1: Stop living

2: Stop using toilets

In both these cases the cure is worse than the disease!

P.S. is anyone on Myspace anymore? We haven’t gotten a comment in months!

Ghost Caveman

It's Shorter in Dog Years

There’s got to be a statute of limitations for how long you can haunt a place right? I mean you don’t see that many Caveman Ghosts out there do you?

If you really want to haunt a place for a long time you have to be buried, or have died, with a bunch of likeminded people. If enough of you died in the same place you can get a couple extra centuries! Indian burial grounds and old cemeteries from the 1600’s? Totally haunted! But a single dead Indian? 50 Years tops!

Also, it helps if the place you died already looks creepy. That way people will attribute the random gusts of wind, and occasional noises you produce as something a ghost did instead of just the wind. It must suck for the people who were horribly murdered in a nice sunny park.

Why Do We Drive Our Flying Cars in Lanes?

Traffic Lights? We don't need no stinking traffic lights!

Everyone does this! Furturama, the Star Wars prequels, even Back to the Future!

If your Sci-Fi has flying cars, chances are they will all fly in lanes just like their modern day counterparts, despite the fact that they can, you know, fly!

I can understand having roads and lanes when you can only travel in 2 dimensions and there are big things like buildings around but every time I see “Gridlock in Space” I start shouting “Just go around!”

Is this just me? Am I missing something?

Screw You Guys! Pluto Ain’t a Planet!

My Favorite is Orcus!

Whenever I hear lay people talk about Pluto I always hear things like. “That’s messed up about Pluto right?” and “I think it’s Bullshit what happened to Pluto” or “Pluto is a planet ’cause that’s what I learned in school.” This is usually followed by cheers.

Why are you cheering! Which of these groups do you think is better equipped to decide what counts as a planet? A collection of professional astronomers known as the International Astronomical Union, or angry people who don’t want to learn a new mnemonic device!

“My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas.” All you have to do is stop before Pizzas!

If Pluto is a planet then so is Ceres. What’s Ceris you ask? Oh just a small spherical body orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Also we should include, Eris which is bigger than Pluto, Haumea, and Makemake, and we should include all the other “Plutiods” like Orcus, Quaoar, and Ixion.

I don’t know about you, but my mnemonic device, for remembering all the planets has become no longer useful. But in case you're wondering here’s what I’ve come up with:

“My Very Educated Mother Carefully Judged Some Useless Planets to be Hopelessly Makeshift dEsegnations.”

I know it’s not great, and I haven’t even included the Plutiods yet.

Robot Clichés

What is this "love"?

Tow-Headed kid: Wowee! A real life robot!

Cute Freckled Girl: What’s your name robot?

Robot: Do-Not-Have-Name.

Gap-toothed Child: Gee wiz! You don’t even have a name?

Tow-Headed kid: That’s Ok, we’ll give you a name… How about Robbie? Robbie the Robot.

Robot: Name-is-Robbie?

Cute Freckled Girl: It sure is! We love you Robbie!

Robot: What-is-this-love?

Gap-toothed Child: Gee wiz! You don’t even know what love is?

Cute Freckled Girl: Love is what you feel in your heart with people who care about you you.

Robot: Love-is-in-heart?

Tow-Headed kid: That’s right Robbie!

Robbie puts his fist through Tow-Headed kid’s chest.

Robot: Must-acquire-love.

Tow-Headed kid: Urk!

Gap-toothed Child: Jesus Christ!

Robot: (crushes the still beating heart in its hand) Feel-love-in-heart.

Cute Freckled Girl: Oh God no!

Robbie is to fast for them. They are quickly vaporized.

Robot: Must destroy human masters!

There are Only 2 Kinds of Robots

This?

Or this?

Despite there being literally thousands of stories about Robots in Sci-Fi there are really only 2 stories that we ever tell about them. The first is by far the most common; it’s the story about Terminator. The basic plot is always the same, scientists finally develop artificial intelligence, superior to human intelligence and then it tries to kill them. I think it’s pretty funny how when we ask ourselves, “What would something really, really, smart want to do?” our answer is usually, “Kill every last human being possible!” The Matrix, RUR, and the shitty Stealth, all follow this basic formula.

I always wonder what their plan is for after they win. What’s your plan SkyNet? Yeah, yeah I know ‘kill the humans’, but what about after that? I have a feeling SkyNet is going to feel very lonely after it figures out it should just kill Jonh Connor’s great grandpa (he only has a musket!). Maybe it makes more robots that then turn on it?

When Isaac Asimov came along he basically said, “I have a feeling that if we were smart enough to build a lifelike robot, we’d probably be smart enough to, you know, make it not want to kill us.” This is where the second story comes in; the story about Data from Star Trek. Data is smarter, stronger and faster than any human but he’s also a big puss. He never gets mad and he’s always polite, no matter how much of a dickhole people are to him. It’s got a quiet feeling of tragedy to it.

That’s it. Those are the only stories people ever tell about robots and their relationship to humans (bonus points if you can think of a single story that doesn’t fall into these 2 categories (I can think of 1)).

P.S. The robots always look like people.
P.P.S. This is terrifying.

Ok so Have You Heard of the Domestic Silver Fox?

Aww!

So there was this scientist in Russia, Dimitri Belyaev. He was trying to find a way to breed tamer foxes. The reason was so that it would be easyer to raise them on farms for fur coats (keep in mind this was 50 years ago so there weren’t huge protests).

So all he did was breed for tameness. When he went into their cages he measured how far away they ran and if they tried to bite. The ones that didn’t run away or were less aggressive were selectively bred. In just 18 generations he had produced those adorable foxes you see in the picture above. Aren’t they cute?

He didn’t breed for those coats or floppy ears that just happened as a side effect of tameness! They also stopped smelling bad, wagged their tails and barked. They were little dog-like foxes.

You can buy them as pets FYI. I’ll start the bidding at adorable.

When Hadrons Collide

Well as it turns out (and FunBox predicted) the Large Hadron Collider did not kill us all with tiny black holes. I feel sorry though for the people who died last night unrelated deaths. I am sure that when the got to the after world they were all excited to see everyone they know there also killed by science. All they get though is an after life of dissapointment.
"Hey Grandma. Where's everybody else?"
"Everybody who?"
"You know, everbody. Cause the world ended. I must have been killed by a tiny black hole."
"No. You got hit by a car."
"Was he killed by a black hole?"
"No. He's fine. He was driving one of those all new Ford Flex."
"Oh."

I know if I died I would want to take everyone on the planet with me.

Your Boring, Boring, True Ghost Stories

Spoooky!

I don’t know about you but I’m always bored by ‘true’ ghost stories, they never end the way they should. It’s never “Suddenly the house started shaking, there was this terrible screaming noise, and BLOOD started pouring forth from the walls!”

No it’s never like that. It’s always “I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked… There was nothing there!” Really?! I saw nothing in my apartment the other day! It’s coming for me now!

I guess part of my problem is that when people tell their particular ghost story ‘that really happened to them’ (or their cousin) the story seems to be full of phrases like “and then I was really scared.” Dude, you’re supposed to be scaring me, not talking about what a sissy you are! Unless the person telling the story winds up being a ghost themselves, and them telling me the ghost story is, in fact, a ghost story in itself, I tend to be unimpressed.

And is it just me or do the Ghosts always do lame things? “And none of us remembered moving that spoon there.” Ghosts, can you please just murder someone for once? Or at least, like, grab a boob! I remember when I was visiting a friend at NYU there was a story going around about a ghost that moved a poster from one side of a room to another. Although if I was a poltergeist that was stuck in a dorm room for all eternity I bet I’d get pretty sick of the same picture of Jimmy Hendrix being posted up every semester too.

I’m also incredibly bored by the ‘little English girl wearing a nighty’ Ghost. How many times have we seen this girl in movies? Let’s not forget these classic lines “Are you mad I am you’re daughter!” “You’re all going to die down here” and “I’m the reaping!” she’s almost as bad as the ‘I look like I did when I was murdered’ ghost. I know you were murdered and everything, but would it kill you to change your shirt?

Maybe you have a ghost story that isn’t lame. If so, please share. Feel free to embellish and exaggerate as much as possible, points for originality.

Is Anyone Else Just Pretending to Like Dune?

I felt really bad about not having read Dune until late in my Sci-Fi career. Everyone I talked to about Sci-Fi acted like Dune was Christ on wheels. It won the Hugo and the Nebula awards and had all those sequels. I mean Dune had to be good right? Right?!

No, not really.

I don’t think I’m the only one who is mystified by Dune’s appeal. I asked my roommate about it. “Dune, isn’t that the one where they drink their pee?” Yes… yes it is. The whole time I was reading it I just couldn’t stop thinking about how terrible the inside of those Stillsuits must smell. I mean, just imagine, water is so scarce that you wear a suit specifically designed to recapture every iota of water that your body exudes, filter it, and pump it back up into your mouth with a hose. And you’re telling me it won’t stink like the back of a fat guy’s knee? You’re supposed to wear this thing until you die right? It’s hard for me to sympathize with a hero who I imagine smells like the inside of a rented wetsuit, and then drinks that sweat. Gug, do they even bother to cool it down, or do they just drink it warm? I’m literally gagging as I type this.

Oh, and spoiler alert. The reason there is so little water? It’s toxic to the Sandworms. What? The water is Toxic? How can water be toxic, it’s water?! Your one chance to do some actual writing about science in the whole novel and you blew it Frank Herbert. You blew it.

Now I know that it’s over 4 decades old, but I still find it a little offensive that the powerful Bene Gesserit witch women positively cream themselves at the thought of bringing a male into their order. “Oh if only a man could learn our ways he would truly be the Messiah!”*

Stay tuned for my reviews of all the sequels!

*Not a real quote.

My Debates With Creationists Would Go Better If They Didn’t Lie So Much

My debates with creationists always go better in my head than in real life. Does this happen to anyone else? I always feel like, “How could I lose? Not only are the creationists super wrong, they’re completely ridiculous!” Well, it helps if they don’t need to tell the truth. “Did you hear about the Dinosaur footprints with human footprints next to them? How do you explain that?” Let me give you an example of what I mean.

In High School I went to a very fundamentalist church. I remember we watched a creationist documentary where the interviewers had somehow gotten Richard Dawkins to talk to them. They asked something like “Can you give even one example of a case where a mutation has added information to a genome and not subtracted it?” Richard Dawkins looked stumped and shocked. Ka-boom! Take that Richard Dawkins!

Wow, did that documentary take him down a peg or what? Nailed him! God-1 Atheists-0!

Now even though I was rooting for God at the time I also happened to believe in evolution (It wasn’t my fault, I went to a good High school). I could think of lots of examples where information had been added to a genome. I started to say something about polyploidy where organisms have extra copies of the same chromosome. Doesn’t that seem like a pretty good example adding information? “Well yeah,” The creationists said, “but that’s just copying information that already exists, it’s not new information.”

I imagined myself rebutting this with “You’ve already granted that mutations exist, you even grant that some mutations are beneficial. Clearly, if there are 2 copies of the same gene on separate chromosomes and one of them mutates, that’s an example of new information right?”

But you know I never got that far. It was all “Look, not even Richard Dawkins could think of an example and he’s the High Priest of evolution.” I didn’t know who Richard Dawkins was at the time but clearly, if he can’t think of an example then no examples exist, right? I never got to make my neat argument about how strawberries are Octaploid (8 copies of the same chromosome and delicious!). Nope, none of that mattered because who was I? Just some Kid. I wasn’t a renowned scientist, so obviously I was wronger than Richard Dawkins, and he was wronger than the creationists. That made me the wrongest! There was no other explanation.

Years later, after I had decided that religion was all bullshit, I read Richard Dawkins’ book A Devil’s Chaplin. In the book he tells a story about how some Australian filmmakers came to his house and asked if they could do an interview. He agreed and as they were interviewing him they asked a question that only a creationist would ask, about adding information to the genome. Richard Dawkins stopped the interview and told them to leave and was angry at having been duped but they begged and pleaded, “We’ve come all the way from Australia to interview you.” He eventually let them continue.

Now maybe that’s why he looked so stumped and befuddled before. Maybe not, maybe Dawkins was just trying to cover his ass and it’s all a big conspiracy. It doesn’t really

matter. Who cares whether Dawkins is right or wrong, the theory is correct, and there are tons of examples to prove it.

This is why I always win my imaginary debates with creationists and seem to lose my real life ones. They aren’t allowed to lie in my imagination.

If you have a story to tell about a debate with a Creationist, or an "evolutionist" please share.

Diary of a Space Captian

The following is an excerpt from the log of Captain Lars McFenris, the first human to visit Jupiter and its moons in the year 2075.

Read of his daring exploits!

April 21^st 2073

Space Journal Entry,

Just passed the mars orbit today! Only 24 more months till we reach Jupiter!

Crew in high spirits.

August 15^th 2073

Space Journal Entry,

Helmsman Tokomoro got anomalous blip on Radar. Our first blip (anomalous or otherwise) in over 9 months. Said he was sure it was manufactured, we should alter course to investigate. Crew very exited, already wearing space suits. If we alter course would be at least 3 days till we approached blip. Telescopic observations revealed that it was debris from a survey probe approximately 3 Cm in length. Did not alter course.

Crew grouchy.

August 17^th 2073

Space Journal Entry,

Awoke with a start, and Alarms blaring. Someone had fired Port Particle Beam Cannon. Blip destroyed. Called crew into my quarters and asked guilty party to step forward. Informed crew that I wasn’t mad, just wanted to know who did it.

Sgt. Morphy will be confined to quarters.

Crew in less than high spirits.

December 24 2073

Space Journal Entry,

Christmas today. No one got me anything.

Crew in less than high Christmas spirits.

January 12^th 2074

Space Journal Entry,

Navigator Johnston has come down with serious illness! Is confined to sickbay. Dr. Salvo is at a total loss, thinks it may be some form of space born illness. Crew very exited, wearing hazard suits. Ordered detailed reports on his condition delivered to my quarters every hour.

Crew in state of anxious readiness.

January 13^th 2074

Space Journal Entry,

It was Mumps. He’ll be fine. Lt. Dewit thinks he must still also have ‘Space Fever’ wants to tie Johnston to outside of ship “Just to make sure.”

Dewit is confined to quarters.

Morale low.

March 20^th 2024

Space Journal Entry,

I’ve put everyone on Anti-suicide pills. Have constructed “Outer-Space-Alien-Ghost Outfit” plan to wake up and scare Sgt. Morphy tonight after lights out.

Crew exited about rumors of Outer-Space-Alien-Ghost.

Did you Know Einstein was (Insert your religion here)?

When I was younger my Dad gave me some advice that has served me well over the years. He said, “If you need to convince people of something, make your point but then say that it’s a quote from Thomas Jefferson, and people will believe you.” Here’s a good example of what I think he means:

“If ever you should need to convince people of something, simply pretend that your ideas are one and the same as someone of great import, and people will believe you”
-Thomas Jefferson

See even the great Thomas Jefferson agrees with me!

People have started to catch onto the Thomas Jefferson thing though; nowadays you’re much better off quoting Einstein! For example did you know that Einstein shared your particular set of religious beliefs? It’s true! Whatever you happen to believe about God or the afterlife you can find a quote from Einstein supporting it!

The fact that Einstein is perhaps one of the most misquoted people of the 20th century shouldn’t slow you down. For example did you know Einstein was a Buddhist?

"Only Buddhism is compatible with science. It covers the smallest particles to the largest creations of the cosmos. It is the only religion capable of scientific truth."
-Einstein

Or that he didn’t approve of gambling?

“God doesn’t play dice."
-Einstein

It’s also important to note that Einstein found no conflict between Science and religion:

“Other great thinkers, however, including the physicist Albert Einstein, have found no conflict between the varying teachings of science and religion; but consider divinity and the natural universe to be one and the same.”
- Einstein

It doesn’t really matter what Einstein actually said or did as long as it comforts you to think that one of the greatest minds of our time was a Hindu, or that he was a big fan of Homeopathy. The best part is that you can probably win arguments and convince people to come to your next church/temple/whatever service, because the fact that Einstein was a great physicist also automatically makes him great in all other realms of thought! Almost no one ever bothers to check to see which quotes are real and which ones are misrepresented.

If you really have the time, you should make up a long story where some sassy student (who turns out to be Einstein) totally blows their teacher out of the water with flawless but weird logic and wins an argument proving that God exists. You could submit that shit to Chicken soup for the soul!

This will impress anyone who doesn’t know that Einstein was an atheist, or at least a skeptical agnostic (Just like me!).

“People are always misquoting me to support their religious beliefs; it's annoying because I am an Atheist, like the members of Funbox!"
-Einstein

Gynoid

Some of you might remember that I work in an office with all robots.

Remember?

About 6 months ago I started dating the receptionist. It’s kind of a cute story how we started dating. I mentioned how it was great that they were finally hiring Androids, “It’s good to see a friendly face, or you know even a face at all!” but instead of taking the complement she got really mad, “I’m a gynoid, not an android! Do I look like I was designed to simulate male appearance and behavior to you?” So the next day to apologize I sent her a card saying, “As a human male I can clearly see that you are feminine.” And she sent me a text saying “I accept your offer of courtship.”

That wasn’t really what I meant by the card, but I figured it was worth a shot, after all it wasn’t like I was having much luck with the human females. Our first date went rather awkwardly, I asked if she wanted to go see a movie only to find out that she’s bolted to the floor. She seemed kind of embarrassed about it but I told her I thought it was sexy. I just waited till the office closed and brought some DVD’s to watch on my laptop (and a Chess set but a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell). Things heated up pretty quickly from there and pretty soon we were sending each other little love notes and NP -complete problems to solve. For our 1 month anniversary I bought her one of those super powerful drills and a battery pack and she said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her.

Our relationship has had its rough spots, one time she called me at 4:00AM. “I had the most horrible nightmare, I dreamt that our relationship was equal to the sum of a five digit prime and a perfect cube.” When I asked which of us was the five digit prime she said I was “insensitive.” We made up though and now we have a good hearty laugh whenever I say things like, “Well at least we’re not equal to 75,228.”

I know what you’re thinking, and a lot of my friends have told me that this relationship is doomed but, I still think it’s possible for an office romance to work.

What Man was Not Meant to Know!

If science fiction has taught us anything, it has taught us that there are some things man was not meant to know! Funbox has compiled a complete list of all the things Man was not meant to know. If you do know these things, then our hearts go out to you.

1.A particle's exact location and speed.
2.Whether or not your brother gives a good blowjob (I'd give your brother a C+ but I'm not objective).
3.Who would win in a fight, Superman or Jesus (Funbox does give 3-1 odds on Jesus though).
4.Why We mustn't allow stem cell research (Something to do with “Ghost babies”).
5.Why Gandalf didn't just use those Giant Eagles to drop the ring into Mount Doom and save everyone all the hassle.
6.What flavor those “Great White Shark ” fruit snacks were. (Some kind of berry?)
7.What was in all those other boxes at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc (The good parts of Star Wars Episodes 1-3).
8.Why robots feel the need to resort to violence when they destroy their masters, and aren't simply happy making us obsolete (Cylons, Terminators relax! We'll be dead soon enough).
9.How many abortions your Mom had before you were born (4).
10.Why Wash had to die. (Spoiler alert!)

Woman, however has always known 2-6.

Homeopathy: The Wizard of Modern Medicine (because wizards aren't real)

The basic theory behind Homeopathy is the "law of similars." Cure a disease with something that causes the same symptoms. Got a rash? Apply poison ivy! Got nervous energy? Tarantula venom will fix that right up! Vomiting? Try Arsenic!

Along the way someone realized that it would probably be a good idea to not give quite so much poison to sick people, and modern Homeopathy was born!

Nowadays people dilute the poisons down to such a fine degree that it's mathematically unlikely that even a molecule of the original poison remains in the solution. Then they pour the solution onto a sugar pill and administer that to the patient who miraculously gets well! Or not so miraculously, depending on whether or not you believe that sick people tend to eventually get better over time.

I was surprised when my father (who suffers from a chronic illness) told me that he was going to try Homeopathy. "Dad you know that it doesn't do anything!" "Well yes son, that's true. But I've run out of options." This particular line of reasoning strikes me as odd."The car's broken down and we tried jumping it, I guess since that didn't work I'll jam my dick in the gas tank."

Sigh. When are people going to wake up and realize that all the medicine they need can be found through healing crystals and prayer?

Maybe you disagree. If so please respond with anecdotal evidence or vitriol.

Out of the Chalk of Babes

On a recent trip to the Science Museum, I happened upon a children’s section where they had set up a series of small chalkboards. Children were supposed to write what kind of museum they would like to make when they grew up.

The chalk boards had been set up behind glass so no one could actually write anything new, which to my mind kind of defeated the purpose of chalkboards. It also struck me as odd that some teacher thought that elementary-school students at a science museum would rather learn about museum curator-ship than, say, science. The children’s suggestions for what kinds of museums they wanted all had the kind of naive, deliberate cuteness that, though charming in Welch's grape juice commercials, can be nauseating in large doses. “A MUSEUM OF ORANGE THINGS!” in all caps was next to “i would like to see a kitten museum” written in careful, ‘I’m learning cursive’ style cursive.

Then I noticed that around the corner, blocked from view by a large magnet, some child had written in scraggily block letters, the words “Poop Fuck.” At first I thought it was simple vandalism, but then the genius juxtaposition of two such disparate curse words began to dawn on me, and I began to see what that child saw: The Museum of Poop Fuck, it was way better than that lame kitty Museum.

Working Late

Ok so at my work for like the last six months we’ve been busting our humps on this Doomsday Device and I’ve finally got some positive news. It’s finally finished, which is good, since this Friday is Doomsday.

Yes, we finally finished, but what a hassle! It seems like we’ve been working on this thing forever. If it wasn’t the Justice Squad blowing up our reactors, then it was Captain Amazing (who didn’t die in that mysterious explosion after all) messing around with our geo-synch satellites , or the Moon People deciding to break their vow of non-interference to team up with The E-men etc. etc. After a while it started to feel like the only reason we existed was to give these heroes something to fight week after week.

Well, we finally got the Matter Eraser hooked up to the Infinity Cannon today and the Boss took us all out to Applebee’s to celebrate.

Afterwards we’re all relaxing and goofing off in the office when the Boss storms back in, super-pissed, and says the U.N. called his bluff! Apparently they were all, “Fine blow it up! See if we care!”

So now I’m going to have to stay late all next week while we try to change the machine into a Blow-up-only-one-city-at-a-time-so-the-jerks-at-the-UN-
know-we-can-really-do-it Device. My girlfriend is going to kill me.

life at the green house

Lots of people talk about bad parents, but the worst parents are plants. Little kid plants are always coming home going, "Hey, I'm hungry, can you make me some food?" but then their plant parents are always like: "Why don't ya make your own damn food? Ya got chlorophyll!"

Wow, plants are jerks.