Russian vs American Inventions

American archeologists digging in the California desert came across a fascinating discovery: A wire. After a great deal of analysis the archeologists made their announcement and American newspapers ran the headline: Early American Telegraph, 10,000 years old. Well, the Russians couldn't believe that the Americans had beaten them on a great invention, so they began digging in the Siberian tundra. After months of digging with absolutely nothing to be found they finally did their analysis and made their announcements. Headlines ran: 20,000 years ago Russians had Wireless.

Stats

My daughter was telling me today that she took a memory test. The test told her how accurate her memory was and what type of memory she had. She said “The test said I had a numerical memory, and that it was overall 81% accurate. No, wait, it was 89%!”

Special Education

This had me laughing for an hour. Unfortunately it is a real event in a special education classroom in a California High School. The teacher has decided that these students need to learn some things before taking the most important test of their high school careers:

"OK class, today we are going to learn how to find an average. As an example, we are going to calculate the average of the girls and the boys in this class. What is the average of the girls and the boys in here?" One student volunteers the obvious information: "There are six girls and seven boys if you include the teacher and two aids." The teacher gives a blank stare at the student for a while then: "How did you get that?" With bewilderment the student answers: "I counted." Well, that wasn´t helping the lesson at all so, on she went: She had the boys stand up and wrote each of their names on the board. Then she had the girls stand up and wrote each of their names on the board. Then she gave a number to each name, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 for the boys and 1,2,3,4,5,6 for the girls. "Now we have to add them together, 6 plus 7 is 13. Now to get the average of the girls take 6 girls plus the 7 boys divided by the 2 possiblities in the class: 13 divided by 2 is 6 and one half. So the average of the girls in the class is six and a half." The math specialist aid has not said a word. No way to know if she had even noticed this amazing result. Of course, the other aid couldn´t resist: "Which one of the boys is half a girl?"

Another Special Ed Story

Sometimes it is hard to say who needs the help in the classroom. Teaching in a learning challenged class, Miss K. has just gone over horizontal and vertical lines. Now she draws a slanted line on the board and asks the class "What do we call lines like this?" A bored young man offers: "Oblique lines." At that answer Miss K. laughs and laughs and tells the students "Obliques aren't lines. Your obliques are the muscles here on your sides! Oh that is funny. No, these are just slanted lines." I wonder if she ever reads the lessons?

Test Anxiety

Modern Times

The following commentary on our modern situation is pretty funny. The blonde story, found at the end, about how this was distributed is even better.

I remember this baseball skit being very funny, so this was quite funny to me. If Abbott and Costello were around today.....
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's infamous sketch "Who's on first?" mighthave turned out something like this:
COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT . .
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look in the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What have you got?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, lets just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight answers. OK, forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?
ABBOTT: Yes, you want Real One.
COSTELLO: Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none of your business. Just tell me what I need!
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: If it's a long movie I also want to see reel 2, 3 &4. Can I watch them?
ABBOTT: Of course. COSTELLO: Great! With what?
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: OK, I'm at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What do I do?
ABBOTT: You click the blue "1".
COSTELLO: I click the blue one what?
ABBOTT: The blue "1".
COSTELLO: Is that different from the blue w?
ABBOTT: The blue "1" is Real One and the blue "W" is Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: But there's three words in "office for windows"!
ABBOTT: No, just one. But it's the most popular Word in the world.
COSTELLO: It is?
ABBOTT: Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many other Words left. It Pretty much wiped out all the other Words out there.
COSTELLO: And that word is real one?
ABBOTT: Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn't even part of Office.
COSTELLO: STOP! Don't start that again. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money? ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy money. COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

A FEW DAYS LATER . .

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on "START"..........

Although the Abbott & Costello remix above was pretty funny to me, the best part is when my daughter shared this with her friend, a blonde. This friend later re-distributed it with a note that she couldn’t recall where she had gotten it. When she sent it to my daughter, my daughter called and told her where she got it, but asked why she had changed it. The blonde answered, she just didn’t like the names Abbott & Costello, so she changed them to Bob and George.

A Politician Unintentionally Sounds A Lot Like Abbot & Costello! Great Video!

Here is a video that reminds me a little of the baseball skit from Abbot and Costello: Click here for a wonderful little video I came across. It is a great example of how to be a politiician. Choose one message and say it as many times as you can... even when it doesn't really fit. And never ever consider the possibility of listening to what you just said for fear you might realize that it was just plain stupid... like this guys understanding of "the environment!"

Workplace Diversity

-This is one told by a manager at the office where I work—

In an effort to improve their “work place diversity” the HR department, after careful screening and a great deal of worry, hired a group of cannibals to work in the mailroom. Things seemed to going pretty well, they had no unusual incidents and the mailroom was running very efficiently managed by one of the cannibals. Several months went by with no cause for alarm but then a secretary failed to show up for work. The HR manager summoned up his courage and went down to the mailroom to confront the cannibals. “One of our secretaries has gone missing. Do any of you know anything about this?” He asked.

The cannibals all assured him that they had nothing to do with the disappearing secretary and the HR manager went back to his office.

As soon as he was gone, the mailroom manager assembled his cannibals and in a stern voice demanded: “Alright, which one of you ate the secretary? We’ve been eating a manager a week and nobody even noticed.”

Engineers & Humor

The new engineer at the office was escorted to his new cubicle by the engineering manager. He was given an assignment to work on, admonished to be as efficient as possible and left to get to it. After a few minutes of quiet work someone in one of the other cubicles hollered a number: "Two-seventy-three." Everyone in the office full of cubicles started laughing for a few moments and then all was quiet again, except for the sound of computer keyboards clicking away. A few minutes later someone else hollered another number and the office responded in the same way. The "new guy" stepped over to the next cubicle and asked what all of this was about. "Well," said the veteran engineer, "in order to be more efficient we have numbered all of the good jokes we know and whenever we want to tell one, we just call out the number. Since your new, you'll want to download the list from the server and get acquainted with our humor data base."

A couple of days later, the new engineer decided it was time to try his hand at this form of humor. He checked the database, assured himself that joke number 39 was very funny and then called out "thirty nine."

The office was silent. This didn't seem to work at all, so he asked the veteran engineer, "Why didn't the office respond with laughter at joke 39, isn't it very funny?" "Oh yes," said the veteran, "joke 39 is hilarious. But you know how it is: Some engineers just can't tell a joke."

The World's Funniest Joke!

I saw a little while ago a study in the UK that determined the world's funniest joke. I have no idea how you decide such a thing, but I have to admit, their choice cracked me up pretty good the first few times. In a book I've been reading, "The Genius Engine", Kathleen Stein says that comedy is dependent on mental set shifting, where a series of thoughts focuses our attention in one direction and then we have to respond to unexpected information that shifts our attention abrubtly. The part of the brain that does this is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. It could be that the biological basis for the evolution of humor was pleasurable encouragement for use and development of that part of the brain -where mental set shifting takes place allowing us to change our view and be more creative. This ability is absolutely essential to invention. Just a note, that this part of the brain is suppressed by another part of the brain -the part that responds negatively to social norm violation -hmmm.

Here is the joke: A man calls 911 and reports that he is out on a hunting trip with his friend and his friend has collapsed and "I think he's dead!" . The emergency operator says "Calm down now sir. First, let's be sure he really is dead." Then she hears a gunshot and the man says "OK, I made sure. Now what?"