Humour detection fail

Colleague expressing his frustration with doctors being unable to diagnose basic illnesses and injuries.

Me: well medicine isn’t a science you know.
Colleague: no… but, it’s a practice.

My wit is wasted sometimes.

Let's say you survive a massive earthquake, in which tens of thousands of people are killed, and 60% of buildings are destroyed. What would you most like to receive as aid:

• cash


• food and water


• shelter and building materials


• medical supplies and treatment


• 600 portable, solar-powered audio bibles called The Proclaimer, which have a built-in generator and solar panel to charge the battery, and can play for 15 hours.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/01/us-faith-group-sends-hundreds-of-solar-powered-bibles-to-haiti/1

Warning sign

Cause for concern - finding a step-by-step guide to carving a pig carcass on the office printer.

Not just a guide to the best cuts of meat or anything. Nope, it's a full butcher's guide, complete with photos.

The NZ connection

The media here is obsessed with finding a New Zealand angle to any story, and to big-note New Zealand at any opportunity.

At times, this can be quite offensive, and a bit racist. When the devastating Haiti earthquake struck, the lead item in the news for the first 2 days was about a New Zealand family. With around 100,000 people dead, and almost the entire country destroyed, it doesn’t really require a New Zealand angle to make it newsworthy. Does it really matter if 2 New Zealanders were killed? What about the other 99,998 people? If there weren’t any New Zealanders, would it suddenly disappear to page 6? Of course, that’s not to say that those 2 deaths aren’t tragic. It’s just that any sort of disaster like that is tragic, regardless of where it happens.

At other times, the New Zealand connection is just plain lame. Last week, it was reported that the “Antipodean invention” of the flat white coffee had graced the Starbucks menu for the first time.

However, I’m not sure that making a coffee and putting in slightly less milk than normal qualifies as an invention. The article goes on to say that “Auckland café DKD claims to have first invented the now famous blend, though Australia also lays claim to the creation.” Given that everyone prefers a varying quantity of milk sugar and water in their coffee, it’s not really surprising that more than one café has claimed to have invented the flat white. Having a less-milky coffee is no more an invention than putting in an extra teaspoon of sugar.

For the avoidance of doubt, here are some examples of actual inventions:

Inventions
· Dynamite
· Helicopter
· Internal combustion engine

And these aren't:

Not inventions
· Putting slightly less milk in your coffee
· Turning your hat around so it’s pointing sideways
· Having extra cheese on your pizza
· Not wearing underpants

1000 words

It's not the Tour de France

Sports and hobbies are all about the kit. Everyone loves acquiring gadgets and equipment to help them out with their chosen interest. Like gardening? Well you better get one of those new titanium-coated garden forks. Weekend warrior at the gym? Better make sure you have your special under armour compression clothing and designer workout gear. And of course the real reason why you can’t hit a golf ball is because you need one of those new King Cobra drivers, with club face calibrated to your individual swing.

But there’s something about cyclists that set them well apart from the field when it comes to decking themselves out in full professional level garb. Any time you see some recreational cyclist out for a leisurely ride they are always decked out in full professional kit- shoes with pedal clips, lycra bike pants, tour racing shirt, one of those water bottles with hose attached to the back. The works. Nevermind that it’s just a bunch of 50-something men cycling down to the local café for a muffin and chai latte.

And the lyrca shorts. What an eye sore. I can understand why you need to wear them when you do a lot of riding, but can’t you chuck a pair of shorts over the top when you’re in public? I’m not happy about the number of times some ageing cyclist’s spandex-encased meat and veg has clip-clopped past my café table, right at eye level. And it’s even invading the work place, as the cycle-commuters parade themselves around the bathroom wearing only their bike pants. Not the best sight in the world before you’ve had your morning coffee.

It’s like wearing budgie smugglers at the beach because you fancy yourself one of the surf boat crew and then keeping them on for the rest of the day while you do your grocery shopping. Nevermind that you just traumatised some small child in the deli section with your version of prepackaged ham-off-the-bone, because you’re an athlete, dammit.

The wheels on the bus

The other day I referred to expert commentary, noting that you can normally find someone recognised as an authority on almost any subject. Except, of course, those in the field of quackery and snake oil, in which it is impossible to demonstrate expertise.

Professors are right at the top of this list. Write an article about almost any issue and you can find some professor to provide some much needed gravitas. It’s part of the white lab coat phenomenon.

Where things start to fall down is in the field of social policy. If you hear a professor talking about latest trends in nanotechnology or law reform, then you better be listening. But when they get on to public transport, they lose the plot. Take this example:

Only a quarter of commuters talk to other passengers when they are using public transport, new research suggests.

The survey of 900 commuters found that people use mobile phones, reading and listening to music not only to pass the time, but also to draw a boundary defending their privacy.
Transport researcher Dr Jared Thomas, of Victoria University, says his study found many commuters use reading and electronic devices to avoid conversation while travelling.

He says trains and buses should be better designed to encourage face-to-face conversation, as more sociable public transport would reduce crime and bad behaviour onboard by creating a community of regular passengers.

Dr Thomas says people are increasing the amount of time they spend on public transport, and could use this time to network or even find romance.

How much research did it take to conclude that people protect their personal space on the bus? Profound stuff. Of course, it’s not just about being defensive- your morning commute is dead time, so it makes sense to read a book or listen to music.

The good doctor thinks we need to create a community on board, and try networking and finding romance? Um, have you seen the people on the bus? It’s a genetic wasteland out there. Slack jawed mouth breathers, people whose idea of literature is the latest Dan Brown, and people who just plain stink (you know that awful smell of polar fleece when it hasn’t been washed?). And let’s say, for the sake of argument, you spot some lovely young lass on the bus. Do you think she’s gonna be thrilled about someone asking her out on the #5 to the Railway Station? I know a few girls who’ve been asked out by randoms on public transport, and the anecdote is always preceded by “some creep.”

Last year I took public transport pretty much every day, for the first time ever. And I got 4 colds during winter. Normally I only get one, sometimes none. It’s a toxic environment in there.

And it’s not just public transport either. Add ‘public’ to almost any noun and it becomes infinitely worse. To wit-

Bad ==============>Worse
Attending a meeting ===>Attending a public meeting
Using the toilet =======>Using a public toilet
Now open ===========>Now open to the public
The business sector ====>The public sector
Opinion ============>Public opinion

One chai latte, a low-fat muffin and a people's revolution- to go, thanks

Who knew that Wellington’s suburban cafes were a hotbed of anti-establishment revolutionary rhetoric?

A couple of days ago I decided to call in at a reasonably well-known suburban café for something to eat. This café is attached to a garden centre, so most of the clientele are nanas meeting for tea, or young families spilling fluffies and flinging muffin crumbs about the place. Pleasant enough, but pretty far from the typical Cuba St cafes brimming with tats, piercings and attitude.

So I was somewhat surprised by the discourse coming from the table next to me, which comprised a father and his two 30-something sons. As I tucked into my breakfast, one of the sons, a somewhat angry man, launched into a diatribe about the evils of modern society. It started off innocently enough- the man explained his views on why we don’t need material possessions to be happy, and why far too many people are obsessed with making money, rather than devoting time to other more fulfilling pursuits.

And since I recently decided to pack in a well-paying job in return for a bit of soul-searching and oh-my-goodness-isn’t-life-hard-in-the-third-world-gee-i-sure-do-appreciate-my-life-now travel time, there wasn’t much for me to disagree with.

However, things moved on fairly rapidly from there. I’m not able to document the totality of his views, as it being spewing forth in that frothing way that only the looney left can do. I can recall the following gems:

• All you need to be happy in life is an axe and some crops. I assume the axe was for building a house?
• I would rather work for free, and be able to tend my crops, than work for a wage. Nevermind that earning a wage could actually make it easier for him to move to a life of crop-tending.
• The reason why the government is increasing police numbers is because they are pro-business, and businesses are putting their prices up, so people have to steal to survive. I hate to think what the reason is for increasing teacher numbers then- must be some kind of capitalist indocrination and brainwashing programme.
• Making a profit should be illegal. Any business owner who makes $1 more than he needs should be locked up. Perhaps a café isn’t the best setting for this kind of discussion?
• Life was better in the dark ages. That’s right- war, famine, disease were tough, but it sure is betting than living in a world with Starbucks and mobile phones. Better to die at 35 eh?
  

Judging from the embarrassed looks coming from his table, I don’t think his family was on the same page. They rapidly polished off their soy lattes (oh yes, soy lattes), piled into Dad’s car and took off.

All signs point to fraud

The newspapers have been typically thin over the holiday period, and with most of the journalists on holiday they’ve been resorting to lots of newslite- reviews of the hottest celebrities during the 2000s, predictions for next year. You know, the sort of fluff that is normally in the ‘lifestyle’ section.

One of these ‘articles’ even made it on the front page the other day, with a local astrologer predicting a better year than 2009. Hmmm, with the worst global recession in a generation almost over, that’s not really a bold prediction, is it. But what I found more interesting was their choice of soothsayer.

In this particular piece of portent punditry they cited a Palmerston North astrologer, who I had never heard of (unsurprisingly I suppose). My first thought was that, for a front page article, they would have cited one of New Zealand’s leading oracles, but then I realised that there is no such thing.

You see, in almost every field of human endeavour- science, arts, sports, culture- you can call on an expert to pass judgment on a certain issue. And the experts rise pretty rapidly in the fields, so that when you have need of a front-page expert on, say, what is going to happen with mortgage rates this year, then you know who to call. And that doesn’t just apply to hard sciences, as there are experts (or at least respected critics) in highly subjective fields like movie reviews or cultural commentary.

The fact that there is no such thing as ‘New Zealand’s leading clairvoyant’ can only confirming the massive fraud that is modern day mysticism.

NB- in place of astrology feel free to substitute: numerology/horoscopes/homeopathy/faith healing/palm reading/tarot/feng shui/iridology etc