Category: Funny

Laugh links

[emoji words]

Emoji have their place… to express emotions, not facts or verbs. I dislike using them in place of words because they tend to be seriously ambiguous, and we have these things called “words” that we have been developing for millenia and which are much less ambiguous. We’ve had ideographic written languages and we’ve gotten rid of most of them.

I had this late-night text discussion…

Girlfriend:

       Why are there no hug emoji

Me:

   🫂 🤗

       But they could be ambiguous. I prefer words.

Girlfriend:

   🛌

       #notambiguous

Me:

       “F*** me now.”

Girlfriend:

   🤦🏻‍♀️

Me:

       “Wasp on my forehead!!!”

Girlfriend:

   🏃‍♀️

Me:

       “Time for a jog!”

Girlfriend:

   💩

Me:

       “Pooping makes me happy!”

Girlfriend:

   👽👾🤖

Me:

       “I’m going to eat your soul.”

State of the Universe 2021

Swami Beyondananda explains what’s going on and how to fix it. Excerpt:

Welcome to the 2021 State of the Universe address. And the state of the Universe, I am happy to report, is everchanging, same as always. And expanding. Last year they had to let the photon belt out another notch.

Meanwhile, back on this planet known throughout the Galaxies as Comedy Central, we are witnessing the changes of the Ages. Prior to the U.S. election last fall, both sides predicted the “end of the world” if their guy lost, or worse yet if the other guy won. Well, they were both right, sort of.

https://laughlearnlinks.home.blog/swami-beyondanandas-state-of-the-universe-2021

Also see the Swami’s website, https://wakeuplaughing.com/beyondanews.php.

Headline of the week, 2021.02.25

A Capitol rioter texted his ex during the insurrection to call her a ‘moron,’ feds say. She turned him in.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/25/capitol-richard-michetti-girlfriend-moron/

Some of the comments are good, or at least amused me:

“Who’s the moron now?”
“Something something a woman scorned.”
“There should be additional charges of felony stupid.”
“He must be a graduate of the Trump school of wooing women.”
“Having worked in a District Attorney’s office (albeit as a secretary), I assure you that if there was a sentencing enhancement for utter stupidity, jails would never have an empty bed.”
“When I saw the forest of cell phones being used to document what they were doing, I said to myself, ‘Here’s your sign.’”
“That’s known as an ‘own goal’.”
“Nothing says I don’t love you anymore than the FBI showing up at your front door.”
“Not exactly a Mensa convention was it?”
“BRB. Experiencing schadenfreude.”

404 page not found

No no, you got here correctly!

“404” is the HTTP error code that a website sends to you (well, to your browser) if you try to read a page that doesn’t exist. Normally it means that you typed the link incorrectly, or that the page has been renamed or deleted. The website can, however, redirect you to a special page to explain the problem. Some of them are funny:

Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/sljdfsdfh (you can type any garbage at the end):

Why wasn’t this page found?

We asked some leading economists.

Stagflation: The cost of pages rose drastically, while the page production rate slowed down.

General economics: There was no market for it.

Liquidity traps: We injected some extra money into the technology team but there was little or no interest so they simply kept it, thus failing to stimulate the page economy. (etc)

Bernie Sanders: https://berniesanders.com/lajsdklajsdlas.

Analog Devices: https://www.analog.com/en/products/xyzad5423.html.

FloatHub: https://floathub.com/foobar.

And more, with some discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20489668.

60 funniest pet tweets of 2020

For example, the dogslide: https://twitter.com/KalhanR/status/1342104105158926337.

Or “Today in Find the Cat:” https://twitter.com/katehinds/status/1269697161329082370. Hint: find part of the cat.

Lots more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/funniest-tweets-cats-dogs-2020_n_5fc80db8c5b602f56798a3cf. Note that clicking on a photo will give you a slightly enlarged version, you may find details that were outside the original photo’s margins.

Dave Barry Year in Review 2020

2020 was one long, howling, Category 5 crapstorm.

We sincerely don’t want to relive this year. But our job is to review it. If you would prefer to skip this exercise in masochism, we completely understand.

If, however, you wish, for some sick reason, to re-experience 2020, now is the time to put on your face mask, douse your entire body with hand sanitizer and then — to be safe — don a hazmat suit, as we look back at the unrelenting insanity of this hideous year, starting with …

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/12/27/dave-barrys-year-review-2020

Using Pokémon to Detect Scientific Misinformation

There are legitimate scientific journals, and then there are legitimate-sounding ripoff “predatory journals” that will print almost anything for a fee. Matan Shelomi submitted an article to one:

On March 18, 2020, the American Journal of Biomedical Science & Research published my paper claiming that eating a bat-like Pokémon sparked the spread of COVID-19. This paper, “Cyllage City COVID-19 outbreak linked to Zubat consumption,” blames a fictional creature for an outbreak in a fictional city, cites fictional references (including one from author Bruce Wayne in Gotham Forensics Quarterly on using bats to fight crime)…

Some would argue that editors cannot recognize Pokémon names, but lines in the text such as “a journal publishing this paper does not practice peer review and must therefore be predatory” or “this invited article is in a predatory journal that likely does not practice peer review” would have tipped off anyone who bothered to read the articles. These papers did not slip in under the radar; they were welcomed in blindly.

https://www.the-scientist.com/critic-at-large/opinion-using-pokmon-to-detect-scientific-misinformation-68098