Archive for the 'Oddities' Category

On the Amazon: Christmas Edition

Some gift ideas for the more unusual people on your Christmas list:

First, with a hat tip to my sister, three from Amazon.com.

  • For your ex’s divorce lawyer: A laptop desk to attach to your steering wheel! Proceed as follows (you’ll thank me, really): First cursor over the customer images on the left side of the page. Then read the customer reviews.
  • For the political activist on your list: Uranium ore!. Again, read the customer reviews. Again, you’ll thank me.
  • For your oddball cousin: Wolf urine!. Not a common taste, but for those who indulge, there simply is no substitute. And of course: Read the reviews.

And speaking of Amazon customer reviews, I was more than pleased to stumble on this quote in a review of The Big Questions:

Also, if you are a parent and are blessed with a math/science inclined child, please, please, please buy them a copy!

It’s not too late!

Finally, as a Christmas gift to my readers—or at least to that vocal subset of my readers who have been clamoring for answers to the honors questions I posted a couple of weeks ago: Your wish is my command.

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Postman’s Nightmare

map.sss

Courtesy of our frequent commenter Cos, I bring you a map of Silver Springs Shores, Florida, the place you most don’t want to be when you’re looking for an address. Go ahead. Click on the map to bring up the full sized version. Start reading the street names. I promise you, the longer you look the more hilarious it gets.

[Click here to comment.]

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Amazing But True

John Gottti Junior, fresh from his fourth mistrial on racketeering and murder conspiracy charges, reports a miracle: Over the past few days, two songs that remind him of his father (the late and legendary mobster John Gotti Senior) have come up on the radio at exactly 10:27 PM—and 10/27 is his father’s birthday.

From the New York Times:

Did the son feel that the father was was watching over him?

“How else do you explain it?”, he said.

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On the Amazon

Suppose you’d written a book. And suppose, for some odd reason, that your middle name happened to be “And”. Suppose, for example, that mother had named you “Cary And Grant”.

Then the software at Amazon.com, not unreasonably, would assume that you were two people, and would list the book’s authors as (1) Cary and (2) Grant.

Now suppose, even more oddly, that your name contained a comma. Not the word “comma”, but the actual punctuation mark. Suppose, for example, that your mother had named you “Cary, Grant”. Then Amazon’s software, again not unreasonably, would assume that your name was being presented in the format “Last, First” and would reverse the order, listing the author as Grant Cary.

Now take this one step further and suppose your name contained both the word “And” and a comma. Perhaps more than once. Suppose, for example, that your name happened to be The Fresh, Chilled and Frozen Horse and Ass Meat Research Group. Then, in accordance with its not unreasonable rules, Amazon’s software would conclude that there are three separate authors, namely:

  • Chilled the Fresh
  • Frozen Horse
  • Ass Meat Research Group

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Some Big (and small) Questions

A while back, the BBC sent me a questionnaire that I had some fun with, and I was disappointed when they published only excerpts. But now that I have a blog, I get to post anything I want in its entirety! So here’s the whole thing. Do use the comments to suggest better answers.
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The $10,000 suit

suit

Here’s a lovely suit of clothes that can be had for, oh, about $10,000. It’s the result of a project conceived by Drexel University instructor Kelly Cobb to make a man’s suit entirely from materials produced within 100 miles of her home. According to an article by Paul Adams in Wired magazine, the suit was produced by a team of 20 artisans, requiring a total of 500 man-hours.

Let’s see, that’s 500 hours of skilled or semi-skilled labor by artisans whose time is probably worth something on the order of $20 an hour. For about $10,000 I can have one made for you.
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