caliarch.net

Apparently, it’s true.

Apparently, we rationals highly value scientific data, objective decision-making, and precise language, which must be why I find this hi-effing-larious.

Here’s a real gem from a fellow math major I went to school with:

A hundred prisoners are each locked in a room with three pirates, one of whom will walk the plank in the morning. Each prisoner has 10 bottles of wine, one of which has been poisoned; and each pirate has 12 coins, one of which is counterfeit and weighs either more or less than a genuine coin. In the room is a single switch, which the prisoner may either leave as it is, or flip. Before being led into the rooms, the prisoners are all made to wear either a red hat or a blue hat; they can see all the other prisoners’ hats, but not their own. Meanwhile, a six-digit prime number of monkeys multiply until their digits reverse, then all have to get across a river using a canoe that can hold at most two monkeys at a time. But half the monkeys always lie and the other half always tell the truth. Given that the Nth prisoner knows that one of the monkeys doesn’t know that a pirate doesn’t know the product of two numbers between 1 and 100 without knowing that the N+1th prisoner has flipped the switch in his room or not after having determined which bottle of wine was poisoned and what colour his hat is, what is the solution to this puzzle?

Oh, you hipsters. So cutting edge. So misunderstood.

Unfortunately, hipster-lovers, when you take aim at the Sport of Kings, you invite the wrath of the incomparable Ch.D.G. Quoth he:

“‘Oh, look at how much beer they drink!’ And ‘Oh, how unconventional their hairsyles are!’ ‘I say, is that a Weezer tattoo?’

Apparently, the staff at the yellow rag known as the Sacramento Bee have a soft spot in their hearts for hipsters and bike messengers. Perhaps next time I want to portray my sport in a positive light I will ride sets with my right trouser hem rolled up while carrying a Timbuk2 bag while listening to some Gogol Bordello on my iPod.”

Modern and possibly pregnant women: Just when you thought it couldn’t get any simpler (or high-tech) than peeing on a stick, the American Pregnancy Helpline brings you (ta-da!) the Online Pregnancy Test!

Sweet! No more trekking to the grocery store, dropping a hard-earned $15, and waiting up to three full minutes for all that new-fangled naturalist science to do its thing. Pretty lame way to spend half an hour, if you ask me, especially when you consider the fact that the results may not even be right.

Well. Okay. I mean, sure, statistically speaking, a home pregnancy test is probably pretty reliable. But are you really willing to tolerate any possibility of error when it comes to something like whether or not you’re pregnant? No; of course you’re not. You’re modern.

And that’s where the APH’s Online Pregnancy Test comes in. Simply answer a few simple questions about your recent behavior and body functions (”Are you sexually active?” “Are you concerned that your protection may have failed?” “Have you missed your menstrual period?” “Are you having any symptoms of pregnancy?”), hit submit, and BAM! APH gives it to you straight:

“If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, it is possible you could be pregnant. The more “yes” answers you have the more likely it is that you are pregnant.”

See what I mean? No possibility for error, whatsoever! No matter what your answers to the questions on the first page, it is possible that you might be pregnant. How’s that for modern convenience & accuracy?

APH goes on to remind the modern, technologically empowered, possibly pregnant woman that the only truly reliable method of birth control is abstinence, and invites her to view pictures of a baby in the womb at different stages of development.

[It might actually be funny if it weren’t so asinine. The rest of the site is pretty much devoted to explaining how and why the only kind of person worse than a girl who has premarital sex is one who kills her unborn child. Good god. There should be a special warning label for these kinds of sites.]

For those of you that think the terms ‘male’ and ‘female’ are pretty well defined, think again.