Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak

Weak XLIII

22 October 2015

No. 4,371 (cartoon)

You don’t really understand.

No one really understands.

Really? I don’t understand.

23 October 2015

Forever Young: Cryotherapy Works!

Proponents of cryotherapy maintain that spending a bit of time in a very cold room—150 degrees below zero, Celsius—can do wonders for a person and actually slow down the aging process. They maintain that the practice is much more efficacious than ice baths and the like.

Chelsea Patricia Ake-Salvacion managed a cryotherapy business in Las Vegas, Nevada. She accidentally locked herself in a treatment room overnight, and proved to me, at least, that cryotherapy really does stop the aging process. Her coworkers found her frozen body the next day, and the twenty-four-year-old woman will be forever young.

24 October 2015

Drunks and Experts

Beatrice has been drinking rather more than is prudent, so I gently told her so. She respectfully disagreed, and told me that experts concurred that drinking a bottle of vodka daily reduces one’s concerns about cancer and coronary disease by over eighty-seven percent.

I didn’t disagree; how could I? I’m in no position to argue with experts. Or drunks.

25 October 2015

Doesn’t Seem Like Art

“That doesn’t seem like art to me.”

I was delighted by Trevor’s response when I told him about my new project. If it looks like art, sounds like art, seems like art, et cetera, then it’s probably nothing I’d consider to be art of any merit.

26 October 2015

Hot Dogs Are People Too

Everyone knows that no one knows what goes into sausages, hot dogs, et cetera. I was reminded of this when I read news reports that Clear Food scientists found “hygienic issues” when they made an ill-advised investigation into the tubular meat products. They discovered mouse excrement, rat hair, and even pig anuses. And more!

Clear Food, which analyzes foods at the molecular level, found four percent of hot dogs contain human DNA. The researchers didn’t identify the sources, it could have been blood, hair, mucous, or something even less salubrious.

Is it finally time to become a vegetarian? Maybe yes, maybe no. Two thirds of the human hot dogs were labeled vegetarian, and one out of every ten “vegetarian” samples contained meat. The tubular steaks are called hot dogs for a reason.

Pass the mustard!

27 October 2015

Uselessness

Zhuang Zhou was perhaps one of the first people to examine art philosophically when he talked about the usefulness of uselessness. That was almost two and a half millennia ago, and science, philosophy, and time have marched on.

Kevin Dowd, Mark Learmonth, and Andy Lockett have examined the concept from two different perspectives in their paper, “The Uselessness of Useful Research and the Usefulness of Useless Research.” I haven’t read their treatise and don’t intend to do so. I learned a long time ago that functionality is vastly overrated, and my life’s been much richer because of it.

28 October 2015

The Timeless Middle East

A couple of weeks ago I noted that our Saudi allies beheaded and crucified their prisoners. Not to be outdone, the insurgents trying to drag civilization back to the good old Neolithic days have taken a page from the history books. Before they set off massive explosions to obliterate ruins in Palmyra, they tied three prisoners to the ancient columns.

Jonathan Jones pointed out an interesting historical precedent: a painting Andrea Mantegna made five and a half centuries ago, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. The image shows the alleged saint tied to a Roman column; archers with poor aim are apparently using him for target practice.

Ah, the timeless Middle East.

[I know Sebastian didn’t die in the Middle East, but I try not to let pesky facts get in the way of a simplistic conclusion.]

29 October 2015

The Campaign Against Sex Robots

Some well-intentioned academics have started an organization to put an end to robot sex. I’m not sure the Campaign Against Sex Robots is such a good idea.

First, the proponents of the robot sex ban sound like misandrists, but, as a man, I can’t say that without getting in trouble with the misandrists. Dang; I just said it twice!

Prohibiting robots from having sex with each other could be dangerous for society at large. If robots are having sex with other robots, then we won’t have predator sex robots preying on humans, elephants, or sheep. (Well, maybe sheep; everyone knows about robots and sheep.) A sexually repressed robot is a dangerous robot.

It’s probably good for the robots to let off some steam as long as it’s done responsibly. (I wonder what percentage of the world’s robots are actually powered by steam?) I’m fine with robots having sex with other robots, but not if it delays the delivery of my new Nikon D6, or if they get ambergris on the sensor, or other such shenanigans.

In any case, that’s more than enough talk about sex robots. What two consenting machines do in the privacy of their laboratory or factory is no one else’s business.

Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak
©2015 David Glenn Rinehart