I will say this for working with a bunch of geek fellow travelers: you learn a lot of interesting things during lunchtime conversations, such as the fact that Monty Hall has a probability problem/”paradox” named after him.
The problem, simply stated, is that contestants on Let’s Make a Deal! have a 2/3rds probability of winning the non-booby prize when offered, post-revelation of one booby prize, a chance to switch the door they’ve chosen and not a 1/2 probability as one might assume. Who knew gameshows involved actual, you know, game theory?
(Click through to the ‘Pedia link above to read the full explanation.)
The Heights Of Human Weirdness Know No Upper Bounds
Have you ever wanted to embed a server in the corpse of a frog, wire up the frog’s legs so that said server can activate said frog’s leg muscles via a galvanic reaction, suspend the whole affair in a tank of mineral oil, hook the server up to the Internet, allow users to activate the frog’s legs remotely while watching the contraption on a webcam, install the whole affair in a gallery and call it art?
No?
Well, thank goodness, humanity has you covered, should the thought ever arise.
(“Und next on ‘Germanys Most Disturbing Home Videos’, ve haf a grown man in a diaper running through a sprinkler…”)
Is It Too Late To Change My Major?
1) I didn’t realize that there’s such a thing as “explosives engineering”
2) I didn’t realize that some universities offer minors in said engineering field
3) I didn’t realize that one of those unis has an explosives summer camp, which is more boom-y than regular camp, I’ll wager.
Laser Light Shows Are For Pansies
Real men don’t do laser light Floyd shows. They use a Tesla coil to play the Tetris theme song and the Super Mario Brothers’ “underground theme”:
Mee-su Bah-stahhs
So I guess this is what passes for Mythbusters in Japan (nice use of Matrix music, by the way):
Frames of reference are fun! [Yes, but what happens if a jet plane tries to take off from a moving conveyor belt? -ed.] [quiet, you! -ed.’s ed.]
Source.
It’s A Veritable Periodic Table Of Geekery
Presenting: Every Mythbusters Myth on one page, helpfully color- and letter-coded for your perusal.
Note the vast number of “busteds” and the relatively small number of “confirmeds”. That ratio seems about right from my viewing of the show.
WARNING: Do Not Download Toribash
If you acquire Toribash, there is a very good chance that you will lose sleep. You have been warned.
At heart, Toribash is a turn-based physics-intensive ragdoll simulator, which might not sound too interesting until you realize that you’ve been given the keys to a whole series of devastating fighting game moves that put Mortal Kombat fatalities to shame. Think “multi-player Stair Dismount or Truck Dismount” and you’ll have a pretty good notion of where this is all headed.
The Toribash site itself has several tutorial videos as well as an official trailer, so head over there and check them out. Then, if you decide to download the demo, hit the forums to learn some seriously devastating combos. You only get access to the single player sandbox portion of the game with the demo, but it’s enough to get a taste for it.
Just don’t blame me when you look up, bleary-eyed, from your screen and realize that several hours have passed since you downloaded the stinkin’ thing.
From The Department Of Particularly Bad Ideas
I know, rather than educating people on proper firearm safety and coming to the realization that some people are morons no matter how many times you tell them not to look down the barrel of a loaded gun, let’s password protect the bullets instead.
Sweet merciful Sun Tzu on a hydrogen-powered Segway, that’s gotta be the dumbest thing I’ve read in ages.
Brain. Hurts.
We’ve been over this a million times: some people have way, way too much time on their hands. As further evidence, I present a 2D representation of a 3D representation of a 4D house, constructed entirely using the tools provided to players of the massively-multiplayer chatroomvideogame Second Life:
Not a whole lot there, other than the fact that the cubic house loops around on itself. But check out how the creator accomplished this wild feat:
Of course, every geek that reads of this feat will probably be reminded of Robert Heinlein’s classic story of 4D architecture …And He Built A Crooked House. Nifty.
The Human Mind Is A Wonder
There are some nifty tricks that one can play on one’s brain, particularly vision-related ones. One I stumbled across recently (“How To Make Anything Look Like a Toy“) is incredibly odd, but well worth a look.