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If you read There, I Fixed It, then you already know there are a lot of people with stupid solutions to serious safety concerns, but just in case you can’t get enough, there’s always this BuzzFeed collection of terrible OSHA violations.
Jeff Wysaski at Pleated Jeans put together 13 scenarios in which we are most likely to do or say something extremely dumb. Have you ever said, “You, too!” after someone wishes you a happy birthday? I have. Link
A marauding tiger was spied sitting on a lawn near a golf course in Hampshire, UK. A passerby saw the beast and called the police. The police, taking no chances with a wild ferocious animal, rang up the local zoo and got a team of keepers in the air with tranquilizer rifles. As the helicopter approached, the tiger suddenly fell over from the force of the rotor wash. The tiger you see was stuffed, as in a kid’s toy. Yes, someone left a stuffed tiger sitting on the lawn and the police in Hampshire mobilized in force. I feel bad for the next person that really does see a tiger on the prowl. Feel free to laugh now. link
Got a crotchety old guy who kept telling you that youngsters today are getting dumber by the minute (right before he told you to get off his lawn)?
Well, he may be onto something: scientists discovered that our brains are actually shrinking!
The downsizing of human brains is an evolutionary fact that took science writer Kathleen McAuliffe by surprise.
"I said, ‘What? I thought it was getting bigger!’" she tells NPR’s Jacki Lyden. That was the story up to 20,000 years ago, she learned. Then, the brains of our ancestors reversed course and started getting smaller — and they’ve been shrinking ever since.
Cro-Magnon man, who lived in Europe 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, had the biggest brains of any human species. In comparison, today’s human brain is about 10 percent smaller. It’s a chunk of brain matter "roughly equivalent to a tennis ball in size," McAuliffe says.
The experts aren’t sure about the implications of this evolutionary trend. Some think it might be a dumbing-down process. One cognitive scientist, David Geary, argues that as human society grows increasingly complex, individuals don’t need to be as intelligent in order to survive and reproduce.
I don’t know about the science, but it sure explains Jersey Shore! Link
Photo: Emergency Inflatable Brain from the NeatoShop
Did you ever have one of those Halloweens where your costume fell way short of awesome? I sure did. I was going to be a killer robot.
I had two boxes, a large one for my body, and a smaller one for my head. I cut armholes in the big one and a hole in the top, where the other box went. I painted the whole thing orange, and cut out eye holes. About fifteen minutes after leaving the house, I realized the total and devastating failure of my endeavor, and returned home a sad, orange robot disgrace.
I know there are other stories out there that beg sharing, like Susan’s as told to Lemondrop, among other confessions:
My brother and I dressed up as George and Martha Washington one year. (My Dad was a big history buff.) Yup, it was incredibly nerdy. And also kind of funny that I was about a foot taller than “George Washington.” (pictured, above).
More terrible costume stories at their site, but since I confessed, it’s your turn! What costume idea of yours turned out to be less than you’d hoped for?
Life Magazine has a hilarious post up featuring what they consider to be the 30 dumbest inventions of all time. When you look through the list, filled with things like the shower hat to the right, you actually start to get an appreciation for things like the Snuggie.
Almost all of the inventions are from the sixties or before, so it’s not too shocking that many of them involve cigarettes, including a method for a couple to share a smoke and one for a person to smoke a whole pack at once -oh joy!
