Don't get it? That's because this is the G-rated version of an earlier cartoon that couldn't pass Facebook's standards. It's difficult to recognize Adam and Eve with clothes on! Mick Stevens had a cartoon in The New Yorker, which was reposted on the magazine's Facebook page, and caused the magazine to be temporarily banned. To illustrate the ridiculousness of the ruling, Stevens re-drew the cartoon as you see it here for a blog post about the incident, where the Facebook policy is explained, as best it can be. Link -Thanks, Rich Nolan!

by Marc Abrahams, Improbable Research staff

The basic laws of human stupidity are ancient. The definitive essay on the subject is younger. Called “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity,” it was published in 1976, by an Italian economist:

Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, Carlo M. Cipolla,
The Mad Millers, 1976.

Cipolla, Stupidity’s Incisive Analyst
Carlo M. Cipolla taught at several universities in Italy, and for many years at the University of California, Berkeley. He also wrote books and studies about clocks, guns, monetary policy, depressions, faith, reason, and of course (he being an economist) money. His essay about stupidity encompasses all those other topics, and perhaps all of human experience.

The Laws of Stupidity
Professor Cipolla wrote out the laws in plain language. They are akin to laws of nature—a seemingly basic characteristic of the universe. Here they are:

• Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

• The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

• A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

• Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

Cipolla’s essay gives an x-ray view of what distinguishes countries on the rise from those that are falling.

Countries moving uphill have an inevitable percentage of stupid people, yes. But they enjoy “an unusually high fraction of intelligent people” who collectively overcompensate for the stupid.

Declining nations have instead an “alarming proliferation” of non-stupid people whose behavior “inevitably strengthens the destructive power” of their persistently stupid fellow citizens. There are two distinct, unhelpful groups: “bandits” who take positions of power which they use for their own gain, and people out of power who sigh through life as if they are helpless.

Carlo Cipolla died in 2000, just a year after two psychologists at Cornell University in the U.S. wrote a study called “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” Without mentioning any form of the word “stupidity”, it serves as an enlightening and dismaying supplement to the basic laws. (The authors of “Unskilled and Unaware of It” were awarded the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in psychology.)

Cipolla’s Work Inspired an Insight About Politicians
Many years after Professor Cipolla’s death, inspired by his work on stupidity, three scientists came up with an improved way to choose politicians. They applied a bit of modern mathematics to an old Athenian principle of democracy. The result: governments that more efficiently produce laws that benefit society.

This was the same team that had won the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize in management. Before looking at how “The Laws of Stupidity” influenced their subsequent, post-Ig Nobel work, let’s take a look back at what they did that earned that Ig Nobel Prize.

Background: Random-Promotion Discoveries, Now and Then
The team—Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Sicily—won its Ig Nobel Prize for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.

You know standard potato chips are made by slicing and cooking potatoes (Pringles excepted). When do you add the vinegar to make salt and vinegar chips? You can't just put it in the frying oil! The answer is a recipe for dry vinegar powder, which was used as far back as the year 1615 -although not on potato chips. Read the story (and the recipe) at Serious Eats. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Daniel Souza)

Yeah, if everyone could just get on the same page ...mine! Randall Munroe at xkcd knows exactly what will happen. Link -via @alex_brovvn

In the past few years, you've seen YouTube videos that scare you out of ever buying a pogo stick for the children in your family. They used to jump just a few inches off the ground!

But not long ago, three inventors—toiling at home, unaware of one another’s existence—set out to reimagine the pogo. What was so sacred about that ungainly steel coil? they wondered. Why couldn’t you make a pogo stick brawny enough for a 250-pound adult? And why not vault riders a few feet, instead of measly inches? If athletes were pulling “big air” on skateboards, snowboards and BMX bikes, why couldn’t the pogo stick be just as, well, gnarly?

***

That world turned out to be a perilous place. In their quest for Pogo 2.0, the inventors endured bouts of unconsciousness, defective Chinese imports, trips to the bank for second mortgages and an exploding prototype that sent one test pilot to the hospital for reconstructive surgery.

Read the story of how the humble children's toy became an extreme sport at Smithsonian magazine. Some parts (the exploding prototype) are a bit gory. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Martin Ansin)

Foiled1 made this awesome Haunted Mansion and furnished it with Playmobil parts. And it can be yours!

So what you get is the house, fence, wallpaper and all items seen in photo's (some interior item's may vary)!
Watch out for the ghost that comes through the wall!
Includes all people and all items seen in photo's (some interior item's may vary).

See more pictures at eBay. Link -via Boing Boing

Immediately after the attacks of September 11th, eleven years ago today, Operation Yellow Ribbon went into effect. Airline flights were diverted to Canadian airports in small towns in order to neutralized any danger as much as possible. One of those airports was in Gander, Newfoundland.

The tiny town only boasted 10,000 residents, but what it lacked in population size, it more than made up for in airport capacity. Gander International Airport had previously served as a refueling stop for transatlantic flights and had served as a staging point for U-boat hunting flights during World War II. Gander ended up receiving 38 flights in the wake of the September 11th attacks, second only to Halifax’s 47 diverted flights.

Landing all the planes in Gander was easy. Figuring out what to do with the 6,500-plus passengers and crewmembers who were stuck on the ground until flights resumed was quite a bit tougher. Towns of 10,000 people aren’t exactly built to accommodate sudden 66% population surges, so there wasn’t hotel and restaurant capacity to take in all these stranded flyers.

Read how Gander rose to the occasion and pulled off this complicated operation at mental_floss. Link

(YouTube link)

The worst answers ever given on the TV game show Family Feud. Sometimes it's just a case of the nerves; most of them immediately knew how badly they screwed up. That doesn't make it any less funny! And what's it like to be the few that got two  or more answers in this collection? -via Buzzfeed

We've had some discussions on the way comic books and pop culture in general portrays female superheroes. A particularly egregious drawing by Guillem March appeared on the cover of DC Comic's Catwoman Zero. The cover (on the left) was so blatantly focused on boobs-and-butt that the rest of Catwoman just disappeared. Internet users wasted no time ridiculing it.

Anatomically-challenged drawings of female characters with broken spines to show T&A simultaneously isn't a new thing in comics -- see this gallery, Kate Beaton's Strong Female Characters, and the alternate Avengers posterfor more examples -- but it's particularly sad when it's done to a major character on the cover of a zero issue. Really, DC? That's the cover you're going with? Human women don't bend that way. Not even cat women. My cat doesn't even bend that way, and Lord knows she tries, the little hussy.

And DC noticed. The new replacement cover still brings out her exaggerated womanly features, but does appear to have at least one foot in reality. Link

Previously: Guillem March Parodies His Own Catwoman Cover Art

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

Contrary to popular belief, the little black Cairn terrier who played Toto in The Wizard of Oz was not named Toto. That is, until The Wizard of Oz became so popular that almost everyone forgot what her original name was! Like all the other cast members, she had a character name, Toto, and a real name: Terry. She may have been the best actor on the set, too, because without even the benefit of makeup or a costume, the girl dog played a boy dog.

Interestingly, Terry received incorrect billing in the closing credits. She is billed as "Toto" playing the role of "Toto." Her actual name, at the time of filming, was Terry.

Terry's owner and trainer was a man named Carl Spitz. He ran the Hollywood Dog Training School. Spitz adopted Terry in 1933, when she was just a year old. He had no plans for Terry to become a movie star. Her original owner had left Terry to be trained, but then never returned to pick her up.

Terry was to appear in 15 films altogether. The Wizard of Oz was the only one in which she actually got a screen credit. Her first appearance was in Ready For Love in 1934. This was just one month before her first major film with a big star. Later that year, Terry appeared with Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes, playing the role of "Rags."

In 1938, Terry was taken to a casting call looking for a dog that resembled Dorothy's black dog in the Wizard of Oz books. Terry was hired on the spot and immediately began living the high life. This meant living for two weeks at Judy Garland's house! Judy became quite fond of the dog and wanted to adopt Terry after filming ended, but Carl Spitz said no.

(YouTube link)

Some of you may not know that Neatorama's social media guru David Israel is the man behind Twaggies, the site that makes funny Tweets into funny comics. Twaggies' popularity among Hollywood celebrities was noticed and led to the site being featured on the NBC show Extra. If you missed it, take a look! Link

The countdown to Halloween is on: seven weeks to go. What movies are the best to watch to get into the Halloween spirit? Horror films, of course! Some of the biggest are, of course, Halloween, The Exorcist, and George Romero's zombie classic Night of the Living Dead, which became an instant classic:

It was produced for a mere $114,000 and has since grossed more than $30 million. Despite its popularity with audiences, critics didn’t much care for the film. When it premiered on October 1, 1968, Roger Ebert was upset that theater owners let kids in (there was no film rating system at the time). The New York Times said it was a “junk movie” and “really silly,” and other critics thought it was simply too gory. A few really loved it, though – Rex Reed said it was the epitome of a B movie turned into a classic.

Read more about these three films and why you'll want to "resurrect" them for your Halloween entertainment at Neatorama's Halloween blog. Link

So, you think you can't possibly make a cake in some super-geeky shape for a birthday, but check out what wonders you can create with Rick Krispy Treats and some brightly-colored fondant! A wordless photoessay takes you through the steps to make this Mega Man cake. The technique can be adapted to other pop culture figures, too! Link

Ehud Lavski illustrated the life of a Space Invader. Only the first two panels are shown here. Warning: may induce tears. Link  -via Not Exactly Rocket Science

(YouTube link)

Billy Browne made this awesome climbing maze for his cat Rufus, to make him feel better after an ear infection. Rufus is a very lucky cat.  -via Buzzfeed