riddler

Bunch of lawyers on this site First, I have electric stoves expressly so that I owe no royalties to Twardo. Next, if anyone accuses me of creating or using it, I would say the burden of proof is on them. So unless Twardo can resurrect Johnny Cochran, I'm pretty sure I'll get off. Second, I guess "discover" should be replaced with "first to create and control", so the real question is, are humans the first to create and control fire? I think people say this is true because our egos don't want to believe that we aren't the only creatures on the planet that can control our environment to a high degree. Personally, I would go so far as to say humans were not the first to create and control fire. The truth is that most humans today are incapable of creating fire (without lighter fluid and matches), so I don't think it's a huge blow to our collective egos to say we aren't the only ones. But we sure do like to take credit for others' work Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I occasionally hear people talk about humans discovering fire. To me, the math doesn't add up. Please note the following discussion involves evolutionary theory, so those with strong creationist views may disagree. So, human beings can be considered part of the species Homo Sapiens, part of the family of Hominidea. Hominids are the general family for Great Apes (humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, etc). The species Homo Sapiens (humans) has been around for 150,000 - 200,000 years, according to biologists. But controlled use of fire has been around for about 1 to 2 million years. To me, that means it was another species of Hominid (now extinct), that discovered fire about one million years before humans. Perhaps Homo Erectus or another species long dead. But Homo Erectus was not Homo Sapiens (i.e. not human). However, I see articles that say things like "earliest use of human fire, 800,000 years ago". Still the math doesn't add up. And I hear about the Cradle of Humankind. Now the waters get muddy. We are Homo Sapiens, starting at most 200,000 years ago. Everything before that was another species. If "humans" discovered fire, then what we are calling humans includes all other great apes. So, did humans discover fire or not? Do you consider all hominids humans? To be honest, I don't have any formal study of biology, so maybe someone that does can help me understand. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

A few of us already tried that, but the remaining file isn't any standard format - I was guessing TIFF too, but that's not the case. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Sanity has nothin' to do with it. In most professional settings, a manager will have a degree of some sort. That's just the norm - doesn't mean they're sane But not so at the Post Office. They promote managers from inside their own ranks. And their ranks have plenty of people that haven't even completed high school. I tell kids that have dropped out of school - it's a pretty decent place to work if you don't have any education. Good benefits, union, federal protection, and some day, you might even get to drive the short bus. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Yep. Converting thousands of files is the easy part. But you need to figure out the file format - that's the hard part. In fact, unless you can get someone from the company formerly known as Resumix to help you, I'd say that's a dead-end path. Another option - both GIMP and ImageMagick have great scripting capabilities, which you can use to automate the process of capturing a screenshot and converting it to a more standard file format. Either way, I'd say the value of your prize is off by about two orders of magnitude Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Here is some text about the many malapropisms of Bush: http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/piehigher.asp Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

***True but he was just doing a Stoppie when the forks blew, so chances are he fell at a fairly low speed. I've looked for the after shot of that but haven't found it. *** #4 is definitely the most interesting pic. What is that, a carbon-fiber fork, or something? I don't know enough about crotch-rockets to know what their making them out of. Whatever it was looks like it just shattered. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

*cough* Well, my mother just retired from 30 years of carrying mail. I could tell you some stories about her co-workers. Like the one that was fired for opening people's porn magazines. They came in brown envelopes, but this guy would open them and read them, then "later" deliver them. This, of course, is classified as a felony, so the Post Office fired him, which beats the heck out of jail time. But the Postal Employee's union got him his job back, on the grounds that it was the first time he got caught. Like the many postal workers that stole Netflix movies just to take them home for their DVD collections. Like the fact that most carriers with business routes take "Christmas money" from the businesses. This is, of course, also a felony, because it constitutes bribing a government worker. And, of course the better the tip, the better your mail delivery ... The post office isn't the FBI. You can work there without a high school diploma, or even a GED. Your boss will have no previous management experience, much less a degree. There are a lot of good people that work there, but they tolerate a lot of corruption within the ranks. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Only $40K for gen-X'rs to relive their youth? I hope you all took your parents advice and went to college Actually, for most of us, this was the youth we didn't have. I couldn't afford a car like this when I was 16, but I sure wanted one. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

They pretty much have that already, but it's not GPS - it uses cell towers to triangulate your position, and you can use it in the "maps" function to figure out where you are, and as a starting point for directions. http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/index.html#map GPS would be cooler and more accurate for sure, but it's not a bad alternative for people that live in the US. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I really didn't think Apple would come out with a 16 gig iPhone this year. Looking at the chip area, it didn't look like they could do it - at least until Toshiba released some 8 gig stacks. Well, I was wrong 16 gig iPhone. I have to admit that I was really against the iPhone originally, due to it's price. But I bought one for my wife last year because she really wanted one. After playing with it a bit, I like it better than my Blackberry. So I'll probably go get one soon. The 16 gig model is a mere $499 Or you can still get an 8 gig for the much more reasonable $399. Well, that, and the $2400 extra bucks you'll be forced to shell out with the required 2-year AT&T contract Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Not really. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Walt Disney also made a movie about lemmings that were intentionally herded along treacherous paths, and many fell to their deaths. To this day, people still think that lemmings commit suicide because of that movie. Disney isn't any more animal friendly than any other media outlet, but they are just as sensational and misleading. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Cell phones are cheap. Even if you have a nice one - buy a second cheap one and jump with it all the time. I jump with my Blackberry. Never know when you're going to get a long spot. Never know when you're going to land in the bushes and break a leg - how long until they find you lying in some bushes? You'll get faster emergency response if you've got a cell phone. Probably a good idea to turn it off when you're in the plane though Pilots hate the radio static. Back in the day, we used to jump out of a Cessna - two people on each pass. Lots of people watched the landings. These days, we have several planes at one DZ dropping 23 jumpers on each pass. I agree that it should be organized better - probably best if everyone is looking out for a few other people on the load. But times have changed the organization necessary. I've had one or two friends land off and break one or both legs, to be discovered 45 minutes later, and get to the hospital a few hours later. Funny thing - when a young woman goes missing, people figure it out in about 2 minutes. Maybe we should pay as much attention to everyone on the load Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Boy, you got off cheap. I bought my wife a minivan today Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

One of those rare movies where the plot AND dialog AND acting are all good. I love the part where they kidnap him and try to overdose him on nicotine patches. He's saved only by the fact that his body has built up an incredible tolerance to nicotine Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Food chain. Pseudo-science for simple minds. Humans are the dominant species on Earth (as far as we know ) for the simple reasons that we've got decent-sized brains and are good with our hands. It has nothing to do with what great hunters we are - in fact scavengers typically fair much better than alpha-hunters in the evolution of life. And humans are pretty good scavengers. Take humans out of the equation. Gorillas don't have any natural predators - they are vegetarians. Elephants - no natural predators - vegetarians. Sure, a few scavengers will take babies of any species, or a hungry carnivore will eat an already dead mammal, or even kill a severely weakened one. That doesn't make the carnivore higher on the "food chain", any more than it makes worms higher than humans because they'll eat your rotting corpse. Species dominance and eating habits are simply not related. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

If you can see her lips while she's screaming, then you've got her in the wrong position Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Crusty-Butt is one of the last great places to ski in Colorado. It's also some really awesome off-road biking

I think the jury is still out on that one. Although a few people have made the claim that it is genetic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/08/070801-left-gene.html Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

No such thing as a hot chick that smokes. Soon as she lights up, she loses 8 points on the 10-point system. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Maybe this should be an issue for speaker's corner, but here goes: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/getaways/02/08/france.08/index.html They banned smoking in public places in Denver about two years ago, and it's been a relief! I think people have the right to smoke - just not around me I never would have guessed that any country in Europe would adopt a smoking ban, but I'm glad to hear this - it makes the idea of traveling a bit more appealing. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

Leeeeeroooooy Jenkins! "At least I have chicken" Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

The way I understand it is if both parents have blue eyes, then the child is 100% likely to have blue eyes, with a very rare exception that some kids get gold (yellow) eyes. But if you have one brown-eyed parent, and one blue-eyed, that doesn't mean you'll automatically get brown eyes. The recessive gene just means you're more likely to get brown eyes. But you can still inherit blue eyes, it's just less of a chance. For instance, my wife has brown, I have blue, and my daughter has blue eyes. But it was further complicated by the fact that my wife's father has blue eyes, which gave my daughter closer to a 50-50 chance of brown or blue. And we really think my daughter's eyes look very much like my wife's father's eyes. Personally, I just hope my daughter got her mother's (or her father's) good vision, instead of my near-sightedness. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

I won't be surprised to see something like this, where you are charged extra for more weight, but you will never, ever be given money back for being underweight. We're talking about a multi-billion dollar industry - giving money back, even pennies, will result in the BOD of said airline firing the CEO and everyone else involved. Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD