Jokes You Have To Explain

Is a joke a joke if you have to explain it? 

Let's find out, shall we? 

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"One man's Mede is another man's Persian." 

"Are you Shah?" 

"Sultanly." 

In order to "get" this joke, you'd have to be familiar with the connection between the Medes and Persians; or between the Persians, Shahs, and Sultans; or heard the expression "one man's meat is another man's poison." 

The specialized word play of a pun generally appeals to the most cultured - but is it funny? 

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Friendly new t-shirts at this year's Theoretical Convention...

What's new? 

A basic equation in theoretical physics is e = hv, where v is the Greek letter 'nu' (pronounced 'new'). Some fancy algebraic footwork, and you get v = e/h. 

A physicist walks into a bar and the bartender says, "What's new?" 

The physicist replies: "e/h?"

 

If you "get" the math, the joke is easily recognizable. 

If you don't, you might feel a little like Goji...

The Continuous Flow of Karma Across Multiple Belief Systems

The word Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म IPA: [ˈkərmə] ( listen); Pali: kamma) in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", to explain the samsara cycle. 

Samsara (Saṅsāra or Saṃsāra) (Sanskrit: संसार), (in Tibetan called "khorwa") means "continuous flow".  

Karma is, therefore, a word that represents the concept of the visible cycle of continuous events (birth, life, death), further applied to the concepts of rebirth and reincarnation, within Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, Jainism, Sikhism, and other Indian religions. 

In the fields of medicine and machinery continuous flow refers to the probability of interruption-free survival for the mechanism or device. 

When I was a teenager, the word for Karma was "duh" /də/. 

'Duh' was uttered in verbal recognition of a visible action that carried a high probability of an action resulting in a known event i.e., typically a dumb choice with obvious consequences. 

Irrespective of whether the person was conscious of the consequences that followed a certain action (thought or internal adjustment), the imitative release, while harmonizing with an external (or internally generated) variation of frequency, results in an interruption of the continuous flow.

During infancy, the recognition of Karma or the interruption of continuous flow results in the action of crying or laughing.

For a synesthete, Karma is the felt recognition of change in the continuous flow of felt vibrations and frequencies as they weave themselves through any given space. 

Adjustments or reactions between energie vibrations, strands, and strings are then felt in various areas of the body (head, heart, and gut). 

When any given energie encounters a slightly different frequency, each strand of energie (dances as it) harmonizes with the new vibrations that flow from the other strand and the physical body reacts to the manifestation of this exchange. Granted, sometimes one energie strand accidentally steps on the foot of the other energie strand. Ouch!

In physics, the word Karma refers to the process by which the prevailing cosmological model of the Universe continuously expands and reacts to (and within) varying conditions.

Our early Universe was once extremely hot and dense, expanding rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the Universe to cool, which resulted in its present continuously expanding state. 

This flow of energie cooled sufficiently to allow energie to be converted into various subatomic particles (protons, neutrons, and electrons), which eventually combined and formed atoms, the building blocks of matter. 

 

Hydrogen, helium, lithium, and so the song goes until clouds of hydrogen coalesce through gravity to form stars, with the heavier elements being synthesized either within stars or during supernovae. 

Around a million years later, molecules formed cells. As cell like organisms adapted to their environment, numerous particle interactions resulted in early energie clusters, strands and strings integrating with other organisms, eventually changing into multiple cell organisms. 

Long story short, adaptations and small Karma-like mutations in DNA resulted in plants and land creatures. 

For those who physically feel the continuous flow of energie and the resulting reactions to newly encountered energie, these feelings can be used as a guide to harmonize with the host environment. 

Karma (or whatever you want to call it) resembles the so-called instantaneous appearance of flowers that pop up in the spring. Take care of the environment, and those flowers gleam with happiness.

*Disclaimer: I highly recommend living in a way as to delay the negative effects of Karma. Life is so much easier when you just go with the flow... 

An Alien's Guide to Planet Earth Part I

My fascination with Planet Earth began 

when I was in levitational history class and encountered 

Rocky Ridge's book on 

Three Dimensional Beings. 

I remember staying up to the wee hours contemplating 

what it might have felt like to be an ancient human 

who did not perceive and directly interact 

with non-fixated dimensions. 

I began surveying interesting features of 1D and 2D worlds 

through analogies made in the upper dimensions. 

Many velocities ago, 

ancient beings believed that the volume of their universe 

was on fixed plane.

Primitive, I know. 

But what if they were more advanced than previously recognized? 

The *Earth Chronicles (E.C.) tell us that 

Ancient humans held fast to their beliefs for many cyclical events. 

The Great Portal is now open

Come visit Planet Earth prior to 

The Great Disambiguation

E.C. 2012

On Earth you'll experience 

a permanent accompaniment of music

not music in the sense of particle interaction between sound and silence

but rather a memorative reminder 

that bagpipes, singing, whistling, cowbells, and rustic sounds 

excite the particles at their most basic levels

The border between our deafeningly quiet multi-dimensional existence 

and the soft, precise rhythms of a bygone single society

reveal the contradiction between so-called modernity

and the wisdom of ancient humans. 

 It's a curious thing, 

imagining the world through the minds of those 

who romanticized linear combinations of 

up and down, 

left and right, 

in and out. 

At a time when extra dimensional travel was mere science fiction, 

humans saw the world from behind biological or manmade optical lenses. 

Seeing the world upside down was perhaps their greatest strength. 

WweDesign

Processing the world from the outside in

is how they conceived of the ancient cosmological myths

that have delighted us for chronicles

 Visit *E.C. 2012 

during the next inter-dimensional solar sunset or sunrise 

And visit shores of Ithaca like you've never seen them before... 

Don't forget to bring your antique particle replicator! 

Disclaimer

Ancient humans possessed limited ability to visualize 

and interact with other dimensions, 

Yet, despite their 

over-dependence on linear thinking

Their attitude was rather novel...

Time Travelers of Comedy

There was a young lady named Bright

Whose speed was much faster than light.

She set out one day, in a relative way,

And returned on the previous night.

-Anonymous

The nature of time was one of the central founding topics of early philosophical thought; dominating scholarly debate for centuries. 

Einstein, in 1905, plucked time from philosophy and placed it near the heart of physics, transforming time from a conceptual given into a physical thing, subject to laws and equations. 

So, from whence does this 1928, captured on film, time traveler come? 

Hmmmm....

In the late 1890s, Guglielmo Marconi, known as the father of long distance radio transmission, was working on developing a practical radio transmitting and receiving system. 

However, the ability to place and receive telephone calls from automobiles, wasn't available until 1946. 

By 1930, telephone customers could be connected by radio to a passenger on an ocean liner in the Atlantic for a meager $7 per minute, the equivalent of $92.50/minute today. 

"Sherman is sighted," the message said, referring to the troopship Sherman, which was returning a San Francisco regiment from the battlefields of the Spanish-American War. 

The person passing by in the film with what appears to be a handheld mobile, is leisurely walking along, an indication that they are not paying a hundred bucks a minute to chat.  

Getty Images (left 1974, right 1954)

Was it a cell phone or an ear trumpet? 

David Carr

Weather Forecast for Erie Region: 2 Feet of Snow

April 24, 2012: 6:10 PST
Updated 6:13 PST

It's gonna rain folks and before you know it, that rain's gonna turn into some snow showers. It's gonna be cloudy and breezy, with a low around 35. 

ERIE'S WEATHER HOROSCOPE

The sun comes back into your chart on Wednesday, with the high hitting around 49. If you're planning to buy a lottery ticket, signs are favorable. 

Turning Monday into Sunday's Best

Surviving Mondays starts by getting even with Sunday.

Sunday spends the entire day scheming of things for us to do the moment we wake up on Monday mornings.

Sunday apparently has nothing better to do than to think up of "stuff" to keep us from going outside and having a little fun.

I spent many a miserable Monday trying to keep up with Sunday's nonsensical demands such as the paying bills, the returning phone calls, scheduling appointments, and getting some work done.

That's when I decided to fire Monday! 

I ditched my Monday attitude and Sunday never told me what to do again. 

Monday is now my very own