John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

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Whittle It a Little, It’ll Fit

Odds and sods I look at regularly, just because they amuse me. I hope they do the same for you. Incidentally, I found this page’s title on Greg Ross’s Futility Closet (it’s somewhere on this page) in a mini-article which also includes the delightful sentence in Icelandic: Barbara Ara bar Ara araba bara rabbabara. Ross points out that this, “besides being fun to say, is spelled with only three letters. It means “Barbara, daughter of Ari, brought only rhubarb to Ari the Arab.”

Fark.com RSS » Comey greenlights TV series to improve the FBI's public image. First episode to feature gripping, edge-of-your-seat tension as field agents race through Manhattan after a laptop Hillary Clinton may have once sneezed on [Misc]

Thursday 13 April 23:50:03 UTC 2017

Misc [link] [26 comments] [Link]

Fark.com RSS » U.S. threatens to bomb North Korea if another nuke is detonated. Come on guys, this isn't funny anymore. Cut it out [Scary]

Thursday 13 April 23:41:26 UTC 2017

Scary [link] [615 comments] [Link]

Mental Floss » Bigfoot is a Protected Species in Parts of Washington State

Thursday 13 April 23:30:00 UTC 2017

Texas, however, has different ideas. [Link]

Fark.com RSS » Scotland could join Canada if it wasn't for the inconvenient fact that Scots and Canadians are natural enemies [Unlikely]

Thursday 13 April 23:20:03 UTC 2017

Unlikely [link] [106 comments] [Link]

Mental Floss » Owe Money to the IRS? You Could Score a Free One-Way Trip with JetBlue

Thursday 13 April 23:00:00 UTC 2017

The airline is giving away 1000 free one-way flights until April 25. [Link]

Mental Floss » RIP NES Classic: Nintendo Is Discontinuing Its Retro Console

Thursday 13 April 22:15:00 UTC 2017

We hardly knew ye. [Link]

Mental Floss » Study Finds Women in Academia Do More Unpaid 'Service' Work

Thursday 13 April 22:00:00 UTC 2017

This phenomenon is not unique to academia, but can be seen across many major career fields, from finance to medicine. [Link]

Fark.com RSS » It was not my intention to hurt anyone with that chest high, barbed wire trap I set on the cycle path [Dumbass]

Thursday 13 April 21:50:04 UTC 2017

Dumbass [link] [72 comments] [Link]

Mental Floss » A Big Stretch of Manhattan Is Going Car-Free for Earth Day

Thursday 13 April 21:30:00 UTC 2017

New York City is following numerous European metropolises in instituting an annual day without private vehicles. [Link]

Fark.com RSS » Before tonight's performance of Lord of the Dance, a warning: People in the first 14 rows will get covered in blood. And end up in jail [Weird]

Thursday 13 April 21:19:54 UTC 2017

Weird [link] [36 comments] [Link]

Mental Floss » NASA Puts the Planet Up for Adoption in Time for Earth Day

Thursday 13 April 21:00:00 UTC 2017

One section can be (symbolically) yours. [Link]

Fark.com RSS » It's not often that Target follows up on those customer service comment cards, unless of course you leave one about the sales associate whom you assaulted [Dumbass]

Thursday 13 April 20:45:37 UTC 2017

Dumbass [link] [28 comments] [Link]

Mental Floss » How to Nail Your Elevator Pitch in 6 Steps

Thursday 13 April 20:45:00 UTC 2017

You have less than a minute to make a lasting impression—what should you say? [Link]

Fark.com RSS » Good news for the 4 or 5 of you DC Farkers who still ride Metro: Things are about to get better. I mean, there'll still be delays, single-tracking, overcrowded trains, fires, smoke, and the occasional death. But, you know, better in a general way

Thursday 13 April 20:20:04 UTC 2017

Unlikely [link] [55 comments] [Link]

Fark.com RSS » Want to travel the world? No money? No problem, just beg [Asinine]

Thursday 13 April 20:07:24 UTC 2017

Asinine [link] [108 comments] [Link]

Fark.com RSS » Photoshop this blind following [Photoshop]

Thursday 13 April 20:00:01 UTC 2017

Photoshop [link] [32 comments] [Link]

Fark.com RSS » Canadian parliament to unveil pot legislation today. Why couldn't they hold this off to a more auspicious date, say, one week from now? [Spiffy]

Thursday 13 April 19:40:44 UTC 2017

Spiffy [link] [104 comments] [Link]

Mental Floss » New Research Shows Too Much Time on Facebook Could Be Making You Sad

Thursday 13 April 19:30:00 UTC 2017

Your mom was right: Spending more time chatting with friends online than in real life could be negatively affecting your health. [Link]

Mental Floss » Solar-Powered Dehumidifier Pulls Fresh Water Out of Thin Air

Thursday 13 April 19:00:00 UTC 2017

It's not that difficult to collect condensation in a humid climate, but squeezing H20 from arid, thin air is another story. [Link]

Mental Floss » New Test Uses Gene Editing Technology CRISPR to Detect Disease

Thursday 13 April 18:45:00 UTC 2017

SHERLOCK is fast, cheap, and can accurately detect infections like Zika virus and Dengue fever and even cancer-causing mutations. [Link]

Mental Floss » The Possible Origins of 7 Instantly Recognizable Visual Clichés

Thursday 13 April 18:30:00 UTC 2017

Why do we draw bankrupt people wearing barrels, or partiers putting lampshades on their heads? [Link]

Weird Universe » Chilly Bang! Bang! Squirt Gun

Thursday 13 April 15:02:00 UTC 2017

The brief, controversial product life of the Chilly Bang! Bang! juice-filled squirt gun. Kids put the gun barrel in their mouth and squeezed the trigger to enjoy a refreshing squirt of juice.

First sales were halted because the plastic tab at the end of the barrel was deemed a choking hazard. Then in 1991 it was banned outright. New York … [Link]

Overheard In The Office » 1PM Lunch

Thursday 13 April 14:12:11 UTC 2017

Underling: These people were home users. We also have data for work users, but they shouldn’t be double-counted in the combined numbers.
Boss: I am definitely going to Taco Bell tonight. 10 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY Overheard by: pixelvisions [Link]

Weird Universe » Mystery Illustration 42

Thursday 13 April 10:27:00 UTC 2017

The splendid sartorial sense of this fellow is explicitly deemed by the advertisement to be inducement to trust his taste in another area. What product would you imagine his clothes are justifying. Liquor? Cars? Hairspray?

The answer is here.

And after the jump. [Link]

Futility Closet » The Disintegration Loops

Thursday 13 April 7:18:48 UTC 2017

In 2001 avant-garde composer William Basinski was trying to transfer some old tape loops to digital format, but he found that the original recordings had deteriorated so badly that the ferrite simply fell off the plastic backing as it passed the tape head. Intrigued, Basinski let the loops continue to cycle: the sounds grew more and more indistinct with each … [Link]

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