Science of Laughter

Here's a TEDx video on the science of laughter" http://youtu.be/1JiUqa8wrUs I did a study of the effects of laughter on memory in school last semester for my class on cognitive psychology.

An Encapsulation Of The Human Conditon

Here's a fun look at our current human situation:

Keeping it all in perspective

Monty Python has a certain knack for this:

Ultimate Tongue Twister Scene

BBC Cartoon Duo Tongue Twisting Scene

With Thanks to Wimp.com

Parents Abdicating Responsibility to Schools

"According to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Education, an increasing number of American parents are choosing to have their children raised at school rather than at home.

Deputy Education Secretary Anthony W. Miller said that many parents who school-home find U.S. households to be frightening, overwhelming environments for their children, and feel that they are just not conducive to producing well-rounded members of society.

Thousands of mothers and fathers polled in the study also believe that those running American homes cannot be trusted to keep their kids safe."

(Thanks to Free-Range Kids and The Onion)

Music Fun

With piano:


Without piano:

Commencement Comedy

LINK

Teaching Disabilities

Breaking News from The Onion:
Report: Increasing Number Of Educators Found To Be Suffering From Teaching Disabilities

My First Movie: Bones of Contention

This is a one day movie. Noah and I decided to make a movie in the early afternoon, outlined a script, and started shooting. We finished shooting that night after dinner and I edited and scored it, finishing up around 2AM. About 13 hours start to finish. Noah was the cinematographer and he happens to be 10 3/4 years old (or so.) The score has been changed because of copyright issues, but the new one is even better.

Kristina, Richard, and the lady at the Joy Luck Chinese Restaurant were very enthusiastic recruits into the process. Kristina created the prop used at the very end, too.

Another Fun Generator

Here's where you can generate the opening line of a joke...

Illusion Collection

Thanks the The Situationist for this one:


Click on the "add/remove edges" button to see it differently. The effect is explained in the original post.

The illusion archive from the Best Visual Illusion Of The Year contest.

Guaranteed to Make You Laugh

Link to baby laughing.

Embedded:

Monty Python/ Star Trek Mashup

Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luVjkTEIoJc&feature=related

Embedded:

Instant Animation Fun

This is a fun little site where you can draw a sloping line and watch as a little sledder rides the hill you created. Be careful how you draw the line, he can wipe out:
Line Rider

Led Zepplin/ Beatles Mashup

Here's the Beatniks doing Stairway to Heaven in early Beatles style:

Backwards Singing Sensation

Here is a link to the Museum of Hoaxes which is where I found this and validates it:
Museum of Hoaxes

Here's the video:

Beauty in Statistics?

"Nocturne, of Chopin, so beautiful music. But few people will appreciate the music if I just show them the notes. Most of us need to listen to the music to understand how beautiful it is.

"But often that's how we present statistics; we just show the notes we don't play the music."

Hans Roslings - OECD World Forum - Istanbul 2007

To see how this guy has worked to unveil the beauty of statistics watch these two videos from the TED conferences (he's plays with UN statistical data like a little boy who composes a drawing by telling himself the story as he draws each bit.):

2006
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/92


2007
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/140


His discussion of the components of ending world poverty and prioritizing them as both goals and means is very interesting! (near the end of second video)

The great visualization tools that he uses in these videos is available on-line to play with. There are also a great suite of presentations, too.

http://gapminder.org/

Brilliantly Funny Summary of Education Today

Here is a brief talk by Sir Ken Robinson, only about 20 minutes, that gives a synopsis of the need for a new way of thinking about education:

Notable Quotes:

"...the universities designed the system in their image. If you think of it the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance."

"'Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn't sick she's a dancer. Take her to a dance school.' ... she did. ... She is responsible for some of the most successful musical theater dance in history ... she has given pleasure to millions. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down."

Link
Embedded:

Fun with the English Language

The following is not my creation, it is an anonymous e-mail meme that infected me.

These are why English is hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France .

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham.

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Isn't odd that you can make amends but not one amend?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

Your house can burn up as it burns down.

You fill in a form by filling it out.

An alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are not visible.

Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick?"

on UP

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is "UP."

It's easy to understand UP , meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?

Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?

We call UP our friends.

And we can brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.

We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.

At other times the little word has real special meaning.

People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special .

A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning and we close it UP at night.

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.

When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP , so.......... it is time to shut UP ....!

Unitarian Jihad

Startling new underground group spreads lack of panic! Citizens declare themselves "relatively unafraid" of threats of undeclared rationality. People can still go to France, terrorist leader says.

For more information:

San Francisco Chronicle