Category Archives: humour

It’s Darwin Day!

Darwin Day is a global celebration of science and reason held on or around Feb. 12, the birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin, who is best known for the classic work On the Origin of Species in which he proposed natural selection, the basis of the modern evolutionary synthesis.

Darwin Day should not be confused with the Darwin Awards which salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who
accidentally remove themselves from it that are currently open for voting. (And while they do little to advance the state of science education, they are, in their own way, so sad that you have to laugh so you don’t cry.)

Another Article from the Land of D’oh – Jobs and Traffic Jams are Linked

A recent article over on the NYT blogs pointed out the stubborn link between jobs and traffic jams and noted that when the average national unemployment rate reached its lowest point (of 4.6% in 2006), the hours that commuters spent in traffic were 13% less than when the average national unemployment rate was close to its highest point (of 9.3% in 2009).

Why wouldn’t this make sense? The more people working, the more people trying to get to the same business centres at about the same time. The more cars trying to get through the same choke points in traffic flows, the slower traffic is going to go. As long as the personal vehicle is primary mode of transportation, obviously there’s going to be a big connection between employment rate and traffic jams. You don’t need a study to confirm this. Just some common sense (and, if you want to verify your common sense, a mathematical model).

Reader Education? What Was I Thinking?

I’m so naive! I thought that if I brought value to my readers each and every day, I could make a difference and build a profitable business at the same time. I thought as long as I avoided mastering the art of saying nothing and stayed off the Analyst 2.0 path, things would work out. How wrong was I?!

Forget education! The real key to financial success is stupidity and bad grammar! Cheezburger, the publisher behind LOLcats and FAIL Blog, just raised 30 Million. That’s right! 30 Million to publish pictures of cats who can’t spell and dumb failures. 

I guess SI should have jumped on the Purchasing 0.3 Bandwagon when it had the chance! Whomever succeeds the now defunct Purchasing is obviously poised for fame, glory, and riches. (And the battle is already raging …)