Let’s talk about the historical phenomenon known as “segmented sleep” or “biphasic sleep.” It was quite common in Europe, especially before the Industrial Revolution. Let’s step back those 350 years and take a look at what was happening in the candlelit hush of a winter night. First Sleep and Second Sleep: A Forgotten Rhythm In […]
Category: Scholarship/Erudition
An esteemed Elder was…. steamed. Celebrating the beginning of a new semester, the faculty threw a mixer. Our Elder summarized the event in two words:“Cubed Velveeta.” Let’s step back and look at the UCSB Chancellor, for ultimately, he is lactose-responsible. Let’s put all these numbers in context. Let’s assume Prof. Yang works 40 hours per […]
Following yesterday’s detasseling BLOTT, we would be remiss if we failed to relay the tassel confusion that occurred at Texas A&M University several years ago. As the official Event Coordinator for Texas A&M‘s commencement, Callahan ‘Cactus Jack’ Kleberg had one job: order tassels. Being an agricultural school, Cactus Jack thought they were corn tassels. You […]
As our marketing team was doing due diligence with our new line of playing cards, we discovered that there were no “one-eyed” queens in a standard deck. According to Elder G: However, the Google was able to provide more general information on the “one-eyed” queen. From the cool site Wonderopolis The reign of Kandake Amanirenas […]
Adjunct to Pea Cutlets / Січеники з гороху Modern Interpretations of the Pea The Post-Apocalyptic Pea Ancient Pea Worship Heretical Cult of the Pea The Cult of the Pea Goddess The School of Rubenesque Pea Art Pea Nymphs of the Hearth, Field, and Forest The WLBOTT Elders Prep Peas at the Ladle & Lube
Categories
A Well-Curated Joke
I have been carefully curating my son’s life so that, at the appropriate moment, I could present him with this joke. His curating process included an immersion in American pop culture, European Renaissance history, Roman Catholic Cannon Law, a WLBOTT-compatible sense of humor, and a love of boiled eggs. So here’s the joke: Q: What […]
I periodically resort the books on my bookshelf. Previously, they were sorted by how useful they’d be during a Zombie Apocalypse. But today, my new sorting algorithm is this: How likely would I be able to defeat the author at arm wrestling? On the easy side (left), we have Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, and […]
A WLBOTT RESEARCH PROPOSAL [Thanks to UC#1 for his research proposal] One of the great unsolved mysteries of life is, “How can I watch the missing ‘Dr Who’ episodes?” Extensive research has been done in BBC archival sites, personal collections and homes of known hoarders, but many of the early episodes remain lost to the […]
Today we go down the Periodic Table rabbit hole. Many of today’s screen shots are from the excellent web site Periodic Tables.com Human Abundance What exactly are you full of? https://periodictable.com/Properties/A/HumanAbundance.html Q: Did you hear about the boy that ate uranium?A: He got an atomic ache. Notice how uranium is present in the human body. […]
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two pioneers of artificial intelligence — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for helping create the building blocks of machine learning that is revolutionizing the way we work and live but also creates new threats for humanity. Hinton, who is known as the godfather of […]