Stupid People

Somebody has come up with a good explanation for what makes a person stupid.

According to The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, there a four types of people in the world. They are identified by their interactions with others and the end benefit to both parties.

1. Helpful People - Generally the other party will be better off at the end of the interaction.
   
2. Intelligent People - Both parties will be better off after the interaction.
   
3. Stupid People - Both parties will be worse off after the interaction.
   
4. Bandits - The bandit will be better off at the end of the interaction.
   

Obviously it's much more detailed than that. The most important thing for you the casual reader to know is the fifth basic law.

A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

The corollary of the Law is that:

A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.

Remember, there's no such thing as a stupid question... only stupid people.

Brian Wilson will call you

According to his website, Brian Wilson would like as many people as possible to make donations to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

As a bonus, if you donate US$100 or more, Brian will call you personally and let you ask him one question... and he will match the donation. Sounds like a great thing for any Beach Boys fans out there.

According to Boing Boing, it's true...

Reader comment: Paul says: "In case anyone asks you 'is this real,' the answer is yes. My friend David called me on Monday all excited. He had donated $160 and Brian Wilson called. Brian asked David 'so, do you have any questions for me' and David said 'no, I'm just a big fan,' and then Brian and David chatted star-to-fan for a couple of minutes."

Let me know if you do it.

Simply Rerecorded

In order to get around the fact that Warner owns the recordings to all of Simply Red's hits, Mick Hucknall has decided to re-record the entire back catalogue.

"Warner has all of the rights to the original recordings, but they don't seem to be doing an awful lot with them," says the band's manager, Ian Grenfell. "We think we can do more with those recordings than they can. We've got a dozen people and all they work on is Simply Red."

The band hopes that they will be able to licence the new recordings for commercials and movies. But don't have any plans soon to exploit the fans by rereleasing their albums in the new form.

I think this would be worthwhile if they also redo the album photography with the band as they look today! I can't wait for other bands to follow.

Thing Generators

If you're looking for a band name or a blog name or random plotline for Law and Order this is your site, the Generator Blog.

It's basically one place to find all of your name generator requirements. Take a look.

Deadly Dolphins

Alright! I can't believe this one is actually true, but there it is from one of the worlds most trusted news providers.

Dolphins trained to attack and kill by the U.S. Navy may have escaped from their training facility in the wake of floods caused by Hurricane Katrina. They are denying whether it is true or not. You'll have to read the story for yourself as it's too fantastic to believe.

What I want to know is, if it's true, where did they get the idea for this from? It sounds like the sharks with lasers attached to them that Dr. Evil wanted to use in the first Austin Powers movie.

Better be careful when your swimming out there.

100 Most Misspelled Words

Take a look over at yourDictionary.com at this list of most commonly misspelled words. There were a few there that surprised me!

Cooking Lessons

Over at AZCentral.com there is a basic cooking course available for those of us who wish to know a little more about cooking. It starts of with basic skills like organizing the kitchen, knife basics and boiling water (there's more to it than that?) and then leads on to more detail like roasts, making sauces and baking pies. There's even an exam at the end. It looks good.

Just remember, don't try to feed the food you make to your computer!

Writing to Yourself

A nice article over at D*I*Y Planner about occasionally writing letters to yourself. It gives you the chance to step outside of yourself and view your current situation objectively.

"If you’re thinking about quitting your job, describe what is going on to make you want to quit; pretend you are listening to your best friend talking and give them advice."

And reading them later can be a great way to remember how you felt after a particular thing or stage in your life.

Cute Book Labels

Over at the Martha Stewart website there is a link to some cute book labels for kids that you can download as a PDF and print in colour onto sticky labels.

Spyware Phonies

Here is a list of spyware programs that are in fact spyware. This website contains lists of the good and the bad.

The real shame is a lot of these phonies have taken good product names away from potential software developers!

Finding the Next Book

What Should I Read Next? is a website that allows you to enter the author or title of a book you have enjoyed reading and it will make recommendations based on what others have enjoyed. It even gives a link to Amazon for each book if your feeling impulsive.

Beat Blisters

I got this great tip from Lifehacker today.

MacGyver Tip: Got blisters? Use Duct Tape.

Are blisters ruining your day? Do band-aids keep sweating off? No moleskin on-hand? Try duct tape! It cushions the blister and won’t come off. Many walkers and runners swear by it.

Apply the duct tape when you first feel burning and, hopefully, before a full blister develops. Lay it as smoothly as possible, avoiding wrinkles.

Blisters already exist? Shield them from the duct tape glue. Cut out a circle of paper or gauze, attach it to the center of the duct tape and cover the wound with the non-sticky part.

War on Weather

With Hurricane Rita looming, when is President Bush going to declare a War on Weather. It makes sense doesn't it? Plenty of people have been killed as a result of Hurricane Katrina and the U.S. government was not able to respond to the aftermath in any efficient manner.

I think it's time to get serious and accept that climbing temperatures are contributing these storms and other problems like drought.

C'mon people let's declare War on Weather!

Change the locks...

When you move into a new house, or this might happen to you...

Another young man, Paul Cox, age 21, left a bar in a New York City suburb and drove off — too fast — with two friends. The last thing he remembers is rounding a curve with one of his friends saying, "You're not going to make it." The next thing he knew he was waking up in his bed with no clothes on. His mother has come in to tell him the police had called her to say they had found her car abandoned. She asked him what happened. He had no idea. His friends told him later that after he hit a guardrail, he got out of the car and walked off. The next day, the community was buzzing about a man and his wife, both doctors, who were stabbed 24 times in their beds.

The Coxes had once lived in the home, and the murdered couple was sleeping in Paul's former room. The murders had occurred on the night of Paul's blackout. He was haunted by guilt. Two years later, his girlfriend persuaded him to go to Alcoholics Anonymous, where he spoke of his fears about that night. Two years later, an AA member went to the police with his story. Detectives matched his fingerprints to those found at the murder scene. He was later tried and convicted and sentenced to more than a century in prison.

I found this on an article related to memory loss and alcohol. Interesting and a little scary.

The Jetsons

I was flicking through the channels on pay TV the other day when I noticed The Jetsons starting on one of the cartoon channels.

Something sinister about the Jetsons occurred to me that I had never thought about before. If the future is supposed to be so great, why is everything set way up high above the ground? Is it that the surface of our planet is uninhabitable in the future?
Maybe it is completely taken up with farmland to grow food, maybe the ground is completely laid to waste with mining and garbage dumps, maybe it is all parkland (yeah right) or maybe that’s where the poor people live.

The vision for a better tomorrow isn’t made any better by the fact that the only places apparently being built are schools, sports stadiums, shopping centres, businesses and apartment buildings. Something that is unfortunately being mirrored in our modern day world (except for schools).

Is there nothing else for us? What about gardens, parks, places to walk and ride bikes.

Cheat Sheets

Our Favorite Cheat Sheets - a Whatis.com definition

A great page listing "cheat sheets" for various applications and operating systems.

Keyboard shortcuts for Office programs, HTML, all kinds of stuff.

This one is more technical, but is has a good sheet for Google.