Jun 042012
 

You know those annoying ads you can see surrounding this posting ? The ones that don’t go anywhere near paying for the costs of running this site ?

I get to see them myself, and was somewhat surprised to find one today that had just a teensy little problem with it :-

Nine Mistakes You Should Avoid in 2011

Which was advertising a financial services company. Got to admit that whilst anyone can make a mistake, I would be very unlikely to let someone near my money who is likely to make this sort of mistake!

Apr 022010
 

News is serious stuff – perhaps a bit too serious. I am all in favour of news – I watch and read a fair bit of it, and I like knowing what is going on in the world. But does it all have to be so serious ? We need a little more like :-

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It actually would not be that hard to stick a few more “light” news items into today’s news. Usually news stories take a great deal longer to explain than is really necessary. Once we know that three people have been injured by a raging bull in Pamplona, we do not need much extra explanation – those of us capable of understanding either already know why bulls are likely to injure people in Pamplona or are quite capable of looking up the necessary information. It isn’t necessary to spoon feed us.

Especially when making usual news reports shorter allows us to see a more balanced view of the world. Normal news shows give us the impression that nothing happens “out there” but disaster and catastrophe. There is plenty of that sure, but there is also plenty of plain old boring days happening together with the occasional oddity that could make it to the BBC’s “Odd Box”.

Mar 202010
 

There are five men and a single woman all dangling from a rope, waiting for someone to rescue them. Unfortunately the rope starts to fray and they all decide that someone has to sacrifice themselves to save the others. After some time discussing who should sacrifice themselves, the woman says that as women are used to sacrificing themselves and that men are the better sex, she will sacrifice herself. The men all applaud her, and an hour later the woman is rescued.

Mildly humorous ?

Now try it the other way around :-

There are five women and a single man all dangling from a rope, waiting for someone to rescue them. Unfortunately the rope starts to fray and they all decide that someone has to sacrifice themselves to save the others. After some time discussing who should sacrifice themselves, the man says that as men are used to sacrificing themselves and that women are the better sex, he will sacrifice herself. The women all applaud her, and an hour later the man is rescued.

Still funny ?

It sometimes seems that it is far more acceptable for men to be portrayed as stupid in jokes than women. Is this fair ? If it is wrong to portray women as stupid in jokes, it is wrong to portray men as stupid too; similarly if it is funny to read about stupid men, then it is funny to read about stupid women.