Humor (collection by Doug Moran)

General

• Understanding Engineers (Collection of widely circulated items)
• Letter from landowner to Michigan Dept of Environmental Quality RE: dam in stream
• Yours is a Very Bad Hotel: A graphic complaint prepared for ... DoubleTree Club Hotel, Houston by Tom Farmer and Shane Atchison (very dissatisfied customers): PDF and MS PowerPoint (both about 270K)
• Laugh Lab (experiment to find "The world's funniest joke")
• Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass: An undergrad Physics Lab Report, the way we wish we had written them
• The BEST Sleep Positions (Cat)
• French Creek Boat Sales: For sale: HMS Vengeance (Aircraft Carrier)
  Local copies: PDF, JPEG pg 1 JPEG pg 2
• Escher's "Relativity" in LEGO
• Cat on a Fan
• Product comparison:
• iPod vs. The Cassette
• Voice menu for mental health hotline (MP3)
• Deep Thoughts
• BurmaShave Road Signs from FiftiesWeb.com - Humor/advertising along pre-Interstate highways.
• Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (silly but good - make sure to scroll all the way to the end or you will miss good laughs
• If My Nose Was Running Money by Aaron Wilburn (YouTube - see also related videos)
> ;)

Science Illiteracy

• Water as Fuel (WMV), a local newscast segment. Illustrates both the credulity and total scientific illiteracy of news reporters.
• Daylight Savings Time as a contributor to global warming A Letter-to-the-Editor in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette of 2007-April-16

Linguistic / Puns

• "A good pun is its own re-word": use this title in a search engine to get many, many collections of puns. Examples:
  • Forwarded Funnies: A GOOD PUN IS ITS OWN RE-WORD
  • A Light on a Dark Path: A Good Pun is its Own Re-Word...
• Alloneword.org, that's all one word dot org

Visual design

• Trompe d'oeil : Murals, wallpaints, ... that create 3-D illusions.
• PhotoShop'ed (particular favorites)
• M.C. Escher's "Relativity" in LEGO®

Animated Cartoons

• Mark Fiore's Animated Cartoons (from SF Gate). Wonderfully funny (and subversive) political animated cartoons (with sound).
  Warning: they are addictive, so do not start looking at them until you have time to look at a bunch.
• Don Asmussen San Francisco Chronicle
• The Animated (Pat) Oliphant
• Daryl Cagle (Slate)
• Bill Mitchell : at CNN's AllPolitics : my assessment: mediocre
• Bruce Hammond : my assessment: mediocre
• JibJab.com
• "wake-up.wmv" (search for): cat attempting to wake its person, resorts to baseball bat and acts innocent
  circa 2007-October, unattributed (one site had an attribution, but searching suggested that it was not credible).

Computer

• The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation : Classic example by Peter Norvig of how Powerpoint encourages bad presentations.
• Google Technology : Using pigeons to rank web pages
• FBI eyes: tracking your web browsing
• The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
• 10 Things They Believe in Silicon Valley but Nowhere Else - See More Slideshows Like This One

Risk Assessment

• The most deadly wild animal in the US
  • Supporting data: Welcome to DeerCrash.Com - Home of the Deer-Vehicle Crash Information Clearinghouse "The official Website for The Deer-Vehicle Crash Information Clearinghouse"
  • A Bureaucratic Response (based upon politics in Palo Alto)
• 

Language-based

• Verbivore by Richard Lederer
• kissthisguy.com -+- The Archive of Misheard Lyrics
• Qantas Airlines : Responses to service requests based upon literal interpretation of request.
• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Humor (Word Imperfect)

Job-related

• Outrageous job requirements: FuckThatJob.com: "my answer to employers taking advantage of folks having a hard time finding a job in this economy"
  Take this tech job and shove it by Farhad Manjoo, March 13, 2003 in Salon.com (Technology and Business section)
• Shepherd and the Consultant, a fable
• Piled Higher and Deeper (Ph.D.) comics - but also very relevant to the academic and researcher

Health-related

• Major Risk Factor for Heart Attacks

Cartoons - cute

• "I wish I was a glow worm, A glow worm's never glum. ...."

Mine

• 2004-July: Addressing the developing Deer problem in Palo Alto, unpublished Guest Opinion
  Note: If you are not familiar with Palo Alto politics, you may miss most of the humor.
• 2004-May: The most deadly wild animal in the US
• 2004-July: King Arthur movie - Extended terminology
• 2003-02-19: Telethon: Nukes for North Korea

April Fools

Holiday Decorations

• The Lights Before Christmas : Christmas lights synchronized to music (Trans-Siberian Ochestra's Wizards of Winter). 16,000 lights on 88 Light-o-Rama channels.
  Putfile - WizardsofWinter SM - This version of the video plays better on my computer.
  YouTube - Christmas Lights - Jingle Bell (same house)
  • Light-o-Rama Controllers come on cards containing 8 or 16 channels The controllers come on cards containing 8 or 16 channels at a cost of $13-25 per channel depending on configuration (8 vs 16 channel controllers; Hobbyist vs Showtime). Note: doesn't include lights or wiring or installation or ...
  • Ramsey Electronics - for Low Power FM transmitter
    Ramsey Electronics FM25B - Professional Synthesized FM Stereo Transmitter Kit
  • Planet Christmas
  • SantaStars.com - listings of Christmas light shows
• Display at Sue Salah's home in Royal Oak Michigan - "person" hanging lights from roof has fallen and is hanging upside-down tangled in the lights. Look carefully and you can see a nicely positioned overturned ladder. Circa 2002-2003??

Web-related: Page Not Found

• Baghdad Bobby (Local copy)
• Weapons of Mass Destruction (circa 5/2003 - Iraq) (Local copy)

Politics

• Governmentium - Heaviest Element yet known to science

Marketing Babble

• Personal: "a revolutionary redefinition of next-generation solutions"

Political

• Saturday Night Live: Opening Sketch of 11/11/2006: A Message from the Speaker-Elect of the U.S. House of Representatives
  YouTube - Saturday Night Live: Nancy Pelosi
  Transcripts