You're browsing the archives of Calamities of Nature.
You can search these comics too.
show: [ full transcriptions | abridged transcriptions | just the first line ]
| Having It All | [[ Harold and Arron take a walk ]] / Harold: So much of the conflict in this world is due to inequality of wealth-- The Haves versus the Have-Nots. / Harold: It makes me wonder how peaceful the world would be if everyone just had everything they needed and wanted. / Arron: People would still fight over who had the better God. / {{ alt-text: On the plus side, at least once everyone has everything, we could finally focus on finding out who has the best god, because I'd really like to know... }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=634 |
| Reading Academic Articles | [[ Text Panel. ]]
/ [[ Underlined caption: How to read an academic article... ]]
/ [[ (1) Begin with the abstract to see if you're interested ]]
/ [[ (2) Read the introduction and conclusions, with extra focus on the main punchlines ]]
/ [[ (3) Skim the middle sections to get a feel for the flow, pay special attention to the key figures ]]
/ [[ (4) Read select parts in more detail. Feel free to skip around depending on your level of interest and how much detailed info you need ]]
/ [[ (5) When an especially deep understanding is required, it may be necessary to go back and read the entire article from start to finish ]] / [[ Text Panel. ]]
/ [[ Underlined caption: How not to read an academic article... ]]
/ [[ (1) Skip to the references ]]
/ [[ (2) Check if your work is cited ]]
/ [[ (3) If not, immediately send the authors an email pointing out their oversight ]] / {{alt-text: Of course I've NEVER been guilty of this... }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=635 |
| Fruit | [[ Harold and Alp observe a bowl of fruit ]]
/ Alp: Have your ever noticed that apples, oranges, peaches, and pears are all about the same size?
/ Harold: I guess not. / Alp: I wonder if there is a shared reason why they all evolved to a similar point. Maybe over time people preferentially ate and replanted the seed from the larger and larger fruit until they were limited by the size of the human hand. / Harold: So then what limited the size of the bananas?
/ Alp: The egos of male homo sapiens. / {{alt-text: I was going to make a joke in the alt text about eating large bananas, but then I realized it sounded a little awkward... }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=636 |
| Failure | [[Harold and Aaron are sitting on an island at the base of a tree.]]
/ Harold: No matter what I try to do, I always feel like a failure. / Harold: Is it too much to ask to want to at least be good at one thing? / Aaron: What would you like to be good at? / Harold: Life. / {{alt text: Well, that or competitive eating. You can't underestimate how useful it is to be able to eat 69 hot dogs in 10 minutes!}} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=637 |
| Life From Another Planet | [[ Harold and Aaron walking in the woods. ]]
/ Harold: If intelligent life came to Earth from another planet, do you think it would be conservative or liberal? / Harold: For example, if a society has advanced to the point of mastering interstellar travel, does that necessarily imply a certain amount of progressiveness?
/ Aaron: You never know... / [[ Caption: Far in the Future... ]]
/ [[ A Space ship has landed. A crowd of humans are gathered around. A pair of aliens (who look like green blobs with 5-6 limbs) have opened a door and are speaking to the crowd. ]] / Alien1: Greetings Earthlings! We were going to give you the secret to unlimited, free energy, but then we learned that you allow gay marriage!
/ Alien2: Yeah, we don't know what this so-called "marriage" is, and honestly, we can barely distinguish between main and female humans, but gay marriage just sounds so icky! / {{ alt-text: ...and then the aliens were told about heterosexual marriage, and they were REALLY grossed out!... }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=638 |
| Dark Matter | [[ Aaron and Raymond out at night, under starry skys. ]] / Raymond: People criticize religion when it invokes the supernatural for unexplained phenomena, but are Astrophysicists any better? / Raymond: When Gravity acts in a way they can't explain, they make up something called "Dark Matter." Now they claim that up to 85% of the matter in the universe has to be this stuff! / Raymond: How do they respond to the criticism that Dark Matter is no better than fairies, or leprechauns, or the hand of God? / Aaron: With three words...
/ Ferdinand: Bullet cluster, bitches! / {{ alt-text: On the other hand, from CreationWiki.org, "In 2000, relying primarily on this theory, Don DeYoung, writing in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, concluded that the hand of God was responsible for holding rapidly spinning galaxies and larger systems together, despite the observed mass deficits." Wow, astrophysicists are WAY off! }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=639 |
| Memes | [[ Harold and Aaron walking in a fairly barren environment ]] / Harold: Analogous to the concept of Genes is that of "Memes." These are ideas, practices, and other cultural items that persist because of their ability to evolve and replicate. / Harold: But is it even clear what should be classified as a Meme? For example, are specific words Memes, or languages, or the concept of language itself? / Harold: And if anything can be a Meme, it doesn't seem like a useful distinction. How has it persisted so long since Richard Dawkins coined the term in 1976? / Aaron: Because Meme is a successful meme. / {{ alt-text: Of course, the common usage of memes on the internet now may not have anything to do with what Dawkins first intended, but I guess that's just part of the evolution. I Can Has Cheezburger?... Am I rite? }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=640 |
| Quantum Tunneling | [[ Raymond and Aaron ]] / Raymond: Quantum Mechanics is so strange that it is possible, albeit very unlikely, that you could walk through a wall.
/ Aaron: I hate it when Quantum Tunneling is trivialized with that lame example. / Aaron: In the sun, protons are bouncing into each other, but not fast enough to overcome charge repulsion and undergo nuclear fusion. It's just not hot enough in there. / Aaron: But via Quantum Tunneling, protons can "magically" pass through this charge barrier, and get close enough to fuse. We wouldn't be here otherwise! / Raymond: Okay, that is a pretty good example.
/ [[ Ferdinand pokes in... ]]
/ Ferdinand: It's not my fault the condom failed! It could've been quantum tunneling!
/ Aaron: *Sigh* / {{ alt-text: Retort heard on the playground at the Caltech daycare: "Your mom didn't even want to have you! You were just the result of quantum tunneling!" }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=641 |
| Civilized | [[ Aaron and a man sitting on a bench. The man is wearing a white shirt with a bow-tie. ]]
/ Man: What's happening to the world? Women are walking around wearing next to nothing, man have their pants hanging off, and people regularly curse in their conversations. / Man: Give me the good old days! It's as if society is becoming less civilized as time passes. / Aaron: The fact that people can make these personal choices without fearing punishment or persecution sounds to me like we're becoming _more_ civilized. / {{ alt-text: And you know what happens when we've reached the pinnacle of civilization? Crude physics jokes! }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=642 |
| Theory of Everything | [[ Harold and Aaron sitting in the woods, perhaps watching a sunset. ]]
/ Harold: Do you think physicists will one day develop a "Theory of Everything"-- A single theory that explains all particles and forces, and underlies all known physical phenomena? / Harold: Because if they do, I think it will be one of out society's greatest successes. / Aaron: Then the fact that few people will be able to appreciate it will be one of our greatest failures. / {{ alt-text: It's not a good sign when people are still complaining about having to learn physics that's been around for over 300 years... }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=643 |
| Accomplishing Greatness | [[ Harold and Arron take a walk ]]
/ Harold: When I was younger, I always had this notion that someday I would accomplish something great. My whole life was ahead of me, and greatness was just around the corner. / Harold: But each year that I grow older, I look at when some of the biggest minds had their great ideas, and I realize that my best days are probably behind me. / Harold: For example, Newton invented calculus at 24, Godel published his incompleteness theorem at 25, Dirac was 26 when he predicted the existence of anti-particles. And Einstein was 26 when he published E=mc^2. / Aaron: So what's been your greatest accomplishment up until now?
/ Harold: I watched all six Star Wars movies in a row! / [[ alt-text: C'mon Harold, if you're going to spend 14+ hours watching movies, at least watch all three of the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings! ]] http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=644 |
| Divine Evidence | [[ Harold and Arron take a walk ]] / Harold: You criticize people who believe in God despite a lack of empirical evidence... / Harold: ... but one could just as well turn the question back on you-- Can you describe what evidence would make you admit that God really does exist? / Aaron: Sure, I can tell you what I'd need to believe in God... / Aaron: ...if you can give me a logically coherent description of what God is. / {{ alt-text: That's easy! God is an omnipotent being that can create a stone that is so heavy that even he can not lift it... oh wait! }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=645 |
| Be Cool | [[ Harold and Ferdinand in the city! They're standing behind a brick wall, city skyline in the background. ]]
/ Harold: I'm tired of always being a loser. From now on I'm going to be cool like you Ferd.
/ Ferdinand: Alright Harold! / Ferdinand: You the Man! [[ gives 2 thumbs up ]]
/ Harold: Yeah, I the Man! [[ happily returns 2 thumbs up ]] / [[ Ferdinand gives Harold a blank, unhappy look... ]] / Ferdinand: Even if you're trying to be cool, you can't drop the equative verb "to be" after a first person singular pronoun.
/ Harold: [[ Hiding his face in his hands... ]] I can't even speak wrong the right way! / {{ alt: Harold's going to try to be cool now? }}
/ {{ hover-text: When it comes to not being able to speak wrong the right way, I blame the education system! }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=646 |
| (Mis)construe | [[ Aaron and Ferdinand taking a walk. ]]
/ Ferdinand: "Construe" and "misconstrue" are a pair of funny words... / Ferdinand: ... Let's say I tell a chick that she has a big rump. When she relates this story to her girlfriends she might say she *construed* that I was calling her fat. / Ferdinand: But I would contend that she *misconstrued* whether I was calling her fat, because I really *like* big rumps and was paying her a compliment. / Ferdinand: But from her point of view, that is really what she *construed*, even though she *misconstrued* it. / Ferdinand: She was right in using the word *construed*, but at the same time she *misconstrued* which word she should have used. / Ferdinand: Until the full information is available, you're in an *indeterminate state* where you don't know if you should use "construe" or "misconstrue". / Ferdinand: ... *That's* why I've coined a new word "strue," which is intermediate between construe and misconstrue. / Aaron: Let me try it out, I *strue* that you're a moron.
/ Ferdinand: No, you're using it all wrong! / {{ alt: "Construe and misconstrue are a funny pair of words... }}
/ {{ hover-text: This is actually an older comic that I've never posted on this site (although I did share it on Facebook a couple of weeks ago). Sorry about this, I've been a little short on time this week. }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=647 |
| Crackpot Scorecard | [[Comic shows a sheet titled "CRACKPOT SCORECARD". Text as follows:]] / Not sure whether something is legit or crackpot garbage? Add up the points below and then check the key at the bottom. / 1 point for each mention of the word "quantum" followed by "healing", "wellness", "meditation", "therapy", or "jumping" ___ / 5 points for each mention of energy that cannot be measured in units of force times distance ___ / 10 points for each comparison of oneself to Einstein or Hawking ___ / 20 points for claiming that water or magnets do something really freakin' amazing ___ / 50 points for solving a longstanding problem in theoretical physics with absolutely no math ___ / 100 points for using the line "the establishment doesn't want you to know about this" ___ / 150 points if ideas were implanted during alien abduction ___ / 200 points for each famous physicist that has a restraining order on the author ___ / Total points: _____ / [[Line break]] / 1-25 points: Probably best to burn whatever you're reading and pretend you never saw it / 26-100 points: Your only hope is to get a lobotomy to get the stupid out of your brain / 101-200 points: This stuff will probably be featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network soon / 200+ points: Why are you wasting your time reading Deepak Chopra?! / [[ Image caption: "Have fun filling out your own *crackpot scorecard*. You never know when it might come in handy!" ]] / {{title: In case there's any confusion, let me make it clear: you do NOT want to get a high score!}} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=648 |
| Lil' Calamities and Modern Schooling | {{Title: Lil' Calamaties}} / [[A classroom.]] / Teacher: Students, open your books for the reading lesson. / Lil' Harold: [[Hand up]] Teacher, all we study is reading and math. This is such a narrow focus compared to the range of interests and talents we might have. / Lil' Harold: [[Shrugging]] We might excel at art, cooking, problem solving, mechanical devices, dance, music, programming, or any number of things. Why can't we be exposed to a broader range of experiences, which would help us explore our place in the world, and give us a sense of confidence and self-worth? / Teacher: Because that's not going to get us better scores of assessment tests. / {{alt-text: When I'm looking at public schools for my daughter I can't help but keep thinking about that scene from The Wall where all of the school children are being squeezed through a meat grinder.}} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=649 |
| Tachyons | [[Aaron and Harold are walking across a natural landscape.]] / Harold: Einstein's Theory of Relatively forbids accelerating something to go faster than light. / Harold: But there could still exist particles called Tachyons that ALWAYS exceed the speed of light. / Harold: Amazingly, in the frame of reference of a Tachyon, cause and effect will actually appear reversed. / Aaron: So a Tachyon would say that God really did create humans. / {{alt-text: I really hope this inspires a religious fundamentalist somewhere to learn about Minkowski diagrams.}} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=650 |
| Transgenesis | [[ Ferdinand and Alp take a walk. ]] / Alp: Using genes extracted from jellyfish, scientists created fluorescent fish, called "glofish". / Alp: More recently, researchers have even used jellyfish genes to make glowing cats. / Ferdinand: Well, you have some scientific know-how, what else could you make glow?
/ Alp: Hmmm... / [[ Later... ]]
/ Alp: Nice, my own personal night light!
/ Ferdinand: The Schwartz is strong with this one!
/ [[ ...as both Alp and Ferd look down inside the front of their pants, where something glows... ]] / {{Title: The scientists claim that the glowing cat research was for studying AIDS, but we all know that they really did it for the web traffic! }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=651 |
| Parasites | [[ Aaron and Harold take a walk. ]]
/ Aaron: The many instances in Biology of parasites controlling the minds of their hosts are truly amazing. / Aaron: There are ants that are forced to crawl up blades of grass to meet their deaths, rats that are suddenly attracted to cats, fish that try to get eaten by birds, and numerous other examples. / Harold: That makes me wonder, are any of our own actions and thoughts actually caused by parasites? / [[ Panel Caption: At that very moment, in Harold's brain... ]]
/ [[ Panel shows a microscopic image of some sort of blue stained organisms... ]]
/ One organism: Ha! Did you hear what I just made him say? Is that ironic or what?
/ Another organism: You idiot! You're going to get us caught! / {{title: I predict that someday in the future an important event in a history book will be explained as being due to parasitic mind control...}} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=652 |
| Fairies | [[ A nighttime scene with silhouettes of Aaron and Harold sitting on a hill-top under starry skies. ]]
/ Aaron: Douglas Adams eloquently asked: "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" / Aaron: But there is something at the bottom of that garden, and all of reality too: a vast, interconnected, logical structure beyond our wildest imaginations. / Aaron: It's full of amazing things, like curved spacetime, superfluids that climb walls, the process of mitosis, billions of galaxies with billions of stars and planets, tunneling particles, the incompleteness theorem, dark energy, and of course the occurrence of life. / Harold: So, in a sense, it's _not_ that we shouldn't believe in fairies,...
/ Aaron: It's just that we shouldn't be satisfied with such mundane ones. / {{title: And of course the most amazing thing about reality, which we should never take for granted, is that we can understand any of it. }} http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=653 |
Archive Page:
<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 >>