( searching 654 episodes of Calamities of Nature!)
Parenting[[Harold and Ferdinand out for a stroll...]] Harold: It must be really rewarding to be a parent. Ferdinand: Yeah, if I had a son I can just imagine all of the great stuff I'd teach him... [[ In the subsequent panels, Ferd's son appears as a wide-eyed smaller version of himself. ]] [[ ... Astronomy ... ]] Ferdinand: What's the name of this cloud-covered planet? [[ Ferdinand holds up a picture of a streaky yellow-brownish ball ]] Ferd's son: Is it Venus Dad? Ferdinand: No, it's Bespin, duh! [[ ... the Alphabet ... ]] Ferdinand: What's this? [[ Ferdinand holds up a card showing something that looks a lot like the letter "Y"]] Ferd's son: Is it the letter "Y"? Ferdinand: Dammit son, it's the flux capacitor! [[ ... and of course my son would be multilingual. ]] Ferd's son: Hab SoSlI' Quch! [[ Ferdinand throws up his hands...]] Ferdinand: My God, you need more emphasis on the "SoSlI'"! Ferdinand: I'm really starting to regret ever stealing you from the nursery! {{ Alt text: Ever wonder what it takes to be a good parent? Fortunately this comic strip has all the answers. }}http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=402
Parenting
Chandrasekhar[[Alp and Harold are walking together through a forest with a star covered sky above.]] Alp: In 1930, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was on a boat trip from India to Cambridge to begin his graduate studies in physics. Alp: Along the way, he used the quantum mechanics of electrons to show that an exotic kind of star called a white dwarf has a maximum mass. Alp: Unfortunately, the eminent astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington was adamantly opposed to this mass limit. Alp: Even though most physicists agreed that Chandrasekhar was right, and he eventually won the Nobel Prize for his discovery, no one defended him because of Eddington's immense status. Harold: It's impressive that throughout the ordeal Chandrasekhar always kept his composure Alp: Well, there was one incident... Eddington: I disagree! There's no maximum mass for white dwarfs. Chandrasekhar: No Professor Eddington, there's no maximum mass for your mom! {{alt text: And Dirac was all like "DAAAAMN!"}} {{keywords: yo mama, astronomy, astrophysics, physics}}http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=549
Chandrasekhar
The Dark Ages[[ Harold and Aaron sitting on a hill top at night. Stars are visible in the sky. ]] Harold: In the year 1054 a star exploded as a supernova. It was so bright it could be seen during daylight hours for 23 days and during the next 653 nights. There's evidence that the Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, and Native Americans all noted this exciting event. Mysteriously, Europe, which was mired in the Dark Ages, has no record of it. Aaron: It makes one wonder what other amazing discoveries were missed during this time. [[ Scene switches to a pair of brown-robed monks. ]] Monk-1: Father, I just figured out that gravity is actually the warping of space and time by mass! Monk-2: Quit bugging me and get back to copying the bible for the 253rd time!. {{alt text: A comic about the 1054 supernova, now known as the Crab Nebula. }} {{title: Considering how science and technology increase exponentially with time, I wonder what the world would be like today if we could have just skipped over those 900 years. }} {{keywords: astronomy, religion}}http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=504
The Dark Ages
The Great Dane[[ Ferdinand and Aaron out for a walk. ]] Aaron: Tycho Brahe was famous for his work as an astronomer, but he was also a colorful character. Aaron: His nose was severed in a duel and forever after he wore a metal prosthetic. He also had a personal dwarf and an elk. The elk died when it got drunk and fell down the stairs. Aaron: It was long thought he died of a bladder infection after holding it too long at a party, but recent evidence argues he may have been murdered for an affair with a queen. Ferdinand: Wow, it almost makes me want to be an astronomer myself. Aaron: I don't think most astronomers have their own personal dwarfs. Ferdinand: Oh, then never mind... {{alt text: A comic about Tycho Brahe, who is famous for making the most accurate astronomical observations of his time. The data were used by his assistant, Johannes Kepler, to derive the laws of planetary motion. He also had a pretty colorful life to say the least. }} {{title: I spent more time than I'd like to admit trying to figure out whether it should be "dwarfs" or "dwarves" in the last panel. Hopefully I made the right choice! }} {{keywords: astronomy}}http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=501
The Great Dane
Love Versus Hate{{This comic has three panel: Two normal-sized panels, stacked, on the left, and a large panel, the width of three panels of a four-panel comic, and equally tall.}} {{Panel one is the upper left.}} [[Harold, talking to us, standing in front of a blue-gray background. The BG fades to gray, radially, around the sides.]] Harold: The consolidation of information on the internet allows us to learn about the values and attitudes of people, in ways never before possible.]] {{Panel two is the lower left.}} [[Harold, same BG.]] Harold: Here is a plot of the ratio of hits for 'Googling' "I love ________", divided by the number of hits for "I hate ________", using various terms. {{Panel three is the large one. But you had that figured out, already! Right?}} [[The data are shown in a scatter-plot diagram: A two-dimensional graph, showing where an X value intersects with the Y value, for a given datum. The (vertical) Y-axis is labeled: Google hits for "I love ________" divided by Google hits for "I hate _______", using a logarithmic scale, four decades below unity, plus three decades above unity. The (horizontal) X-axis is unlabeled. This leads one to believe the Y axis shows the ratio cited as its content, but the X-axis merely distributes the data, in a convenient manner.]] Feynman (Richard, on presumes) is highest, at eight hundred. Nose hair is lowest, at 0.00025 (two hundred fifty parts per million), equals four thousand to one! Other entries include: Sex, bacon, coffee, porn, boobs, George W, Star Wars, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Sarah Palin, Betty White, pirates, ninjas, Star Trek, astronomy, astrology, homeopathy, math, art, mustaches, chest hair, money, and Michael Jackson.http://calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=433
Love Versus Hate
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