Who doesn't like a bit of levity, amirite?

My dogs had a similar response:

Tough crowd!

A long time ago, this was the BBC

Link

Snarky Response To Public Records Requests

"The most passive-aggressive public records response in MuckRock history"

Three years ago, Shawn Musgrave kicked off MuckRock’s first big FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) project - the Drone Census, which looked into how police departments across the country were approaching the idea of utilizing the tech as a law enforcement tool. Often, this turned out to be more theory than practice.

Though the Census tracked down drone use to departments as small as the Georgia Tech police, several towns were confused by project, and others outright resented the idea that they’d want anything to do with silly flying toys.

And then there was Brockton.

Two months after the initial request, Brockton Police Department responded with an email that was blank except for a single attachment, “drones.pdf.”

The document contained an photo of the BPD’s fleet in action …

Past Espys (1998)

I believe this kind of humor is practically dead in mass media. Is that a good thing, bad thing or indifferent for American culture? Discuss.

Book Club Bouncer

Anyone else? https://t.co/ZOcsvigrYy else? https://t.co/6QIRQhs2EN pic.twitter.com/u976kuTPfd

— goodreads (@goodreads) July 29, 2016

Dark sense of humour could be early sign of dementia - study

Well Twitter, looks like we're all screwed. pic.twitter.com/QYqb3DA4zI

— The Refined Ruffian (@CulturedRuffian) June 19, 2016

News from the past.

Darwin awards

I would show this photo to James, a proper electrician, because I know it will crack him up, and say to him with a face that lets no trace of humor, "Lookit this guy claims he's Navy's finest electrician and calls a wall socket an adapter." Bringing attention to an insignificant detail as if that's the only thing interesting. 

Seeing the joke immediately, seeing he's being put on by misdirection, and seeing I'm actually right on the picayune detail on the outrageous photo he suppresses his laughter so completely it could blow out his ears and with an innocent unknowing face made for poker he says agreeably, "Yeah." 

And that's all that is seen of the riotously funny thing that just happened. 

I hate when that happens

An understandable mistake in North Korea. pic.twitter.com/uWLVkY7mXz

— Andrew Malcolm (@AHMalcolm) January 9, 2016

I'm old... I'll clap when there's something worth clapping about

Link to source

The Wife of Pi

The Wife of Pi. #pi #math #humor #lol #funny pic.twitter.com/B9RMLO3YSS

— Tech-FAQ (@tech_faq) May 6, 2014

To Wit: A Challenge And Invitation

link to original

That's Mr. Sardonicus on the right, from William Castle's 1961 film, "Mr. Sardonicus." 

Sardonic: Why isn't there a noun form like "sardony"? The word sardonic is curious too and relates back to the island of Sardinia and what those people ate -- things like sardines: link

I get confused keeping the different forms of humor straight. Here's a handy guide I pulled from the linkable OED of English Etymology; the definitions come from H.W. Fowler's The Dictionary Of Modern English Usage.  

device	HUMOR	WIT	SATIRE	SARCASM	INVECTIVE	IRONY	CYNICISM	SARDONIC
motive/aim	discovery	throwing light	amendment	inflicting pain	discredit	exclusiveness	self-justification	self-relief
province	human nature	words & ideas	morals & manners	faults & foibles	misconduct	statement of facts	morals	adversity
method/means	observation	surprise	accentuation	inversion	direct statement	mystification	exposure of nakedness	pessimism
audience	the sympathetic	the intelligent	the self-satisfied	victim & bystander	the public	an inner circle	the respectable	the self

That's a very cool table. I went looking for my copy of Fowler which I bought in college but haven't seen since I can remember. So I just went and bought a copy using Lem's portal. I want to discuss this topic (and that book) at a future date. If anybody else has the book or would like to buy it and follow along at a future date, please do.

What forms of humor do you employ in your writings and comments at Lem's Levity?

Metabolic Math

Chevy Guy 2014 World Series

"Technology and stuff"

 

"Over 120 Science Journal Papers Pulled for Being Total Gibberish"

"Earlier this week (3/01/14), Nature revealed that scientific journal publishers Springer and IEEE are both removing over 120 published papers after discovering that every single one is nothing more than fancy-sounding gibberish. The fairly egregious oversight was discovered by French computer scientist Cyril Labbé, who's spent the past two years cataloguing the collection of computer-generated drivel..."

Interestingly, the entire reason the papers exist in the first place is because of an MIT-made program called SCIgen, a piece of software created in 2005 for the sole purpose of proving that conferences constantly accept nonsensical papers. And, of course, "to maximize amusement." Anyone can download it and use it, so no one is quite sure exactly who is behind the gibberish discovered thus far—and real scientists names are used as the supposed "authors."

via Gizmodo

The Awl: "The Potato Salad Kickstarter Is the Science Fiction Villain We Deserve" (updated*)

"As of writing, a Kickstarter campaign for "just making potato salad" has raised $37,115. ($58,667 as of this posting) Every few seconds that number climbs higher, and each uptick is greeted with cheers. It's a self-perpetuating humor machine, and it is horribly efficient. There is no joke, at least not anymore; whatever joke there was has become an adaptive, joke-like arrangement of circumstances. It is a perfect device, compatible with all known theories of humor and therefore with none of them." (read more)

 

 

* Email: Problem Solved. 

 

h/t Allen S

Graphic designer responds to Craigslist ad

From a couple who are opening a restaurant named Two Tomatoes and who needed a logo.

Unboredable.com

http://unboredable.com/hilarious-graphic-design-texts/

Shane's Hobby Lobby

Shane, of Wal-Mart fame, goes to work for Hobby Lobby, and immediately get's into trouble ;-)

.@JessicaValenti What I most enjoy about your Twitter feed is the sophistication and nuance.
— jon gabriel (@exjon) June 30, 2014

ht/ChipA

Viral Video: Sassiest Flight Attendant

For those of you traveling with your children... why?

NYT Mag: Nathan Fielder’s Ingenious Dumb Humor

Excerpt...

From adolescence through his early 20s, Fielder suffered from anxiety or, as he put it, the near-constant “fear of a disaster interaction.” This manifested most acutely with women. “How do you tell a girl you like her?” he asked. “Or kiss her? Or anything without her being repulsed or saying no? In a lot of social situations, I understood what was going on but tried to remove myself from it, because it was too painful to exist in.” He enjoyed performing for audiences because this allowed him to exert substantial control over an asymmetrical exchange. As a magician, he said: “You get people coming to you. ‘Can I see a trick?’ And after you do a trick well, people are interested and fascinated. It’s this thing where you hold a secret.”

Fielder gradually honed his awkwardness as a comedic weapon. “I embraced that weird part of me,” he said. “Like, right now, I don’t want there to be awkwardness between us, and I want you to be comfortable, but it takes effort for me to do that. In the show, I’ll just let uncomfortable moments happen.” He once came across a conversation about him on a message board devoted to Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, in which the participants discussed ways in which Fielder’s off-kilter comedic style tracked with symptoms of the disorder. Intrigued, Fielder researched Asperger’s and took a degree of inspiration from it. “Usually if someone gives you a social cue that he feels uncomfortable with something you’ve said, you’ll jump in with a caveat and move on. Everyone’s default state is this pleasantry state. My goal in the show is to undercut that as quickly as possible. If you really do let it sit, it’s sometimes amazing what comes out of people.”

two dogs

This is a joke that nobody gets, and I mean nobody. I showed this card to some twenty people before mailing it and not a single person understood the gag. And jokes are simply not funny when they must be explained. Can you imagine how frustrating it is to go through such trouble as to construct a three-page pop-up card, to be so hilarious as this and have no one understand? Like I am the weird one?

Fail.

I almost ripped it up in disgust. The thing is, the viewer is expected to notice there are two breeds of dog. Two different types. Is that so hard to notice?  It is so obvious. This card convinced me it is an American thing that jokes need be glaringly obvious, overt, slapstick, cutting, hurtful to somebody, childish, and involve no thought at all, because I can draw the same joke in one picture, post it on a British satire site, and be congratulated for my impressive sense of humor. Make that humour.

The dog actually moves into the wall and the word "BLAM" flips out of the wall. That took some effort to get right.

"That answers your question." This one page is the whole joke. It should be a one page joke but I stretched it to three to make the joke easier to grasp. 

I get angry all over again just thinking about it. I hated having to explain it. It ruined the whole effort. Nearly put me off cards altogether. 

Look at that, there's a hole in the wall.

Bashed in nose, bits of brick laying around. Come on! That's funny! 

I give up. More of this disappointment here.