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Archive | February, 2009

Professor Quippy: There’s nothing better than marching up and down the square

By on February 5, 2009 in Hinky History, Odd Science

professor quippyResearchers at Stanford University have discovered that doing activities in unison with others can make you feel more like a Nazi!

That’s right — goose-stepping it up and down the square with thousands of other jack-booted individuals can actually make you feel like part of the group. (Even though all the other Nazis make snide comments about how you’re not really as Aryan-looking as you could be.)

This group loyalty extends to everyone, not just Teutonic supermen. Apparently, our brains are hard-wired for this herd mentality. According to the New Scientist:

Vasily Klucharev, at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, found that the brain releases more of the reward chemical dopamine when we fall in line with the group consensus .

Having experienced this phenomenon personally at a certain university, where the first week of term is devoted to group chanting, singing and dancing, I can testify to the power of these psychological and neurological effects. (Incidentally, I believe the dopamine kick is magnified by the application of beer, peppermint schnapps, and intimate encounters with other members of your group.)

Luckily, this quirk of human nature can be used by anyone — for good or evil — as evidenced by the recent election of a certain charismatic chap: “Yes we can!”

Read more about how to control a herd of humans. Alltop and humor-blogs.com will also give you a dopamine kick, but only if you join up!

Improved Winter Olympic Sports

By on February 4, 2009 in But is it art?, Parody & Satire

Short track speed skating with chainsawsIn keeping with the new Winter Olympic motto: citius, altius, sanguius (swifter, higher, bloodier ), the Committee for More Exciting sports has suggested the following improved sports for the 2010 Winter Olympics in BC. To drum up athletes’ interest in these exciting new activities, the Committee is prepared to offer double the medal bonus that Canadian athletes get TO ANY WINNER (that means $40,000 for a gold medal, $30,000 for a silver medalist and $20,000 for a bronze)*:

Four-man bobsled jumping

Any wimp can land a 120-metre jump on skis. Now, landing a bobsled filled with three other horrified Olympic athletes, that takes real skill.

Ultra-G

Much more dangerous than Super-G, Ultra-G combines the mind-bending speed of a flat-out downhill run with a circle of ice that looks like a gigantic Hot Wheels loop at the end of the slope. The winner of this event is usually a qualified fighter-jet pilot or astronaut. Losers will be immortalized by a generation of traumatized television viewers.

Short-track chainsaw speed skating

You think short-track speed skating is exciting? Wait until the athletes have to carry live chainsaws at the same time. (pictured above)

Figure skating biathlon

Yes, firing a rifle after cross-country skiing a few kilometers is tough, but what happens when you have to do compulsory figures first, and fire while you’re in mid-air? All we can say is that it makes being in the audience a lot more interesting.

*There is also a death benefit for athletes killed during competition, ranging between $20,000-$100,000, depending on how “exciting” the incident, to be decided by a panel of judges.

This is another one from the archives. I’ll have new Improved Winter Olympic Sports in the weeks to come. Alltop and humor-blogs.com are only good for the “higher” part of the motto.

Ask General Kang: How do you deal with compulsive behaviour?

By on February 2, 2009 in Ask General Kang

Ask General KangWith technology and fear. On Prolonga XII (the homeworld of the Aphrodisiac Ascendancy before I invaded with my RoboChimp Legion) I had some trouble getting the native hominids there to actually do any work.

They were obsessed with it.

You know what I mean. So, to curtail their compulsive hominid humping, we had a “nookie inhibitor” implanted in all their brain stems. That didn’t work, so we went with public executions instead; that didn’t work either really, but at least that we got eliminated the least efficient workers.

Wait, I should have asked, do you mean eat-all-the-banana chips-in-the-bowl obsessive, or can’t-stop-thinking-about-the-babysitter obsessive?

I meant: can’t-stop-playing-a-computer-game obsessive.

Are you sure you don’t mean addictive behaviour?

Next time: Help, I’ve fallen into a quantum flux and I can’t get up!

Alltop and humor-blogs.com are also addictive.