Build Date: Sat Feb 22 04:10:24 2025 UTC
I would disarm the entire world, because it would be cool to see people have massive battles using only their teeth and nails. Those of us who floss regularly would soon rule the earth!
-- Mr. Bad
Light and Time and Bars -- Reported 1998-01-03 13:41 by Patient Joab (and Steve) | |
![]() |
This editorial is not about those idiotic fools who, time and time again, put clocks on walls where you can't see them. Rather this editorial is about time itself. Now, everyone knows that the light leaving the sun takes almost seven minutes to get to our cranial balls. Now, if you are at a bar and you see that the clock reads 2 AM [NOTE TO MR BAD: PLEASE INSERT WHATEVER CLOSING TIME YOU GUYS HAVE OUT IN CA] [NOTE BACK TO JOAB: WE HAVE THE SAME CLOSING TIME AS YOU HAVE IN BALTIMORE], you take in consideration that this clock is 15 minutes fast, because that's bar-time. But there's another fact that many people neglect to consider, namely that the clock is not moving, only the hands are! That is, many people think that the clock is moving, but in fact only the hands of the clock are moving. The rest of the clock is stuck to the wall! Therefore, by the time it takes the light of the clock to reach your eyes, the time displayed will not be correct (even if it is not set 15 minutes fast). That means ordinary, stationary clocks are absolutely incapable of rendering an accurate time display. But the linguistic confusion doesn't end there. The language we use to describe time and clocks is rich with comparisons to other junk. Clocks have faces and hands but are not human. Some big clocks are are almost eight feet tall. Now, compare my beer mug to the mug of a clock. My mug may be full of beer but a clock's mug is full of numbers. Can't drink them. On the other hand, there are a number of ounces of beer in my mug. It's paradoxes like these that make quantum physics so confusing to ordinary people like you! Yes, we can tell time, but time can't tell us what kind of cereal to buy. Nonetheless, time has told us many things, like the time I was at the bar and didn't know what time it was because the clock was on the wrong wall. The lesson here is that you can take a clock off the wall but you can't stop time, and you can't stop the bars from closing either (at least not until 2 AM). Some say time controls us, but others say it doesn't; rather, we wind it up. Everyone has free time, but only if they look at someone else's clock. It would take people on the sun seven minutes to see my clock, except for the fact that I hid it on a wall where they can't see it. In summary, if a clock travels toward you at the speed of light, at the time of impact, you would know precisely what time it was, without question! |
T O P S T O R I E S
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
The Once & Future King of Dust
Only The Onion could have acquired Infowarts. (More...)
Another Nobel Prize-Winning Author Describes Drunkenness
This book won a Pulitzer Prize. Here's its famous paragraph on getting drunk... (More...)
Why I'm pretty sure JD Vance had sex with a couch
True or false? The answers await us in that magical land where all truths are revealed -- the internet. (More...)
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Paranoid Strippers & Psychotic Crack Dealers (Tales of Christmas Eve)
Christmas day, for the last 17 or so years has bored me. I find that the real fun and excitement always takes place on Christmas Eve. Every other year, it's the excitement of the metaphorical hunt instead of the kill. Otherwise, it's just plain bad craziness. (More...)
Our man Daemon Agent checks out the heavy heavy sounds of crazy space surf rockers Man or Astroman?. (More...)
NASA's Mars missions keep blowing up and crashing, but dammit, when you reach for the stars you have to expect a few minor setbacks. Drink a toast to the men and women of NASA! Toast them with a Lost Probe mixed up with your own two (or three) hands! (More...)
A Blast from the Past! Pao Tzu goes over and under the crucial variables in the production and consumption of Salvia Divinorum. A must read for psychonauts of all stripes. (More...)
The IBM Selectric Typewriter Changed My Life
I ran my hands lovingly across her frame, lightly brushing her metallic nipples with my fingers, admiring the shapes and the ways of her curves, the empathetic hum she produced as I had my way with her, the way she made it all seem so effortless and right... she didn't even seem to mind the way I roughly manipulated her knobs and tweaked her casing. She was extremely tolerant, for a typewriter. (More...)
Songs Of Love And Special Things
Well, dear reader, there's no denying it: Spring has sprung. The air is pungent with the fertile aroma of Romance. And you know what goes with Romance, don't you? That's right, Lover, porn. And not just any porn, but the kind you can sing along to. (More...)