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#978 Citogenesis I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to ... Wikipedia. To encourage people to be on their toes, I'm not going to say what book or author.
#979 Wisdom of the Ancients All long help threads should have a sticky globally-editable post at the top saying 'DEAR PEOPLE FROM THE FUTURE: Here's what we've figured out so far ...'
#980 Money There, I showed you it.
#981 Porn Folder Eww, gross, you modified link()? How could you enjoy abusing a filesystem like that?
#982 Set Theory Proof of Zermelo's well-ordering theorem given the Axiom of Choice: 1: Take S to be any set. 2: When I reach step three, if S hasn't managed to find a well-ordering relation for itself, I'll feed it into this wood chipper. 3: Hey, look, S is well-ordered.
#983 Privacy Eventual headline: 'University Researchers Create Life in Lab! Darkness, Faulty Condoms Blamed.'
#984 Space Launch System The SLS head engineer plans to invite Shania Twain to stand under the completed prototype, then tell her, 'I don't expect you to date me just because I'm a rocket scientist, but you've gotta admit--this is pretty fucking impressive.'
#985 Percentage Points Grayton also proposed making college scholarships available exclusively to sexually active teens, amnesty for illegal immigrants who create room for themselves by killing a citizen, and a graduated income tax based on penis size. He has been endorsed by Tracy Morgan, John Wilkes Booth's ghost, and the Time Cube guy.
#986 Drinking Fountains I've always wondered whether you could drink slowly enough, and eliminate fast enough, that you just sort of peed continuously. But I'm afraid to try because I worry someone might call while I'm doing it and ask what I'm up to, and I won't be able to think of a lie.
#987 Potential The bunch of disadvantaged kids I was tutoring became too good at writing, and their essays were forcing me to confront painful existential questions, so I started trying to turn them on to drugs and crime instead.
#988 Tradition An 'American tradition' is anything that happened to a baby boomer twice.
#989 Cryogenics 'Welcome to the future! Nothing's changed.' was the slogan of my astonishingly short-lived tech startup.
#990 Plastic Bags The high I feel when I actually remember to bring my reusable bags to the store--and take them inside rather than leaving them in the parked car--can last for days.
#991 Phantom Menace We could go to the theater across town and see if it's opened THERE yet, but we don't want to lose our place in line.
#992 Mnemonics 'Sailor Moon's head exploded once' and 'Some men have explosive orgasms' both work for the Great Lakes from west to east (Paddle-to-the-Sea order).
#993 Brand Identity Legally-mandated information would be printed on the back or discreetly along the bottom. In small letters under the nutrition information it would say 'Like our products? Visit our website!' There would be no URL.
#994 Advent Calendar I think you could get up to about 11:59:57 before you'd have trouble swallowing the chocolates fast enough. At that point, you'd need some kind of a liquify-and-chug apparatus to get up over the 11:59:59 barrier. Anyway, Merry Christmas!
#995 Coinstar Plus they take like 9%.
#996 Making Things Difficult Favorite mastectomy breast prosthesis idea: a fake boob containing a spare rechargable battery, accessed via a nipple USB port. Complete with a ring of LED charge indicators in the areola!
#997 Wait Wait You can't stab Carl Kasell. He sounds all slow and stentorian, but he moves like a snake.
#998 2012 To compensate for this, I plan to spend 2013 doing nothing but talking about Mayans. My relationships with my friends and family may not fare well.
#999 Cougars If you're lying in bed tonight and you see yellow eyes glinting in your window, are you being stalked by a puma, a mountain lion, a panther, a catamount, or a cougar? Trick question--in North America, they're all names for the same species, Puma concolor! Isn't learning fun? Anyway, sleep tight!
#1000 1000 Comics Thank you for making me feel less alone.
#1001 AAAAAA 'ARE YOU TURNED ON YET?' 'I DON'T THINK SO--ARE YOU?' 'MAYBE A LITTLE!' 'OK, FIVE MORE MINUTES.'
#1002 Game AIs The top computer champion at Seven Minutes in Heaven is a Honda-built Realdoll, but to date it has been unable to outperform the human Seven Minutes in Heaven champion, Ken Jennings.
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