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10 Stupid Laws

Posted date: 7:29 PM / comment : 0 , ,

stupid laws

Politicians do some downright stupid things. Sure, we all do. But these are the people who draft our laws — the ones who decide how the rest of us should live and behave. Maybe you consider wars you disagree with to be “stupid” decisions. Perhaps it’s the latest report of infidelity from politicians that’s getting under your skin. But today let’s have some fun and look at the lighter side of government gaffs by exploring some incredibly stupid laws that may still be on the books.
Please note that I am not saying all of these dumb laws are still in effect (or even were). But they’re examples reported for various states in the U.S. and some international laws as well. Maybe they’ll make more sense to you than to me. Or perhaps you’ll also find them good for a laugh.
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1. In Pennsylvania it’s illegal to have more than 16 women live in the same house — doing so makes it a brothel.
I wanted to kick things off with an example of a dumb law from my own home state. I’m not sure if the specifics reported are right, or if it’s still the case (as opposed to an old law). But I do remember the topic coming up periodically when I was in college. It was a concern for sororities where groups of “sisters” would share a sorority house.
2. In Sweden it’s claimed that it’s illegal to paint a house without a painting license from the government.
Well, if that’s the case I’m glad I don’t live in Sweden. I just painted my place this spring, and am planning to do some more paint touch-ups soon. While this sounds like a pretty stupid law, I could maybe understand it if it’s outdated and became law out of concerns over lead-based paint or something.
3. It’s reported that in San Antonio, Texas it’s illegal to use your eyes or hands while flirting.
Why not just ban flirting altogether? Outdated, still on the books — I don’t know. But this is one where I can’t even begin to understand the logic if it’s true… not even in a historical context. You?
trick-or-treat
Credit: love♡janine (via Flickr)
4. Don’t send the kiddies trick-or-treating on Halloween in Virginia.
It’s reported that doing so is illegal. Again, I’m not sure if this is legit or current. But the idea doesn’t really surprise me. I know where I live Halloween trick-or-treating is very different than it was when I was a kid. They’ve put strict limits on the time kids can go out, and I seem to remember them deciding trick-or-treating should be a different day at some point — maybe if Halloween was on a school night. So no, if this is true, it wouldn’t really surprise me. Just for curiosity’s sake, have you seen changes in trick-or-treating since you were a kid too? Or do I just live in a dud of a town?
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5. In Singapore, oral sex is illegal (unless it leads to the real deal).
Let’s be honest here. Sex laws can sometimes be the funniest. It’s usually a case of them being outdated, based in times when public opinion was quite different. And when it comes to international sex laws, I’m pretty “forgiving,” because I certainly don’t understand every culture out there. What sounds crazy to me might be perfectly normal there. But this one? I really hope it’s just a joke or at least off the books now. Oral sex is illegal, unless you use it as foreplay. Why do I suspect only a man could come up with that idea?
6. While we’re talking about Singapore, tourists take note: it’s also illegal to pee in an elevator.
Because apparently we need a reminder….

7. Way to go Fairbanks, Alaska! (They cleaned up filthy moose sex on city streets!)
moose
Credit: gainesp2003 (via Flickr)
This is one of those reported laws that’s so incredibly stupid I can’t help but hope it’s true (because that makes it all the funnier). As if animals give a moose’s behind what our laws say. If it works, maybe my local officials can write a law that would stop those damned birds from crapping on my car. [source]
8. In Canada, it’s reported that it’s illegal for clear and non-dark sodas to be caffeinated.
Ironically, just this morning I was talking to someone about caffeinated beverages (yes, my life is so relevant to my work!). I never actually knew that Mountain Dew had caffeine (haven’t had it in years either). It was pointed out to me that it’s indeed one of the most caffeinated sodas here in the U.S. So when I saw this stupid law I immediately thought of Mountain Dew. And I just had to look it up — is Canadian Mountain Dew different from “real” Mountain Dew? And it seems that it is (or at least was)! I don’t understand why the law was created in the first place, but I found it to be one of the most interesting. Yes. I find soft drinks fascinating. Shut up.
9. In Washington State, it’s illegal to use x-ray machines to find the perfect shoe fit.
The hilarity of this dumb law is in its specificity. Sometimes when you read about stupid laws, they’re actually just taking general laws and twisting them to sound silly (like a ban on large animals such as big dogs on a beach being twisted to say you can’t take a polar bear to the beach). But this one isn’t one of those. The law specifically mentions shoe fittings, and you can see the actual text of the law in the source for this one. I could completely understand a law banning any non-medical use of x-ray equipment because of the radiation involved. But to specifically call out shoe fittings? What were they thinking? I just can’t imagine so many people in Washington State trying to do this that they felt it necessary to make it illegal.
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10. In New Jersey, it’s illegal for a murderer to wear a bullet-proof vest while committing that crime.
Well, I guess if you can’t get him on the other charges….
Remember to take these dumb laws with a grain of salt. They’re meant for amusement more than anything. Do you know more about any of these reported stupid laws? Do you have a favorite silly law that’s still on the books where you live? Leave a comment and tell us about it!

Emma Thompson’s Oscar in the bathroom

Posted date: 10:27 AM / comment : 0 , ,

Find out where other stars keep their golden statuettes
The most valuable piece of hardware in Hollywood is the 13-and-a-half-inch (34-centimetre) golden Oscar statuette, so it is no surprise recipients of the top film honours keep theirs in a variety of safe spots.
Emma Thompson, a two-time winner for Howards End and Sense and Sensibility, has stowed her Oscars in the bathroom of her London home.
“It’s full of my most precious possessions,” Thompson said. “So it’s not as if I’m being rude. It’s an important place to me. And the downstairs loo is sort of the place that all your guests use. And it’s nice for them to have a go, pick them up.”
Cate Blanchett, a frontrunner for best actress for her role in Blue Jasmine for this Sunday’s Academy Awards, has to pay to see her Oscar from The Aviator. “My Oscar is in a film museum called ACMI [Australian Centre for the Moving Image] in Melbourne,” the 44-year-old star said. “I get to pay a ticket and go see it every now and again.”
Winners of the 2,809 Oscars awarded so far may opt for the more mundane living room, like Charlize Theron for her Monster Oscar, or the office, the home for George Clooney’s two awards for Argo and Michael Clayton. But Jennifer Hudson created an award wall and put her statuette for Dreamgirls in a starring role.
“It’s actually a hidden wall,” said Hudson. “You don’t realise it’s a wall and it goes into my futuristic office, this is the truth, and it sits there in the middle of all the other awards and goes, ahhhh!”Sandra Bullock has entrusted her The Blind Sidebest actress trophy to a confidant: her young son, Louis.
“I’ll let him tell you if he wants to tell you, but it’s his and he knows where it is,” she said.

Real Faces or distorted

Posted date: 7:27 PM / comment : 0 , , ,

Keep Your Eyes on the Cross



Why this is Happening?
Your eyes like change.
The effect in this illusion is based on the fact that your visual cortex, the vision center of your brain, is always trying to find new information. Information that is determined to not be new is essentially ignored. This habituation, as it's called, occurs even over very short durations. Your visual cortex determines that what it's seeing is "normal" and it expects that to stay the same. When that "normal" becomes something different, your brain exaggerates the difference between its perceived "normal" and what you're actually seeing.
You'll notice that there is a lot of variance in the shapes of the faces you see and the shape and size of the features. When your brain adapts to a person with a round, thin face, if the next person has a wide, square face then it looks even wider and squarer.
If a nose is slightly crooked in one image, it will look crooked the opposite direction in the next image, because your brain expects "crooked to the left" to be normal. Anything that is not "crooked to the left" must be crooked to the right.
It occurs when you're looking at the dot cross because moving your eyes resets this effect (which is why it doesn't happen in everyday life), and because your peripheral vision is better at determining general shapes rather than details. Your peripheral vision looks at the general shapes of these faces and warps your perception to match those general shapes to what it expects them to be. If those faces were right in front of you, it would be 1) harder to keep your eyes focused on one point because of all the dramatic change directly around that point, and 2) easier for your brain to look at the details and adapt to the differences.
It should be noted that this habituation effect also contributes to the reason why illusions such as inverted color illusions work (notice that when you move your vision the color goes away). Your brain adjusts to the colors, and when they change suddenly your brain exaggerates the difference.

My Reaction after watching this.

Insightful Facts about North Korea

Posted date: 6:35 PM / comment : 0 , ,

Tokyo thief caught with 450 pairs of high heels

Posted date: 7:04 PM / comment : 0 , , ,



Japanese police display a total of 450 pairs of high-heeled shoes at a police office in Tokyo on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014. A man arrested for stealing high-heel shoes from a Tokyo hostess club was found to have a total of 450 purloined pairs when his room was searched, Japanese police said. AFP


TOKYO—A man arrested for stealing high-heel shoes from a Tokyo hostess club was found to have a total of 450 stolen pairs when his room was searched, Japanese police said Wednesday.

“I’ve felt pleasure in stealing high heels. I was not interested in brand-new products,” Sho Sato, 28, told investigators after he was arrested Tuesday, according to Tokyo police.

Sato, who is jobless and has no fixed residence, broke into the changing room of the hostess club in Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza district last November and stole 14 pairs of high heels and cosmetics, police said.

They later confiscated some 450 pairs of high heels from a room he rented but the owners have yet to be identified.

“The lockers at the club’s changing room were a treasure chest,” Sato was quoted as telling police.




The Power of Dieting

Posted date: 5:38 PM / comment : 0 ,




How to PIck a woman

Posted date: 6:56 PM / comment : 0 ,

Ig Nobel winner writes “best abstract ever”

Posted date: 5:41 PM / comment : 0 , , , ,

The Shortest Science Paper Ever Published Had No Words, and Was Utterly Brilliant

Scientists are widely known for their inclination to drone on about esoteric topics in a language of jargon. But every so often, they can surprise us with conciseness. Take these three pithy offerings published in reputable scientific journals, for example:
Shortest Editorial:
In his contribution to the November/December 2013 issue of Evolutionary Anthropology, esteemed biological anthropologist Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, did not mince words. In fact, he only wrote two of them: "Enough already."
The statement concluded a year of back and forths between Tattersall and one of his colleagues, Boston University anthropologist Matt Cartmill. The tiff began with Cartmill's paper "Primate origins, human origins, and the end of higher taxa," continued with Tattersall's "Higher taxa: An alternate perspective," continued again with Cartmill's "The end of higher taxa: a reply to Tattersall," before Tattersall finally declared "Enough already."
Cartmill and Tattersall's recent exchange was the latest in a series of erudite bickering that's been ongoing since the 1980s. Though good friends, the two share manifold disagreements on Systematics -- the study of the diversification of living forms -- and how it should be used. By examining the relationships between species, we can track how life gradually transformed over billions of years from single-celled organisms to become whales, spiders, and even humans. In essence, Cartmill questions why often tiny differences separate certain animals into different species and families while others do not. Tattersall views this stance as an attack on Systematics itself, avowing that it's vital to document every tiny change and classify species accordingly.
Shortest Abstract:
In 2011, particle physicists were flabbergasted when they discovered that neutrinos could apparently travel faster than light, breaking the universal speed limit proposed by Einstein. Their result was later proven to be in error.
But before the mistake was revealed, physicists scrambled to account for the mind-boggling result. A group from the H.W. Wills Physics Laboratory in Bristol and the Indian Institute of Technology wondered, ""Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?" Their abstract succinctly and bluntly answered that question: "Probably not."
Shortest Paper:
In 1974, clinical psychologist Dennis Upper found himself stricken with writer's block. Though pen was to paper, no words would flow. He decided to solve his problem with a scientific experiment. Yet, as is frequently the case in science, his experiment didn't work as intended, and that's putting it euphemistically. Despite the failure, his work, "The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer's block,” was published in the prestigious Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis. It is reproduced in its entirety below:
Nasty case of writer's block creates the most brilliant scientific paper ever
Despite the paper's glaring brevity, Upper's reviewer hailed its brilliance:
"I have studied this manuscript very carefully with lemon juice and X-rays and have not detected a single flaw in either design or writing style. I suggest it be published without revision. Clearly it is the most concise manuscript I have ever seen-yet it contains sufficient detail to allow other investigators to replicate Dr. Upper's failure. In comparison with the other manuscripts I get from you containing all that complicated detail, this one was a pleasure to examine. Surely we can find a place for this paper in the Journal-perhaps on the edge of a blank page."
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