Posts Tagged Fun Stuff
Caption Competition #1
Posted by Colin H in Caption Competition, Fun Stuff on July 21, 2010
We’ve been running our What Is It? competition for a while now, and while it’s been great fun the last thing we want to do is be predictable. Because, you know, you’re all smart and easily bored, etc.. So, taking inspiration from some of the comments for our last competition, we thought we’d leave What Is It? by the wayside for now and try out a brand new caption competition instead.
It’s pretty self-explanatory. As per usual, no-one wins anything except our undying love/eternal derision (depending on if we like your caption). Each week we show you a new photograph and you all get to show off how witty you are by submitting a caption for the photograph in the comments field below. Then you get to feel all warm and tingly inside with the smug satisfaction of a joke well delivered.
Ready?
Here’s the first photograph in our Caption Competition, featuring our very own Andy Wilson and the superb David Aaronovitch:
Click to embiggify
Question of The Week: What Woo Do You Follow For Rational Reasons?
Posted by Colin H in Fun Stuff, Question of the Week on July 16, 2010
No-one is immune to woo, as we are fond of pointing out here at the MSS. We’re all susceptible to the irrational, and anyone can find themselves believing weird things, or taking part in something that they probably should know better than to get involved with. But that’s common ignorance for you – if you knew it was woo you obviously wouldn’t follow it. Or would you?
What if you had very good reasons for going along with a particular piece of ‘woo’? What if, apart from being irrational, you actually had very rational reasons for acting as you do? Most of us don’t walk under ladders. Not because we’re superstitious, but simply because we don’t want a tin of paint to land on our heads.
Here is this week’s question: What Woo Do You Follow For Rational Reasons?
Maybe you take homeopathy because you really like eating sugar pills? Maybe you don’t cross a black cat’s path because you have an authentic phobia of black cats? Maybe you were kidnapped by a cult and if you take off your copper bracelet the leader will burn you at the stake (ok, that one’s a bit of a push…)?
Whatever it is, let us know. We’re hungry for your stories. Feed us!
What Is It? #17
Posted by Colin H in Fun Stuff, Skepticism, what is it? on July 9, 2010
In the last edition of What Is It? we asked you to tell us where this picture came from: 
It is page 92 of Lord Robert Baden-Powell’s ‘Scouting For Boys: A Handbook For Instruction in Good Citizenship’, originally published in 1908. This scan comes from the 1963 edition.
Only two days in and Weol got in there first with the correct answer, followed swiftly by Nemo. Other suggestions we recieved were an illustration from the ‘The Giant Book of Fantastic Facts’, or drawings of Mike, Marsh and myself (who’s who, I wonder?), presumably as part of a bizarre promo for Skeptics With a K!
So, you’re here, you’re reading, let’s have a look at the next picture. What/who are we looking at in the picture below?
Question of The Week: What Woo Would You Go Along With To Get Your Dream Job?
Posted by Colin H in Fun Stuff, Question of the Week on July 2, 2010
We all need to work. Without work we run out of money and end up living on beans in a stolen wheelie bin. That’s obviously not a good route. Wheelie bins are uncomfortable.
So, in order to avoid a future of bins and beans, we work. We quite happily jump through hoops we wouldn’t normally bother with in order to get work, especially if it’s a dream job that we really want. This is understandable. But how far would you go? At what point would you draw the line? What if your prospective employer wanted you to – gulp – submit to some woo?
The Question of The Week is this: What woo would you go along with to get your dream job?
Maybe your interviewer wants you to do a personality test that involves astrology? Maybe they want you to take that dubious lie-detector, the polygraph (it happens)? Maybe your dream job involves working with homeopaths or mediums on a daily basis? How much could you go along with to get that job? Can you put your skepticism to one side if you need to?
Let us know in the comments field below…
What Is It? #16
Posted by Colin H in Fun Stuff, what is it? on June 29, 2010
Sorry it’s late. Someone fed a mogwai when they got in from the pub after closing time and gremlins got into the machinery, but it’s all solved now!
Last week (sort of), we asked you what this picture was (it would be a crap competition if we didn’t):
The answer is (insert drumroll here)… a dying nerve cell, photographed using an optical microscope. No right answers, although most of you were on the right track in suggesting cells of various kinds, so handclaps all round. Cancer cells were suggested, as was phagocytosis, blood cells and breast tissue. So well done to all who made those suggestions.
As usual we got some more left-field suggestions too, such as the light show at a Hawkwind gig, a curled up caterpillar and a Van Gogh painting. Personally, I think it actually does look like a Van Gogh, though I’m not sure about the other two suggestions! That said I’ve never been to a Hawkwind show. If their light shows are anything like the picture above, then that’s probably a good thing.
Anyway, I guess you’re all reading this to find out what the next picture is, so I’ll shut up now. Ready? What are we looking at in the picture below?
Question of The Week: If You Were Given A Million Pounds to Promote Skepticism, How Would You Spend It?
Posted by Colin H in Fun Stuff, Question of the Week, Skepticism on June 18, 2010
Greetings!
Once again our perennial Question of The Week has arrived, providing our lovely listeners/readers/trolls with the opportunity to take a break from their lives and have a good old skeptical think.
Many thanks to all of you who responded to our previous Question of The Week, which can be found here. We got some interesting answers. Like that one, this week’s Question comes via a suggestion from one of our listeners, long-standing visitor to this blog, DaveTheDrummer, who said:
“If you were contacted by a wealthy benefactor who was willing to fund the activities of the society and donate substantial sums of money to the cause, and by substantial I mean several tens of thousands of pounds, what would you do with those funds?”
What, indeed?
So this week’s Question of The Week is: If You Were Given A Million Pounds to Promote Skepticism, How Would You Spend It?
Would you set up a woo-fighting army? Maybe you’d send all the homeopaths away on a spaceship like Douglas Adams’ middle men were? Maybe you’d just give it all to charity or to your favourite skeptic? Whatever it is, we want to know. Just bear in mind that we don’t actually have a million pounds to give. In case you were wondering. And salivating.
We look forward to your answers!
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