Humor · Twisted Logic

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.
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tangent logo  Wisdom of the Ages

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he’ll be a mile away - and barefoot.

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

A closed mouth gathers no feet.

Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.

Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

It’s not what you know that counts - it’s what they think you know.

Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.

Be careful what you wish for - you might get it.

When you know you’re right, don’t let anyone try to confuse you with the facts.

Mythology: The body of a primitive people’s beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later.

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

When all else fails, read the directions.

The plural of anecdote is data.

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.

Mark Twain:
Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain’t that a big enough majority in any town?

La Rouchefoucauld:
Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.

Herb Caen:
A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.

Winston Churchill:
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

tangent logo  Dead Horse Syndrome

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. But in modern business (and education and government) heavy investment or other considerations may encourage other strategies:
  • Buying a stronger whip.
  • Changing riders.
  • Threatening the horse with termination.
  • Appointing a committee to study the horse.
  • Visiting other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
  • Lowering the standards to include dead horses.
  • Reclassifying the dead horse as "living-impaired."
  • Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
  • Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
  • Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance.
  • Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
  • Declaring that the dead horse requires less overhead and therefore contributes more to the bottom line.
  • Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.
  • Promoting the dead horse to management

tangent logo  Inflation explained

It’s been said that if all the economists in the country were laid end-to-end, they wouldn’t reach a conclusion. Here is a straightforward mathematical formula for inflation. We know that:
  • $1 = 100 cents

Taking the square root of both sides we get:

  • $1 = 10 cents

Repeat square root as necessary

tangent logo  1+1=1

We start with a simple equation:
  • a = b

Multiply both sides by a:

  • a² = ab

Subtract b² from both sides:

  • a² - b² = ab - b²

Factor:

  • (a + b)(a - b) = b(a - b)

Drop (a-b) term from both sides:

  • a + b = b

Since a=b, substitute a for b:

  • a + a = a

if a=1, then 1+1=1

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