05 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Santa Claus Can't Live at the North Pole

Here's a riddle for the kids. A man leaves his house for a walk. He walks a mile due south, a mile due east, and a mile due north, and finds he is back where he started. What is the man's name? Yes, Virginia, his name is Santa Claus. And his house is at the North Pole. But don't go looking for him there, Virginia. Here's the cold fact: Santa Claus doesn't live at the North Pole. I knew from a young age that there was something fishy about Santa's address. At the age of five or six I discov...
Folksonomies: superstition
Folksonomies: superstition
 1  1  notes

The ice is drifting an so is the pole.

30 AUG 2011 by ideonexus

 A Cute Description of Langley

After Gibbs, one the most distinguished [American scientists] was Langley, of the Smithsonian. … He had the physicist's heinous fault of professing to know nothing between flashes of intense perception. ... Rigidly denying himself the amusement of philosophy, which consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems, and liked to wander past them in a courteous temper, even bowing to them distantly as though recognizing their existence, while doubting their respectibil...
Folksonomies: history philosophy people
Folksonomies: history philosophy people
  1  notes

And his politeness to philosophers while keeping his distance from them.