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Resistentialism
Resistentialism is a jocular theory to describe "seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects", where objects that cause problems (like lost keys or a runaway bouncy ball) are said to exhibit a high degree of malice toward humans. The theory posits a war being fought between humans and inanimate objects, and all the little annoyances that objects cause throughout the day are battles between the two. The concept was not new in 1948 when humorist Paul Jennings coined this name for it in a piece titled "Report on Resistentialism", published in ''The Spectator'' that year and reprinted in ''The New York Times''; the word is a blend of the Latin ''res'' ("thing"), the French ''résister'' ("to resist"), and the existentialism school of philosophy. The movement is a spoof of existentialism in general, and Jean-Paul Sartre in particular, Jennings naming the fictional inventor of Resistentialism as Pierre-Marie Ventre. The slogan of Resistentialism is "''Les choses sont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Jennings (UK Author)
Paul Francis Jennings (20 June 1918 – 26 December 1989) was an English humourist and author. After his Catholic education, Jennings served in World War II. For many years he wrote a column, ''Oddly Enough,'' in British newspaper ''The Observer''. Many collections of his work were published, including ''The Jenguin Pennings'' (whose title is a spoonerism) by Penguin Books in 1963. He also wrote popular children's books including ''The Great Jelly of London'', ''The Hopping Basket'', and ''The Train to Yesterday''. Jennings married Celia Blom in 1951 and died in 1989. Early life and education Paul Francis Jennings was born on 20 June 1918 in Royal Leamington Spa, Leamington Spa. His parents were William Benedict and Gertrude Mary Jennings. He was educated at King Henry VIII school in Coventry and at the Douai School, Douai Catholic school in Woolhampton, Berkshire. Career Jennings served in the Royal Corps of Signals, Royal Signals during the Second World War. In 1943 his p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jocular
A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, and ends in a punch line, whereby the humorous element of the story is revealed; this can be done using a pun or other type of word play, irony or sarcasm, logical incompatibility, hyperbole, or other means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition: It is generally held that jokes benefit from brevity, containing no more detail than is needed to set the scene for the punchline at the end. In the case of riddle jokes or one-liners, the setting is implicitly understood, leaving only the dialogue and punchline to be verbalised. However, subverting these and other common guidelines can also be a source of humour—the shaggy dog story is an example of an anti-joke; although presented as a joke, it contains a long drawn-out narrative o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Word Ways
''Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics'' is a quarterly magazine on recreational linguistics, logology and word play. It was established by Dmitri Borgmann in 1968 at the behest of Martin Gardner. Howard Bergerson took over as editor-in-chief for 1969, but stepped down when Greenwood Periodicals dropped the publication. A. Ross Eckler Jr., a statistician at Bell Labs, became editor until 2006, when he was succeeded by Jeremiah Farrell (Butler University). ''Word Ways'' was the first periodical devoted exclusively to word play, and has become the foremost publication in that field. Lying "on the midpoint of a spectrum from popular magazine to scholarly journal", it publishes articles on various linguistic oddities and creative use of language. This includes research into and demonstrations of anagrams, pangrams, lipograms, tautonyms, univocalics, word ladders, palindromes and unusually long words, as well as book reviews, literature surveys, investigations into quest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Town & Country (magazine)
''Town & Country'', formerly the ''Home Journal'' and ''The National Press'', is a monthly American lifestyle magazine. It is the oldest continually published general interest magazine in the United States. History Early history The magazine was founded as ''The National Press'' by poet and essayist Nathaniel Parker Willis and ''New York Evening Mirror'' newspaper editor George Pope Morris in 1846. Eight months later, it was renamed ''The Home Journal''. After 1901, the magazine's name became "''Town & Country''", and it has retained that name ever since. Throughout most of the 19th century, this weekly magazine featured poetry, essays and fiction. As more influential people began reading it, the magazine began to include society news and gossip in its pages. After 1901, the magazine continued to chronicle the social events and leisure activities of the North American upper class, including debutante or cotillion balls, and also reported on the subsequent "advantageous marriag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intentional Stance
The intentional stance is a term coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett for the level of abstraction in which we view the behavior of an entity in terms of mental properties. It is part of a theory of mental content proposed by Dennett, which provides the underpinnings of his later works on free will, consciousness, folk psychology, and evolution. Dennett and intentionality Dennett (1971, p. 87) states that he took the concept of "intentionality" from the work of the German philosopher Franz Brentano. When clarifying the distinction between mental phenomena (viz., mental activity) and physical phenomena, Brentano (p. 97) argued that, in contrast with physical phenomena, the "distinguishing characteristic of all mental phenomena" was "the reference to something as an object" – a characteristic he called "''intentional inexistence''". Dennett constantly speaks of the "''aboutness''" of ''intentionality''; for example: "the aboutness of the pencil marks composing a shopp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animistic Fallacy
The animistic fallacy is the informal fallacy of arguing that an event or situation necessarily arose because someone intentionally acted to cause it. While it could be that someone set out to effect a specific goal, the fallacy appears in an argument that states this ''must'' be the case. The name of the fallacy comes from the animistic belief that changes in the physical world are the work of conscious spirits. __NOTOC__ Examples Thomas Sowell in his book '' Knowledge and Decisions'' (1980) presents several arguments as examples of the animistic fallacy: * that people earn wealth always because of superior choices * that central planning is necessary to prevent chaos in society Sowell repeatedly dismisses the necessity that order comes from design, and notes that fallacious animistic arguments tend to provide explanations that require comparatively little time to implement. In this light he contrasts the six-day creation of the world described in the Bible to the development ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dusche
Dusche (German: ''Shower'') is a song by Farin Urlaub. It's the first single and fourteenth (and the last) track from his album ''Am Ende der Sonne ''Am Ende der Sonne'' is the second solo album of the German musician Farin Urlaub, released in 2005. The title translates to ''At Sun's end''. Track listing All songs written by Farin Urlaub. # "Mehr" (''More'') – 3:14 #* "Noch einmal" (''Onc ...''. It's about a paranoid man, who fears things in his house, thinking that they are conspiring to assassinate him. The man fights back and decides to burn everything down, when nothing else helps. The shower is the only one on his side. The man gradually grows more frenetic, until the end, where he is stabbed by his only friend. Video Farin plays a hitman, hired to kill or rather destroy the things also mentioned in the song. The video however shows betrayal - the shower kills the protagonist with a blade in the end. Track listing # "Dusche" ("Shower") – 4:12 # "Alle Fragen dieser We ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Farin Urlaub
Jan Vetter (born 27 October 1963), better known as Farin Urlaub. (from the German ''Fahr in Urlaub!'', "Go on holiday!"), is a German singer, guitarist and songwriter. He is best known as the guitarist/vocalist for punk rock band Die Ärzte. He has also been a solo artist since 2001, touring with his band, the Farin Urlaub Racing Team. His releases starting in 2006 are credited to the band. Early life Vetter was born on 27 October 1963 in West Berlin. Until the age of seven, he lived with his mother in a flat in Berlin's Moabit district, and then in Frohnau until he was 18.. His parents were low-income civil servants, and he has a younger half-sister named Julia. His mother often played records by The Beatles, and Vetter was introduced to music at a young age. When he was nine, Vetter decided to take guitar lessons with an elderly woman who taught him classical standards. He played guitar while visiting holiday camps. A later music teacher advised him: "Whatever you do when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alligators
An alligator is a large reptile in the Crocodilia order in the genus ''Alligator'' of the family Alligatoridae. The two extant species are the American alligator (''A. mississippiensis'') and the Chinese alligator (''A. sinensis''). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the Oligocene epoch about 37 million years ago. The name "alligator" is probably an anglicized form of ', the Spanish term for "the lizard", which early Spanish explorers and settlers in Florida called the alligator. Later English spellings of the name included ''allagarta'' and ''alagarto''. Evolution Alligators and caimans split in North America during the early Tertiary or late Cretaceous (about 53 million to about 65 million years ago). The Chinese alligator split from the American alligator about 33 million years ago and probably descended from a lineage that crossed the Bering land bridge during the Neogene. The moder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sewer Alligators
Sewer alligator stories date back to the late 1920s and early 1930s; in most instances they are part of contemporary legend. They are based upon reports of alligator sightings in rather unorthodox locations, in particular New York City. ''The New York Times'' reports the city rescues 100 alligators per year, some directly from homes where they are kept as illegal pets (which can be legally ordered online in other states and are legal to mail when small), and some from outside (where they can attract considerable attention) though mostly above-ground. Though escapees and former pets may survive for a short time in New York sewers, longer-term survival is not possible due to low temperatures and the bacteria in human feces. Sewer maintenance crews insist there is no underground population. A similar story from 1851 involves feral pigs in the sewers of Hampstead, London. Legend Following the reports of sewer alligators in the 1930s, the story has built up over the decades and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protective Suit
An environmental suit is a suit designed specifically for a particular environment, usually one otherwise hostile to humans. An environment suit is typically a one-piece garment, and many types also feature a helmet or other covering for the head. Where the surrounding environment is especially dangerous the suit is completely sealed. The first environmental suits were diving suits designed to protect a diver from the surrounding water (see timeline of underwater technology). Later developments were designed to protect the wearer from the cold (for example wetsuits and other ambient pressure suits) or from undersea high pressure and the resulting decompression sickness (for example atmospheric diving suits). Protecting the wearer from cold is also a feature of ski suits. In aviation, pressure suits protect fighter pilots from hypoxia / altitude sickness, and g-suits from the adverse effects of acceleration (gravity-induced loss of consciousness, or G-LOC). The most extreme envi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyborg
A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.Cyborgs and Space in ''Astronautics'' (September 1960), by Manfred E. Clynes and American scientist and researcher Nathan S. Kline. Description and definition "Cyborg" is not the same thing as bionics, , or ; it applies to an organism that has restored function ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
