How to Evaluate a New Technology
3D Printers, CNC routers, and laser cutters fall into the category of items that are really cool but don’t have a place in my life at the moment. They are things that I would use to make things I don’t need, which makes them also things I don’t need.
You can buy the specialized parts you need to build a 3D printer online and assemble the rest using stuff you can buy at any home center. If I went that route, I’d be building a thing I don’t need that builds things I don’t need. I’ve read that often, when someone builds their first 3D printer, one of the first things they do is use it to make a better 3D printer; so I could conceivably be building a thing I don’t need that will build a thing I don’t need that builds things I don’t need.
I think the takeaway here is that if I ever get into 3D printing, I will start a chain reaction that will one day destroy the world. Instead of pollution or nanobot gray goo, we would be buried under an avalanche of old 3D printers and plastic doodads that look like they’re made from bright orange shredded wheat.
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How to Calm a Friend Who Has Made a Disturbing Discovery
There are several places to read about this, but there was a great deal of controversy around novelty testicles for trucks, focusing on two men who both claimed to have invented them. Here’s just one of the many articles about it.
Here’s a very NSFW podcast where I first heard about it.
I just love the idea that at some point some guy was probably driving in his car, saw a pair of fake testicles hanging from the back of the truck in front of him, and shouted, “Hey, they stole my idea!”
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How to Take a Proactive Approach to Your Health
Again, the dialog in panel one is based directly on a conversation I had with a coworker. He told me that he was healthy precisely because he hadn’t seen a doctor in twenty years. I suggested that he might have countless undiagnosed illnesses. He countered saying that if he hasn’t noticed them at all, how bad can they be?
My answer, “Deadly! They could be deadly! One of them could kill you any second,” didn’t impress him. He told me I was paranoid, which, ironically, is a treatable condition.
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How to Help Someone See Their Own Faulty Preconceptions
This is completely unrelated. It broke my brain, and I need to share that with all of you.
This is far from the best sketch they ever did, but it will demonstrate how young Scarlett Johansson is, how old Conan O’Brien is, and by extension, how old many of the rest of us are.
How to Define Your Artistic Legacy
I wouldn’t have added hair to my self-portraits under any circumstances. I find the act of hiding baldness far more shameful than baldness itself.
Also, I saved a great deal of effort by only having to draw a single curved line instead of a full head of hair. For the self-portrait artist, baldness is just more efficient.
Note from Missy: This comic made me want to watch Tim’s Vermeer again. Available for rent from Amazon and YouTube Movies!
How to Understand the Effect Your Influences Have Had on Your Life
There is no end to the life lessons one can draw from Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.
Here are but a few more examples:
When buying a birthday gift, booze will be more appreciated than a book.
If you are searching for a planet that’s hostile to life, don’t beam down to it yourself to have a look. No good can come of that. It is, after all, hostile.
Don’t fall prey to 2-dimensional thinking.
You can get away with the most ham-fisted secret code imaginable if you distract the listener by insulting Kirstie Alley for no reason.
If you’re going to kill Kirk, you’re going to have to go down there. You’re going to have to go down there!
If you maroon a homicidal revenge-obsessed maniac, maybe check in on him from time to time.
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How to Correct a Common Misconception
My understanding is that the Russians ended up buying a supply of space pens from Fisher as well.
One technology the Russians had that we wanted when the Soviet Union collapsed was their ejector seat tech. They had much better ejector seats than we did. What that said about their planes is for you to decide.
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How to Decide Whether to Rent or Buy
We really were apartment shopping, we really did tell the leasing agent that we didn’t need to go out on the patio, as we would not use it much (and it was July in Florida), and she really did just stand there, on the patio, refusing to move and repeating over and over “No, seriously, you have to come check this out,” until we finally knuckled under and joined her outside in the humidity.
We did end up renting the place. It was a brand-new building. The day we moved in I had to go to the rental office to complain because the peephole in the front door had been installed backward. The rental agent and a prospective renter waiting for her appointment and I all had a good laugh about the Seinfeld episode about the reverse peephole, then we lapsed into a silence, looking at each other awkwardly until I said, “But no, seriously, can you please send someone to fix it?”
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