[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[Gary Thewlis]

The NFL, like life, is full of idiots.

Randy Cross

 

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about
God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not
know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" 

Annie Dillard

 

As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in public schools.

Anonymous

 

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. 

Charles M. Schulz

 

I'm not arguing, I'm just telling you why you're wrong. 

Anonymous

 

I don't know how to act my age because I've never been this old before. 

Anonymous

 

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Grok

 

We must look to Robert Anson Heinlein for the origins of this word, which he
invented for his science-fantasy book Stranger in a Strange Land in 1961. In
this, Valentine Michael Smith, a human being raised on Mars, returns to
Earth with psi powers given him by the Martians and is transformed into a
messiah. 

 

Grok is a word borrowed from Martian (and you won't see that written very
often) in which it literally meant to drink. However, in its figurative
sense, to grok is to gain an instant deep spiritual understanding of
something or to establish a rapport with somebody.

 

Smith had been aware of the visit by the doctors but he had grokked at once
that their intentions were benign; it was not necessary for the major part
of him to be jerked back from where he was.

 

The book became a cult classic despite its deeply flawed nature. Heinlein
remarked self-deprecatingly about it that it was incredible what some people
would do for money; it was originally published in a brutally edited form
and became available as originally written only in 1990.

 

The term went into the language, at first among countercultural types in
California and among SF fans (there used to be lapel buttons around with the
message "I grok Spock"), but was later taken up by computer geeks and
scientists, among whom it has largely remained.

 

I recall well when I first grokked Newton's arguments giving the special
properties of the inverse square law. I was so moved by the elegance of the
constructions, I found myself wiping away tears. - Science, 20 Apr. 2001.

 

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Starfishes haven't got brains.

 

State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska.

 

The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.

 

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, that makes the catfish rank #1 for
animal having the most taste buds.

 

The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight
and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

 

The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.

 

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to
squirt blood 30 feet.