premonition

I once heard a story (originally told by Kevin Young) about Gerson Goldhaber, who was a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. He was talking on the phone with another physicist at SLAC near Stanford University near the end of the day on Tuesday, October 17, 1989. The SLAC physicist suddenly interrupted with, “Gerson, I have to go! There’s a very big earthquake happening!” and then hung up. So Gerson stepped out into a group of people in the hall, made a big show of yawning and checking his watch, then said, “Aren’t we about due for an earthquake?” Before anyone could respond, the Loma Prieta earthquake reached Berkeley, and he became a legend.


-the XKCD blog

Full vs. Empty

You may have heard that the pessimist calls a glass half empty while an optimist calls the same one half full. You may also know that the pragmatist calls it both and that the engineer calls the glass twice as large as it needs to be. But what does the mad scientist call it?

He calls it a source of unlimited water!


Note: The mad scientist may or may not being using false logic. They're a hasty bunch.