Category: General Interest

Items of general interest – for mass consumption

Catch-22 in real life

The book Philosophical Psychopathology reports on the case of a man who got into a real-life Catch-22 situation. He was brought to psychiatrists because he was suffering from mental delusions. He was afraid that he was going to be “locked up”. And the psychiatrists said that this was a delusion without any basis in reality. In fact, his delusion was so strong, that to avoid being locked up, he tried to kill himself. Based on this, the psychiatrists decided that he should be …… you guessed it …… locked up.

If they lock him up, then his belief was true, and he wasn’t really deluded, was he? So they shouldn’t be able to lock up him. But then his belief would turn out to be false. And they can lock him up after all. Somewhere, Alfred Tarski is getting uncomfortable in his grave.

See full article (via boingboing.

The dullest blog in the world

This blog is the dullest blog in the world. You should check it out:

Tidying some pencils (dull, March 16)
 Some pencils were scattered around on my desk. I picked them up one by one. I placed the pencils in the drawer which I use to store pencils.

Opening a cupboard door (dull, October 17)
There was a cupboard in the corner of the room. I reached out my hand and gripped the door handle. I pulled the door towards me, thereby opening the cupboard.

Found: here. See full article.

Will you?

This is the abstract of United States Patent Application: 0070078663:

The purpose of this invention is to provide an improved method of proposing marriage to an individual. The method of proposing to an individual generally comprising the steps of meeting the individual; exchanging names with the individual; dating the individual (not necessary); drafting a government document having a proposal to marry the individual incorporated therein; and showing the government document to the individual. The government document may be a patent application. The patent application may claim the method by which the proposor will make a marriage proposal to the individual. The proposor could then use the method claimed in the patent application to propose to the individual. The patent application could be the actual marriage proposal.

You really should see the patent application. Has interesting stuff like:

[0015] One of the principal objects of the invention is to provide a method by which a proposor’s clever proposal coaxes an individual into marrying the proposor.

[0016] Yet another object of the invention is to provide an entirely unique method for a proposor to propose marriage to an individual.

[0017] Still another object of the invention is to provide a method for proposing marriage to an individual where the proposor can righteously tout the uniqueness of the proposal.

[0018] Yet another object of the invention is to provide a method of proposing marriage to an individual where the method of proposing is at least partially related to the proposor’s future profession.

[0019] Still another object of the invention is to provide a method of proposing to an individual where the method is recorded in a government document for all the world to see.

[0020] These and other objects will be obvious to those skilled in the art.