That time The Oatmeal raised over $200,000 for charity, just to get unattributed comics taken down from a sleazy content aggregator. A long, amusing saga if you click through and follow all the links.

Before you open your mouth to start a sentence, separate your teeth and drop your tongue off your palate inside your still-closed lips. That keeps the sucking noise inside. In slow motion it is three steps, teeth-tongue-lips, at full speed it's opening your mouth from back-to-front instead of front-to-back. Practice enough and it just becomes the way you open your mouth, you won't even think about it anymore. It helps train the muscles if you try to keep your teeth slightly separated within your mouth throughout the day, even when you're not talking. This also, incidentally, can help with overall anxiety levels.

If you mean you have a surplus of nonfiction ideas that need to be written about and/or spoken about, I'd happily write a few for you. I remember looking into your website several years ago, but the contribution guidelines said you had more writers than you could cope with, so I didn't pursue it further. That might have been before you were doing podcasts though.

I can understand that view. But if you cannot find someone to be a podcast partner, you could have your one voice be a host who interviews third parties, and let them be the other voices. A variation of the Science Friday format. Of course that requires reaching out to strangers to talk on the phone/skype/etc, the mere thought of which personally causes me to break out into a cold sweat.

Thanks for the detailed instructions! I'll see if I can master the process with any success.


Well, I do have such a surplus of non-fiction topics, my "write about this someday" folder tests the endurance of the scroll wheel. But here I was referring to a surplus of ideas/concepts for podcasts. If I didn't have to work a day job, I'd be tempted to launch a couple more podcasts, because there's such huge potential for niftiness. In fact, I'm working on a limited-run side podcast idea in my "spare time," likely to see the light of day approximately when podcasts fall out of style.

In regards to your interest in writing with us, it is still true that our problem is not too few skilled writers, it's too little editing bandwidth. But we do still occasionally welcome new writers who demonstrate considerable skill and interest. The challenge is helping them maintain that interest as they wait for their works to wind through our slow-moving machine. I essentially work three part-time jobs, so I am the bottleneck. But the good news is I *may* have found a way to whittle it down to a mere two part-time jobs, which will free up some time and energy.

I'm rambling. In short, if you really are interested in participating, and you possess a surplus of patience, there's a good chance we can make it happen. I have a Google Doc outlining our process and such, I can share it if you send me a Google Doc email address.

The Jargon File



credit to Happy Monkey "...on the gripping hand..."

Sarah Purcell.

That's a name I haven't thought of in decades. She was in something like That's Incredible, wasn't she?

Edit: Real People. Same thing.

We need a historical preservation society to foster and maintain awareness that That's Incredible and Real People were two different things...and which one was the one that had Fran Tarkenton...wasn't he a football guy...who did he play for...? etc.

The boredom of the British Empire...

Vikings and Giants

Mike Firesmith started his annual Halloween story tonight, it will run each night for five or six days, and they're always good.

Could someone take a look at this article and tell me if it's correct, close-to-correct, or, bullshit?

I am quite high atm, and don't know if I'm 'getting it'...

Also, I want whatever this dizzy heifer is smoking.

It's both true and bullshit. Depends on how you look at it.

On a micro scale, my dead cousin has about $10k in savings bonds. Back in the 80s and 90s he gave about $5k to the US government, and they gave him some pieces of paper in return. He died, and in 2017, I'm going to cash in those savings bonds, which matured years ago but are still accruing good interest, and the US government is going to pay his estate about $12k.

He actually worked for the government, so in his case, you could actually argue that they used the $%k he gave them to turn around and pay him his salary. And soon his estate will get $12k when I cash it in.

The US government isn't hurt by this deal until I cash them in, and then they have to cough up the extra $7k or so.

(I'm making those numbers up. But they are close.)

I'm more concerned by money being sucked out of this country and sent to China, et al.