Firstly, imagine a world consisting of a very thin, infinitely long and wide, slab of matter, in which various complex internal processes are occurring – up to and including the presence of intelligent life, if you like.

For it is by a kiss that the perfect conceive and give birth. For this reason we also kiss one another.

Who is adaptive systems and where did he come from? How did he have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything from molecular biology to European intellectual history? Is it possible he was a famous author or an artificial intelligence? What is he doing now? Is he writing a book?

These are the types of questions that people ask about adaptive systems. His writing on the Something Awful forums between 2001-2004 elevated him to a mythological status. He is especially known for a 10,000 word post titled Fantasy Island, which is a bizarre, comical, and profound story of a young scientist’s attempt to birth a new race of human beings from cloned cells. Since he dropped off the internet in 2004, he has been surrounded by mystery. For years, posters admired his creative and intellectual talent, but for all the speculation about the author, there have been few, if any, answers to the questions above. 

I think that the the point of the Underpants Question is that it is perfectly okay not to ask it. But once you have asked it, you can’t unask it.

This year’s list also included an epilogue of incoming freshmen’s phrases that might baffle their older counterparts.

A few of these include “dankrupt,” the state of finding oneself out of weed; “trolling,” a mild form of cyberbullying; and “textroverts,” people who express their feelings via text, usually girded by alcohol, but not in person.

At the L.A. County Fair he examined an apiary exhibit.  “There’s no welfare in the beehive,” the beekeeper pointed out.

“What happens if the bees don’t work?” the governor asked.

“They die.”

True, you’ll find yourself analyzing a continuous series of acts in terms of their discrete components.  Eating a sandwich will no longer be the smooth operation you’ve always known it to be.

If a witch on a broomstick rode in through my open window and lectured me on quaternions, I should accept her visit as a normal occurrence.

After that I sprawled against the dresser and, with my heart in my mouth, watched her cut thin bread-and-butter in a woman’s deliciously clumsy way. Once, as the bright blade went perilously near her palm, I drew in my breath.

“A man would never dream of doing it like that!” I cried, in rebuke.

She calmly dropped the wafer on to the plate and handed me the knife and loaf.

“Do it your way,” she said, with a smile of mock humility.

I did it my way, and cut my finger.

“The devil’s in the knife!” I cried. “But that’s the right way.”

Judith said nothing, but bound up my wound, and, like the well-conducted person of the ballad, went on cutting bread-and-butter. Her smile, however, was provoking.

I’m reading William John Locke again, and that means it’s time for more baffling gender stereotypes

In normal observers, gazing at one’s own face in the mirror for a few minutes, at a low illumination level, triggers the perception of strange faces, a new visual illusion that has been named ‘strange-face in the mirror’. Individuals see huge distortions of their own faces, but they often see monstrous beings, archetypal faces, faces of relatives and deceased, and animals.