The New Joke Thread

[Yellowtulip]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Something

Or as Roger McGough ( a British poet) put it:
"Where once I used to scintillate.
Now I only sin 'til ten past three."

[Yellowtulip]

Another of his:

"ONCE I LIVED IN CAPITALS
MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC

but now I’m sadly lowercase
with the occasional italic."

[GordMay]

Miles Kington, writing in The Observer, November 3, 1986

The Man who Counts the Number of People at Public Gatherings

You’ve probably seen his headlines, “Two million flock to see Pope”, “200 arrested as police find ounce of cannabis”, “Britain #3 billion in debt.” You probably wondered who was responsible for producing such well rounded-up figures. What you didn’t know was that it was all the work of one man, Rounder-Up to the media, John Wheeler. But how is he able to go on turning out such spot-on statistics? How can he be so accurate all the time?

“We can’t,” admits Wheeler blithely. “Frankly, after the first million we stop counting, and round it up to the next million. I don’t know if you’ve ever counted a papal flock, but, not only do they look a bit the same, they also don’t keep still, what with all the bowing and crossing themselves.”

“The only way you could do it accurately is by taking an aerial photograph of the crowd and handing it to the computer to work out. But then you’d get a headline saying, ‘1,678,163 [sic] flock to see Pope, not including 35,467 who couldn’t see him,’ and, believe me, nobody wants that sort of headline.”

The art of big figures, avers Wheeler, lies in psychology, not statistics. The public like a figure it can admire. It likes millionaires, and million-sellers, and centuries at cricket, so Wheeler’s international agency gives them the figures it wants, which involves not only rounding up but rounding down.

“In the old days people used to deal with crowds on the Isle of Wight principle–you know, they’d say that every day the population of the world increased by the number of people who could stand upright on the Isle of Wight, or the rain-forests were being decreased by an area the size of Rutland. This meant nothing. Most people had never been to the Isle of Wight for a start, and even if they had, they only had a vision of lots of Chinese standing in the grounds of the Cowes Yacht Club. And the Rutland comparison was so useless that they were driven to abolish Rutland to get rid of it.

“No, what people want is a few good millions. A hundred million, if possible. One of our inventions was street value, for instance. In the old days they used to say that police had discovered drugs in a quantity large enough to get all of Rutland stoned for a fortnight. We started saying that the drugs had a street value of #10 million. Absolutely meaningless, but people understand it better.”

Sometimes they do get the figures spot on. “250,000 flock to see Royal two,” was one of his recent headlines, and although the 250,000 was a rounded-up figure, the two was quite correct. In his palatial office he sits surrounded by relics of past headlines–a million-year-old fossil, a #500,000 Manet, a photograph of the Sultan of Brunei’s #10,000,000 house–but pride of place goes to a pair of shoes framed on the wall.

“Why the shoes? Because they cost me #39.99. They serve as a reminder of mankind’s other great urge, to have stupid odd figures. Strange, isn’t it? They want mass demos of exactly half a million, but they also want their gramophone records to go round at thirty-three-and-a-third, forty-five and seventy-eight rpm. We have stayed in business by remembering that below a certain level people want oddity. They don’t want a rocket costing #299 million and 99p, and they don’t want a radio costing exactly #50.”

How does he explain the times when the figures clash–when, for example, the organisers of a demo claim 250,000 but the police put it nearer 100,000?

“We provide both sets of figures; the figures the organisers want, and the figures the police want. The public believe both. If we gave the true figure, about 167,890, nobody would believe it because it doesn’t sound believable.”

John Wheeler’s name has never become well-known, as he is a shy figure, but his firm has an annual turnover of #3 million and his eye for the right figure has made him a rich man. His greatest pleasure, however, comes from the people he meets in the counting game.

“Exactly two billion, to be precise.”

[Sherpa17]

Far Side

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Sherpa17

Far SideAttachment 227467

I sure miss Gary Larson's daily contribution to humanity. Who told him to retire?

Jim

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I sure miss Gary Larson's daily contribution to humanity. Who told him to retire?

Jim

He's baaaaaaaaaack! (well, sort of)



https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff






https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/168/sherlock

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I sure miss Gary Larson's daily contribution to humanity. Who told him to retire?



Jim

He did the right thing and retired BEFORE he ran out of the good stuff.

I wish a few others had followed his lead.

[GordMay]

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by Sherpa17

Far SideAttachment 227467

"In the early days of aircraft design the designer was often the test pilot. This process quickly weeded out the bad designers."

[Montanan]

Just another day in 2020

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Singularity

"In the early days of aircraft design the designer was often the test pilot. This process quickly weeded out the bad designers."

Self regulated industry.

[MicHughV]

Gary Larson had a mind like no others.....he could parlay practically anything into a humorous sketch.....if he was on this joke thread, we wouldn't be able to keep to keep up with him...

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

math....
if a ship can cross the Atlantic in 7 days.....7 ships can cross it in one day....right !!
1Sx7D=1C.....or 7SD=1C 7Sx1D=1C.....or 7SD=1C
it's math and figures never lie...

Ha, that was the naive logic of many client executives I ran projects for. They often had trouble grasping it when I told them that if we hire more people then project will take longer!

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Sherpa17

Far SideAttachment 227467

Looks like something from my childhood! [emoji1787]

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Singularity

"In the early days of aircraft design the designer was often the test pilot. This process quickly weeded out the bad designers."

More industries should follow that lead...like marine diesel engines...design engineers should have to work on the end product!

I used to have 3 friends who worked for Raytheon: a design engineer, a production engineer, and an old field service technician. They made a good team. The design engineer would send his design to the production engineer who would make him change the hard to build bits. They would then send it on to the field engineer who would say "your f*cking joking right?"

Today, I think many products just go almost directly from design to distrubution...and leave me, the end consumer, saying "your f*cking joking right?"