Antiquated Slang

1. Pad the hoof: “To tramp about. Orig. hobo use.”
2. Pang-wangle: “To live or go along cheerfully in spite of minor misfortunes.”
3. Paper-belly: “A person unable to drink liquor straight, or one who grimaces after drinking.”

4. Peter Funk: “An auctioneer’s accomplice who poses as a buyer in order to stimulate bidding or to ‘buy’ items on which the final bid from a genuine customer has not been high enough. Auction use.”

5. Pie card: “A union membership card, specif., as shown to a stranger who is a union member in order to borrow money, obtain food and lodging, or the like. Hobo use c1925.”

6. Pig between two sheets: “A ham sandwich. Some lunch-counter use c1925”

7. Pine overcoat: “A coffin, esp. a cheap one.”

8. Possum Belly: “An extra storage compartment under a railroad car. Hobo lingo.”

9. Pretzel-bender: “1. A preculiar person; an eccentric; one who thinks in a round-about manner. 2. A player of the French horn. Musician use. Not common. 3. A wrestler. 4. A heavy drinker; one who frequents bars.”

10. Prushun or Prushon: “A boy tramp who begs for a mature tramp. Obscurely from “Prusssian.”

11. Puka: “1. Any small, private place, such as a pigeonhole in a desk, a safe, a purse, a small suitcase, or the like. 2. [taboo] The female genitals. Both meanings WWII USN use in Pacific. Prob. orig. Polynesian.”

via Mental Floss

Drawn by Jacob Borshard

via Evan's Blog

The Ministry of Secret Jokes: recap

The Ministry last night was great. At one point Brendan Kennedy was doing standup, and he mentioned that he had worked a job on the 27th floor of an office building. This drunk girl said, "It must be really hard to get a job on the 27th floor," and Brendan said, "No, life's not like a video game. You don't have to start on the first floor and then work your way up to the 27th one level at a time."

Yo Momma Battle Winner: Charles Rosen.

Yo Momma Battle sample snap, by John McKeever: Yo Momma is so ursine. Not because she's big and hairy, but because every time we have sex she has a salmon in her mouth.

Omniana Battle Winner: Joe Mayo. This was an intense battle. Brendan Kennedy was the defending champion, and he is a monster. As Mayo said last night in his victory speech/drunken screed, Brendan is the Ken Jennings of Omniana. There was a stretch where Brendan held the title for over a year.

But last night Mayo came out of the gate strong in the first round, which put Brendan on the defensive, and he was unable to gain momentum. Usually going first is a disadvantage, but Mayo used it to seize the offensive [literally and figuratively].

Mayo's character was a little girl, and although his card didn't say so, Mayo said she was high on acid. Brendan was a clockwork bounty hunter, and Mayo said he was going to give Brendan AIDS—which, once again, wasn't written anywhere on his card—and that AIDS makes you get covered in purple spots, which may not be true. Brendan called Mayo a hockey player and asked the crowd to vote with their hearts, which might've worked against Joey Dougherty, but couldn't compete with Mayo's drunken bear dance. The battle was a stunning tour de force from Mayo. I think everyone will be excited to see these two match up again. This is a rivalry that ranks right up there with Gerben vs. Barker.

via this isn't happiness

via He Who Cannot be Named

The Big List of Biases

The psy-fi blog has a big list of biases related to investment, some of which can certainly be extrapolated to cover different spheres of experience. Below are their selections from A-F. See the whole A-Z list here.

Adverse Selection: you should only offer health insurance to those who don't need it: see Dark Pools and Adverse Selection.
Affect Heuristic: we use feelings not logic to make snap decisions, even when we don't need to: see Risk, Stone Age Economics and the Affect Heuristic.
Akerlof's Lemons: why the market for used cars doesn't work properly: see Akerlof's Lemons: Risk Asymmetric Dangers for Investors.
Ambiguity Aversion: we don't mind risk but we hate uncertainty: see Ambuiguity Aversion: Investing Under Conditions of Uncertainty.
Anchoring: our habit of focusing on one salient point and ignoring all others, such as the price at which we buy a stock: see Anchoring: the Mother of Behavioral Biases.
Authority, Appeal to: we tend to thoughtlessly obey those we regard as being in positions of authority: see CEO Pay: Because They're Worth It?.
Barnum Effect: we see insightful information in random rubbish: see Your Financial Horoscope.
Beauty Effect: we attribute qualities to people based on their appearance: see Trust is in the Eye of the Beholder.
Benford's Law: in finance numbers starting with 1 are more frequent than those starting 2 and so on: see Forensic Finance, Benford's Way.
Bystander Effect: people waiting for others to take the lead when someone else in is trouble: see A Lollapallooza Effect: Capitalism & The Death of Wang Yue.
Choice Overload: too much choice makes us indecisive: see Jam Today, Tyranny Tomorrow?
Clever Hans Effect: we give off unconscious cues that are unconsciously picked up on: see Market Confidence, Tricks and Placebos.
Cognitive Dissonance: the effect of simultaneously trying to believe two incompatible things at the same time; see Fairy Tales for Investors.
Commitment Bias: once we'e publicly committed ourselves to a position we find it difficult to retreat: see Robert Cialdini and the Weapons of Influence.
Confirmation Bias: we interpret evidence to support our prior beliefs and, if all else fails, we ignore evidence that contradicts it: seeConfirmation Bias, the Investor's Curse.
Conjunction Fallacy: the conjunction of two events is always less likely than a single event: see Behavioral Finance's Smoking Gun.
Conversational Bias: we tend to present ourselves in the best possible light, which has knock-on consequences for the relaying of positive and negative information: see Herd of Investors.
Data Mining Errors: if you mine the data hard enough you can prove anything: see Twits, Butter and the Superbowl Effect.
Data Snooping Bias: see Data Mining ErrorsExploiting the Anomalies.
Denomination Bias: we're more likely to spend small denomination notes than large ones: see Fooled by Fluency.
Disaster Myopia: an in-built tendency to forget really nasty stuff after it's stopped happening for a while: see Black Swans,Tsunamis and Cardiac Arrests.
Disposition Effect: we prefer to sell shares whose value has increased and keep those whose value's dropped: see Disposed to Lose Money.
Dread Risk: an irrational fear of extreme events: see Dread Risk: Investing Outside the Goldfish Bowl.
Dunning-Kruger Effect: some people never learn by experience: see Don't Lose Money in the Stupid Corner.
Economic Reflexivity: the way that the economy changes people's behavior, which changes the economy: see Soros' Economic Reflexivity.
Familiarity Effect: being familiar with something makes you favour it: see The Language of Lucre.
Fallacy of Composition: the tendency for individuals to act in their own self interest and, in by doing so en-mass, to cause themselves to lose out: see Panic!
Fallacy of Frequency: we see regular patterns where none exist: see Deep Time and the Fallacy of Frequency.
False Memory: memory is a construction, not a direct recollection : see Financial Memory Syndrome.
Framing: the way a question or situation is framed can determine your response: see Investors, You've Been Framed.
Fundamental Attribution Error: we attribute success to our own skill and failure to everyone else's lack of it: see Profit from Self-Knowledge.

the Ministry of Secret Jokes

The Ministry this month is going to be killer. We've got a Yo Momma battle, which is cool because we haven't done one in over a year (not counting the Yo Momma compliment battle we held at the Fringe Festival). Buddy Felch will spin his salacious Hollywood tell-alls doubtless involving Lee Marvin and Judi Dench. Also: Christian Alsis, Man of a Thousand Chins, Omniana, stand-up, and more--and more. Wednesday, November 9th, 8pm, Fergie's Pub. Less info here.

George Gob Bluth II, via wolfsuit

Republican Primaries Football Chart

Wondering who is going to win the Republican Primaries? Watch this video.

Disillusionment gets a bad rap

Why does the word disillusioned have negative connotations? It means "not enchanted, disappointed." Disappointment is certainly unpleasant, but if it arises from learning the truth, then its root is a person's unrealistically high expectations. A disillusioned person is freed from illusion, they're seeing things as they truly are. The knowledge of that truth is more valuable than whatever false comfort is gained by clinging to unrealistic illusions. I mean, let's just face the truth: He-Man was a terrible TV show.