Yeah! Competitions are back to Just Outside the Box!
It’s easy and fun. Just name 1, 2, or all 3 aliens starring in my next book and website and you could be the winner of a signed cartoon of your choice from my website.
Well, the white hole, hey?
In the wonderful words of Wiki
‘In general relativity, a white hole is a hypothetical region of space-time which cannot be entered from the outside, although matter and light can escape from it. In this sense, it is the reverse of a black hole, which can only be entered from the outside, from which nothing, including light, can escape.’
Put simply, where as the black hole sucks everything into it, the white hole spits it out. When you put the two together, you have a wormhole with one end sucking, the end spitting – that’s what a scientist would consider to be perfect balance of energy in equals energy out.
Unlike our friend the black hole which we have observed in space, the white hole hasn’t and hence is only theoretical under the theory of general realtivity.
The idea of white holes were new to me. Am I the only ignorant one out here in cyber space?
We all know the metaphorical interpretation of this proverb, but it is also scientifically true!
James Pomerantz, author of the scientific article ‘The Grass is always Greener: An Ecological Analysis of an Old Aphorism (1983). This scholar proves that ‘optical and perceptual laws alone will make the grass at a distance look greener to the human eye than the blades of grass perpendicular to the ground.’
Now that’s a really cool fact to keep up your sleeves!
Big shout out to GDKonstantine, a long time supporter of my website. He came up with this cartoon.
If you would like me to draw the cartoon to your single gag, drop me a line.
… and that’s why he’s hungry
…or so I thought, until I did more research…
Let me explain. I was surfing the net for inspiration for my next cartoon. Sometimes I like to draw cartoons that play on words or phrases. I found myself on an idiom site that listed popular sayings, of which ‘hungry ghost’ was one of them. I hadn’t heard of the saying before and the site didn’t offer an explanation, so I just assumed it referred to someone who is always hungry – just like a ghost would be because the food goes straight through them.
Well, I was wrong and should have realised that I was being a bit too literal with my interpretation. After drawing the cartoon I hunted the web for a definition and it didn’t take me long to find out how wrong I was. For those of you as unfamiliar with this one as I was, here’s what dictionary.com said
‘in Buddhism, a supernatural being filled with more desire than it can consume’
and provided this example
‘The hungry ghost is often depicted with large belly and tiny mouth, a metaphor for people futilely attempting to fulfil their illusory physical desires.’
Have you ever misinterpreted some of those funny english sayings before?
Share, we’ll both have a laugh together.
I’m the process of sprucing up my website with a range of things (actually ideas) I’ve been hiding on the back shelf until now. Â
But I can’t do this one on my own – I need your help by giving me your thoughts on this quick survey.
I’m creating a monthly newsletter for subscribers (this is in addition to the blog subscription you might already be on). But it’s a bit hard to entice people to click that funky new subscribe button without giving away something for free. So, here’s the question.
[polldaddy poll=8185877]
… but the obsession with oneself did
In a recent ad campaign, National Geographic decided ‘if you can’t beat them join them’. Titled ‘there are lots of terrible animal pictures out there’, National Geographic showed a series of animal selfies. The intent behind the campaign was to get people to look at the good shots that National Geographic take.
My favourite is the gorilla. What’s yours?
Ah yes, snacking before dinner – how to get every mother annoyed.
I sometimes find myself in snacking discussions with my children; holding the offending but circumstantial evidence (chocolate wrapper) in my hand. But I’m not perfect myself. I used to enjoy sneaking in a biscuit or two before dinner.
What’s your snacking weakness?