Letters Remain

Category: humour

  • Random Promotions Beat the Peter Principle

    The Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence” (discussed previously). This principle is typically observed when promotions are rewarded based on an employee’s ability in their current position and provided there is sufficient difference between the two positions. In such circumstances, is there a simple way…

  • Douglas Coupland’s Thoughts on the Future

    Throughout his most popular novels, Douglas Coupland defines terms that come to define generations and also manages to create stories that perfectly describe and connect with a certain culture at a certain time. In a series of recent articles, Coupland has done this once more, but looks toward the future, instead. One, an article covering Coupland’s prophecies for…

  • The Neuroscience of Comedy

    There is one essential condition required in comedy: “some kind of incongruity between two elements […], resolved in a playful or unexpected way”. That’s according to a fairly comprehensive article summarising the neuroscience research conducted to discover more about the phenomenon of why we find things funny (or not). Of particular interest was how we…

  • Comedic Writing Tips

    There are six essential elements of humour, suggests Dilbert‘s Scott Adams, as he looks briefly at how to write comedy: Pick a Topic: The topic does half of your work. I look for topics that have at least one of the essential elements of humor: Clever, Cute, Bizarre, Cruel, Naughty, Recognizable. Simple Sentences: Be smart,…

  • Ten Internet Laws

    You’ve definitely heard of at least one of them and maybe even laughed, groaned or plain ignored a few others. To help along that process Tom Chivers presents ten laws of the Internet: Godwin’s Law “As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” […] It is closely…

  • George Carlin’s Last Interview

    Shorty before his death last year, comedian George Carlin gave what was to become his last wide-ranging interview—with Jay Dixit, senior editor of Psychology Today. Carlin discusses many things in this interview; from detailing his method for coming up with material to his use of technology and this on the advantages of being an older…

  • Basic Laws of Human Stupidity

    Tongue-in-cheek, but parts of this ring true: the basic laws of human stupidity. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or…

  • The History of Puns

    For The New York Times, Joseph Tartakovsky provides a short, surprisingly groanless, history of the pun. The inglorious pun! Dryden called it the “lowest and most groveling kind of wit.” To Ambrose Bierce it was a “form of wit to which wise men stoop and fools aspire.” Universal experience confirms the adage that puns don’t…

  • What Design Is

    Design is 70% dealing with people, 3% the idea, 2% selling the idea, 2% the brief, 2% being pig headed, 1% printing, 3% eye for detail, .6% invoices, 2% coffee, .7% tracking, .1% warm glow, .6% panic, 1% 4am, .6% staring, .2% checking, 1% letting go, .8% keeping hold, .7% estimates, .3% checking, .4% proofs,…

  • Tales of Mere Existence

    My latest obsession, thanks to David, is Tales of Mere Existence: a series of musings on life’s quirks narrated by Levni Yilmaz (of IngredientX) as he doodles on some backlit paper. A couple of favourites: Theories and Observations about Youth and Aging Procrastination