Category: Humor

Hippos in America: The Wild Idea of 1910 | September 20 2026, 03:06

Today I learned that in 1910, the U.S. seriously considered importing hippos and releasing them into the wild to (1) eat invasive water hyacinths and (2) be eaten by Americans. The bill, H.R. 23261, also known as the “American Hippo bill”, was introduced in 1910 by Congressman Robert F. Broussard of Louisiana. Funnily enough, the bill itself makes no mention of hippos. It wasn’t actually about hippos. It was a “give us the money and we’ll figure it out” kind of law. The committee politely thanked everyone for a “very interesting morning” and dispersed. There was no vote. Never.

Discovering New Details in “Hedgehog in the Fog” | September 14 2026, 23:50

While walking with Yuki, I watched “Hedgehog in the Fog” again. Listen, pure discoveries. I always thought he walked with a little bundle tied to a stick. Turns out, he was just carrying the bundle in his paws, and the stick was there to poke into the fog. Did you also imagine him carrying a bundle on a stick, or was it just me?

Then I thought he was wandering around shouting “horsey!” But it turns out, he only said horse sadly once, and that’s it. And actually, the horse was off to the side, and his friend, a bear cub, was calling him off-screen throughout the cartoon.

It also turned out that the hedgehog speaks with the voice of Uncle Fyodor from “Prostokvashino”.

I read also that they made the animation simply by moving cut-out characters at different distances from ordinary tracing paper.

After that, Norstein has been shooting “The Overcoat” based on Gogol since 1981. Still not finished.

Exploring the Booming Business of Pet Waste Removal Services | August 13 2026, 02:05

By the way, a car with the logo Pet Waste Removal periodically drives up to our neighbor’s place. It was a revelation to discover that in the USA there is an entire niche—special services that clean up lawns from dog poop so that little children can more safely run around the same lawn. There are dozens of such companies around me. I never imagined such a thing existed.

(But the funny thing is that the neighbor has a cat. And here my imagination really took a hit. I don’t know, maybe he just has a friend working there, but there are litter box services. They come once or twice a week, completely change the filler, disinfect the litter box, and take away the waste)

So, Pet Waste Removal is indeed a huge industry with a rich internal culture. They have their own professional association — aPaws (Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists), which holds an annual International Pooper Scooper Week” in April. Some franchises cost tens of thousands of dollars to join, and the market is estimated at hundreds of millions. The logic is simple: the average dog produces about 100 kg of waste per year, there are nearly 90 million dogs in the US, and most owners genuinely hate this part of dog ownership.

There’s even a surreal branch—PooPrints service. Residential complexes and HOAs require residents to submit their dogs’ DNA to a database, and when an “unidentified” pile is found on the lawn, it’s sent for genetic testing to identify the offending owner. Fines range from $150 to $500.

Our Yuki has never (or seems like once in five years) done his business in the yard. Well, never at home, even as a puppy, and never once made a puddle. So he, too, looks at all this with puzzlement. And in the US, dogs are let out through a door, they do their thing, run around— and back inside. Many dogs in the suburbs for years do not know what it’s like to walk on a leash in the usual sense familiar to us.

From Bar Joke to Millionaire: The Unbelievable Success of the Pet Rock | August 05 2026, 00:55

Today I found out that the most successful product of Christmas 1975 was a rock. Just a regular rock. Gary Dahl, an advertiser from California, was sitting in a bar and listening to his friends complain about their pets – feeding them, walking them, cleaning up after them – and jokingly said that he had the perfect pet – a rock. It doesn’t need feeding, doesn’t poop, doesn’t die. The joke turned into a business plan over the course of the evening. Dahl bought smooth pebbles from Rosarito Beach in Mexico for about a cent apiece and sold them for $3.95 each. Every rock was shipped in a cardboard carrying box – with air holes “for breathing” and straw bedding inside. And here’s the kicker: the product wasn’t the rock. The product was the accompanying 32-page care and training manual, written stone-faced (pardon the pun): commands like sit” and lie down” are learned instantly, come here” and fetch” are a bit harder, and it executes the command “die” brilliantly.

Within a few months, over a million units were sold, Dahl became a millionaire, he was written about in magazines and invited on television. By early 1976 it was all over, warehouses remained filled with unsold rocks, and attempts to replicate the success with other novelty products failed. Dahl died in 2015, but the Pet Rock brand lives on: the rock in its original packaging can still be purchased today.

(How I came across this. I am currently reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and came across the phrase “They were the Pet Rock of parenting.” – referring to Amy’s parents. I did not understand it and went to google what this Pet Rock was.)

The Rise and Fall of the Pet Rock Craze | August 05 2026, 00:55

Today I learned that the most successful Christmas product of 1975 was a rock. Just a regular rock. Gary Dahl, an advertiser from California, was sitting in a bar listening to his friends complain about their pets — feeding them, walking them, cleaning up after them — and jokingly said that he had the perfect pet: a rock. It doesn’t need to be fed, doesn’t poop, doesn’t die. What began as a joke that evening turned into a business plan. Dahl bought smooth pebbles from Rosarito Beach in Mexico for about a cent apiece and sold them for $3.95 each. Each rock came in a cardboard carrying case — with “breathing” holes and straw bedding inside. And here’s the main point: the product wasn’t the rock. The product was the accompanying 32-page care and training manual, written with a stone-faced (pardon the pun) seriousness: the commands “sit” and “stay” are learned instantaneously by the pet, “come here” and “fetch” not so much, and it performs the command “die” brilliantly.

In a few months, more than a million units were sold, Dahl became a millionaire, and he was written about in magazines and invited on television shows. By the beginning of 1976, it was all over, warehouses remained with unsold rocks, and attempts to repeat success with other novelty products failed. Dahl died in 2015, but the Pet Rock brand lives on: you can still buy a rock in its branded box today.

(How I found this out. I’m currently reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and came across the phrase “They were the Pet Rock of parenting.” – about Amy’s parents. I didn’t understand it and went to Google what this Pet Rock was.)

Absurdist Reactions to Government Promises in Crisis | July 30 2026, 16:20

“Once on TV appeared a deathly pale Finance Minister and declared:

— The financial crisis will not affect us. Because. I am telling you for sure.

The population, knowing the nature of official statements, silently swore and went to stock up on salt, matches, and sugar.

The next day, an utterly bewildered Minister of Trade appeared on TV and said:

— The stocks of bread and basic necessities allow us to proudly state, that there is no threat of hunger or shortages. Here are the figures.

— Oh! – said the population and bought even more flour and cereals.

The Minister of Agriculture, for emphasis, danced on the podium and joyfully announced:

— Unprecedented harvest! Hopes for export! We are reviving! The storerooms are bursting!

— Really now! – the population was horrified and ran to convert their savings into foreign currency.

— Real estate prices will fall! A penthouse for every student! In the near future! – declared the Minister of Construction, unflinchingly.

— What’s happening, huh? – the population wailed and rushed to purchase kerosene, kerosene lamps, wood, and coal.

— A modern army on a contractual basis. As early as tomorrow. And grenades of a new system. The likes of which the world has not yet seen. – stated the Minister of Defense solemnly. – Well, why not? We have plenty of money. Reserves, supplies, and a surplus in general.

— Mom!… the population squeaked and began digging dugouts.

Everything is AWE-SOME! Do you understand? AWE-SOME!! – the President insisted. – We could have built communism today. The only thing stopping us is there’d be nothing left for us to do. So, you can sleep peacefully! It doesn’t get more stable than this! Pensioners are buying caviar by the bucket! I foresee a qualitative leap and bound. And quantitatively – it’s simply a run! Taking seven-league steps towards prosperity and abundance. The Caribbean is getting closer. From here we shall threaten the world. One hundred and thirty tons of roses from each flowerbed. We will even have to reduce dairy production. The cows cannot carry the udders. The population is outraged by the cheapness. South America is asking to join us as a state farm. Hurrah!

— What on earth are you cooking up, you beasts?! – the population screamed and just in case, changed into all their clean clothes…”

Zhvanetsky. Link in comments

Exploring the Quirks of Whisper Large-V3’s Russian Decoding | July 26 2026, 18:49

It’s funny that the Whisper Large-V3 (OpenAI) voice decryption model, when working with Russian, occasionally replaces a random fragment of what it heard with one or several consecutive phrases “The point is that all speeches today speak of the most monstrous disgrace.”

Apparently, it’s also funny that many don’t care about the outcome of the transcription.

At least a thousand examples are found by Yandex and Google

The Future of Fiction: Satire and Automation in “The Silver Eggheads” | July 20 2026, 16:48

I came across the book “The Silver Eggheads” (1961) by Fritz Leiber—a satirical novel about the future of literature, featuring “wordmills” and, darn it, so many parallels with what is being done now.

In the novel, wordmills are enormous machines that have completely replaced writers in the production of fiction. They mechanically “grind” words, producing an endless stream of novels—a so-called “wordwooze”, a product perfectly tailored to the tastes of the mass reader. It causes almost narcotic pleasure: the reader swallows the book and immediately forgets its content, remaining hungry for the next one.

Human writers in the novel still exist, but purely decoratively. They don’t write a single line—they only “service” the wordmills (by pressing buttons) and maintain a public image: they wear bohemian outfits, live in attics, stir up scandals, start affairs—all that the public expects from a “real writer.” Writing has turned into show business and cosplay, while creativity itself is left to machines.

Writers, imagining that they truly can write, rise up and destroy the wordmills. And then a catastrophe is revealed: none of them can compose anything readable—the skill has been lost for generations. The publishing industry panics, searching for a solution.

That’s when the titular Silver Eggheads come into play—preserved human brains in egg-shaped metal containers, brains of writers and thinkers of the past, stored for decades in the “Wisdom of Ages.” The publishers hope that these brains will be able to write books again. The Eggheads, however, having become rather snide and peculiar entities over years of pure contemplation, don’t rush to cooperate.

The plot then turns into a whirlpool of intrigues around these thirty brains—they suddenly become the only “productive asset” in the entire publishing industry.

Meanwhile, the main trouble becomes clear: the Eggheads do not want to write. Two hundred years of pure thought have turned them into haughty contemplators—to them, human novels are trivial and petty. The first attempts to make them write yield either mockeries or texts so strange that they are unsellable. The characters eventually realize that the Eggheads need not orders but motivation: experiences, sensations, participation in life.

Funny book, I should read it sometime.