Saturday, September 27, 2014

"Crankshaft is implausible"


"This is impossible. Even if the lawn mower is self-propelled, it cannot climb a tree, because the wheels disengage when you let go of the dead-man’s handle. Even if this feature is disabled, it cannot climb a tree, because the wheels are not touching anything; the rotation of the blade will not cause the mower to go up a tree, let alone stay there."
 
James Lileks

12 comments:

ampersand said...

A tondeuse à gazon valliant, rien impossible.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Next you are going to say things that happen in the Road Runner are implausible. I cannot tolerate any more of this cartoon heresy!

[cover my ears and chant "LA, LA, LA, LA, LA" repeatedly so I cannot hear you]

Tank said...

Saw a bunch of actual roadrunners in Texas.

Fast.

Very fast.

I kept missing them.

Anonymous said...

Mower is no carbureted, is fool injected.

Paddy O said...

Credo quia absurdum

Paddy O said...

"The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it which the merely improbable lacks."

Unknown said...

Also impossible.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I like that quote PaddyO.

MamaM said...

The plausible part is the blooming of the "I'll trim that sucker off" thought. I've seen those form and come to life, with little to no regard for plausibility.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The cartoon could have been redeemed with a play on the old cat-up-a-tree trope.

The Dude said...

LOL @ MamaM - sounds like the kind of tree cutting stories I might tell. Tall tales of the best kind.

Paddy O said...

Lem, it's from Dirk Gently's Detective Agency by Douglas Adams.

One of my favorite books.