h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What is the point of the Harlem Shake?

It seems just so irrational ... and hence surely should be banned and the culprits punished/ castigated?

The Board of an Oxford College seem to have acted rationally in sacking a librarian and fining students for this irrational behaviour:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-21847581

What was the point of students swallowing goldfish and cramming themselves into phone booths? All in good fun, I would think. Except for the goldfish.

Formula 1 racing may never be the same:
http://www.redbull.com/en/motorsports/f1/stories/1331582809850/f1-harlem-shake-sauber

Red Bull Racing at the Australian V8s is already dead for a ducat:
http://www.redbull.com/en/motorsports/offroad/stories/1331582050832/red-bull-racing-australia-dance-the-harlem-shake


~jwf~

This report was the first to bring my attention to the phenomenon of the Harlem Shake.
I have yet to study its origins and history nor to work out the possible implications for the future of the species known as Homo Sap.
This opens up into an iplayer clip
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/snooker/21493784

Perhaps it is akin to the reactionary activities of those crazy group of people known as the Romantics to the rationalising behaviour endemic in the mid to late enlightenment period

'S got something to do with whatever is the point of planking, flash mobs and Gangnam Style.

In other words, .

Viral crazes, like viral illnesses, don't really *have* a point. The just exist, and proliferate for a while, until they're replaced by something similar but slightly different.

Keep Calm and Carry On, I suppose.

A good way to tell an internet craze is over is when someone starts a thread about it on hootoo

It's a bit of silliness that's become very popular.

As a bit of silliness it does not need to have a point.

Life without silliness is boring.

Sacking people for allowing silliness to happen is just ludicrous.

Hmmm.... not as tasteful as doing the mudshark But in a library... sacking was too good for her.... sacraledge...
On the plus side, anythign that gets the youth involved in physical activity and up and out of their TV-chair has got to be good... Right?

Au contraire, Mr Dreadful. One of them is clearly seen lifting a chair up and down at a less-than-sedate pace. If ructions and revelry like this can happen in an Oxford College, they could happen anywhere! It should have been a life sentence for the lot of them, I say.

Sedate chair-lifting is a gateway to sedition. It stands to reason.

Exactly... Let such activities occur in such a place as a library, and a University library at that, and the next thing you know, there's rioting on the streets, improvised gallows being erected, and society breaks down entirely...

The next viral craze is probably going to be sedate chair-lifting.

Was there not a sign involved which
demanded Freedom for Pussy Riot?




~jwf~

a-a-e - if you upload a vid of sedate chair lifting, I'll do the same. We can sweep the planet with it.
(to be fair, we'd better warn librarians not to do it)

I found this from the BBC. It opens up to an iplayer clip on the hazards of being a plank:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13408156

It seems to be an exercise in .... balance and muscle control.

Sedately?

It is very difficult to correctly sedate a chair.

I believe Dr J. C. Morris, (et al), had the definitive word on the subject, in the seminal paper, "Dosage and administration of chair sedation", (Lancett, 1984, V3 I 1, 3270345).

As with all and any inanimate object sedation, the correct dosage is not just the mere application of the already established formuli used typically in sedation, as their is, in many cases, a lack of relationship between the mass of the chair (or other inanimate object), and the unbiological inactivity of the object being sedated; Meaning one can not solely base dosage on the subjects mass. As determined by Dr Morris, it is necessary, therefore, to take the inverse log, of the basic dosage formula, and useing the mathmatical methodology as he set out in the paper, effectively reduce the dosage to be administered, based on a calculation of the subjects density. The denser the subject, the higher dosage required. However, and as he also commented on further in later publications on teh area, this cannot always produce sufficient sedation of the subject in question, and to this end, a qualitive examination of initial dosage and its affect on the subject is necessary to allow for full sedation of the chair, or subject, concerned.

Chair hospital. Chair... hospital. Chair hospital TV drama. Chair air-ambulance documentary.

I almost tripped over some kids planking in front of a pedestrian crossing. I harrumphed and scowled at them, which is the proper British way and almost certainly how the librarian and students should be dealt with. All this firing and fines seems positively colonial!

It is a painful, and ever-constant reminder of the social and socio-economic situation, as is, at the current time, to see the plight of so-many of the chairs in this once proud nation. Neglected, abused, and forgotten, a lost generation of chairs shall surely be the fallout of our current age; In times past, wehn the situation was better, we cared for our chairs, loved our chairs, yet, as the ever-present financial crisis bites deeper, the state, and wellbeing of so many chairs, has gradually reduced, hitting an all time low up and down the nation. From the depression of the nation, in this deep set period of osterity, the humble, great chair, has, in so many respects, taken the brunt of the deepending woe, that has befallen the nation. neglection is the least of the chair's current concerns, for as it continues, neglect turns to abuse, and the once great chairs of this nation fall into such sorry states of abuse and disrepair, as to render, in time, the entire country, void of the true greatness that once was our historical and cultural glory of our chairs. So, even as the government passes judgement on the state of the economy, even they, in their seats of power, fail to move on this issue; fail to address the state of the nations chairs, and fails to put in place, that, whcih would be necessary to provide for their repair, their maintanace, and lets this once great chair herratage, fall, and decrease into an ever sorry, and depraived state