Dear Ask the Fish,
What is the best way to keep my cuticles supple in the winter? Pink woollen socks are my friend, but they suck all the lotion off my toes... Unclegoats for your dental hygentist. Thanks.
-Supernaturaltoe

Dear Supernaturaltoe,
I have a similar problem with my fins. Except (and please excuse me if it seems like I'm one-upp'ing your problem) that mine might be a little worse, since for me it's not just the fact that the air is a little drier in the winter. Rather, it's the fact that I belong underwater, and it is my natural habitat (not, as the idiots I work for seem to think, in front of a computer for half the day, and in the laundry room for the other half. Seriously, I have no idea how my agent thought that would be an acceptable part of the contract for me. First of all, I'm allergic to anti-static sheets. Second of all, I have no opposable thumb (in fact, I'm lacking fingers of any sort, making doing the laundry something of a trial)).

Sorry about that. What was the question? Oh, yeah, your precious fucking cuticles. Well, what I do TO KEEP MYSELF FROM DYING is utilize a specially designed "reverse-scuba suit" (the idea for which I got by eavesdropping on Kennyb as he was watching an episode of Futurama a ways back). It's a form-fitting body suit, which is hermetically sealed and attached to a set of salt water tanks, which recycle the watcer (so I'm not sitting in my own fishy filth). Now, clearly the system would have to be modified for your own needs, since your problem is dry fingers, and not the imminent threat of your own death. What I would suggest is getting a box of large latex gloves, and putting some moisterizing lotion in the finger tips of a pair. Wear then while you're sitting watching TV, or slip them on before you go to bed. This will keep your hands nice and healthy throughout the winter months, as well as giving you everything you need to "play along" with Law and Order during that uncomfortable body cavity search scene from the drug running episode in 2003.

Oh, and since I mentioned the show, I'd like to pour a little out for my man, Jerry Orbach, who passed away this week. Nothing funny to say here, just great respect for one of TV's greatest crime fighters. Thanks, Lenny.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
ass
-ben

Dear ben,
Yes, you are.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What's the difference between " .htm" and " .html"? I seem to recall reading somewhere that one was PC & other MAC, but I can't figure what sense that would make.
"l" -less in Lake Hiawatha
-Charlie McNally

Dear Charlie,
Older operating systems (MS-DOS, for example) had an upper limit on the length of filenames. For DOS, it was eight characters for the name of the file, and three letters for the extension. So ".html" (the extension on unix and Mac OS's) was (back in the day) often truncated to ".htm" in order to have filenames be able to be understood by all the different systems.

Because of this, many pieces of software were made to be backward compatible with this absurd restriction, and for some reason, that carries through to this day. For Pete's sake, the latest version of Dreamweaver defaults to using a 3-letter extension! It's the 21st century, people! Start acting like it!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
I noticed in a recent rant you suggested using cows with Mad Cow disease to clear mine fields. That sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Can you please outline the pros and cons of such an endeavor? What do you think it the most difficult logicstical problem?
-Curious in Canada

Dear Curious,
I think the biggest problem is that, if you think those cows are mad now, just wait until you describe the plan. Those suckers are going to be livid!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Why are lesbians soooo cool
-Jesus

Dear Jesus,
Ask your dad, dude. He invented 'em.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
I'm a bird. Ask me a question.
-Ask the Bird

Dear Ask,
What's up with taking baths in stone structures in people's backyards? A little exhibitionistic, no? Then again, we fish take long stringy dumps in tanks in the middle of people's living rooms. Let the non-mammal without oddly public hygiene habits cast the first, uh, thing, I guess. Yeah. Well, that was uncomfortable. How 'bout from now on I answer the questions around here, 'kay?
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
what was my librarian doing with a toothbrush in the toilets? (i assume she wasn't cleaning her teeth because she didn't have any toothpaste)
-Flic freaked from librarian

Dear Flic,
A toothbrush is an excellent tool for scrubbing difficult stains, examples of which are plentiful in public restrooms. Or on librarians' teeth, for that matter.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
what is a dingleberry?
-dingleberry

Dear dingleberry,
It's definitely inappropriate to describe on a family site, but maybe you'll get the idea if I use it in a sentence: The damn fool died hitting his head on the stall door while trying to rock a dingleberry.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
How do I get a a guy to like me?
I'm overweight sort of and I am very nice.
-Krista

Dear Krista,
If I learned nothing from Jack Black's movie. . . (honestly, I have no recollection what the name of that particular piece of crap was. I think Jack Black is funny in the abstract, but seldomly in the actual execution. I mean, obviously School of Rock was the best movie ever, but I'm just not down with him in general), all it takes for an overweight girl to be loved by an unappealing mess of a man is to have him hypnotized to believe the opposite of his current value system (Seriously. That's what I learned from that fucking movie. How does Hollywood stay in business? I think there's no better object lesson describing the distance man currently is from his divine nature than any given Tom Greene movie. Possibly Dodgeball. Which is upsetting, since I LOVED Old School.).

But I might be getting distracted. What was the question? Oh, right. Sort of overweight girl, looking for love. Right). Well, here's some advice from someone in the market for some wet and slimy scale slappin' - you aren't going to enjoy anyone coming over to your place unless you think it's ready for a visit. It sounds (and forgive me for playing amateur psychologist here. . .) like you might have some unresolved personal body issues. Now, since you seem to be a girl, this comes as no surprise to anyone, since (and I'll be one of the first to admit not only the fact, but my own personal complicity therein) society really does provide a completely absurd vision for the ideal female aesthetic. I know, it's unfair. But, fair or not, you have only a single way to deal constructively with the problem - you aren't going to be able to exude the self-confidence required to hook a boy unless you reach some sort of peace with your body. This means either positive thoughts about your body and self appreciation, or working on those physical aspects of yourself you think need to be improved.

My personal suggestion? Try a fair amount of both. In general, more physical exercise is always a good thing (people these days really tend to be fairly inactive, and it's not a good thing. Take after halibut - go for a swim once in a while). And positive thinking has beneficial returns on a number of different fronts, and will only make your life better.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Will Jeff and I get married?
-Amber

Dear Amber,
Forgive me for asking, Amber, but aren't there nine princes in you already? (Nerdiest response ever?)
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
What is the correct possition to have sex and be productive??
-Aaron Westra

Dear Aaron,
First off, I want to apologize to our readership for a question that might seem more appropriate in an edition of Savage Love than Ask the Fish. But this is an open forum, and far be it from me to take away someones right to free speech (as in speech) and free advice (as in beer).

I did some analysis, and found that the best position for productive sex is by mounting the lady from behind, while she is in a kneeling position (hands either on the bed, or more effectively, on the headboard). This creates a flat (and if you are using the headbboard, upward angling) surface on which you can put your papers/books so as to get some reading or work done. If your companion has enough hair, feel free to use it as a pencil holder. Be sure, however, to not use ANYTHING ELSE available that may look like it would be a good place to stick a pencil. Take it from someone who has made that particular mistake before, that is just not appropriate office behavior.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
If your a fish? than how are you talking
-Justin

Dear Justin,
Justin I was going to make fun of you, but then I realized something. Justin, all of these people read what I have to say, but you - you are the only guy really hearing me, you know?

Thanks, buddy.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Why is it that when I click on the link to your archives, it redirects me to the top of the current Ask the Fish page instead? I'd like to read the back issues, because I got into the habit of only checking your site every six months or so. That's about when new updates would come out.
-Your Biggest Fan

Dear Your,
Yeah, sorry about that. That was my bad. That should be fixed now. And I do appreciate the snide tone. Seriously, if it weren't for verbal abuse from my fans, friends, and business collegues, I wouldn't get anything done. Submissively yours - The Fish
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
if there is more that one universe what is the thing called that they are all a part of?
-Nathan W.

Dear Nathan,
The multiverse.

Sorry if this update led you to load the Ask The Fish page, all excited that there was going to be a serious addition to this page. Just a quickie. My bad.

Man, if I had a daisy for every time I said that, I'd have a field full of flowers.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Hello,
Have you ever been to homestarrunner.com? It's really funny. Maybe not as funny as your website but funny.
-Maddy

Dear Maddy,
Actually, Maddy, I have been to Home Star Runner, and yes, it is really funny. It's WAY funnier than Alltooflat.com (I have empirical evidence that this is the case, since ATF's biggest fan [Big Ben Davis - Hi Ben!] has Homestar as his AIM icon, and not me, Eric the Fish. And I go with Big Ben on things that are funny. . . if only because he think's we're really funny).

In fact, I'm going to quit writing this response and go watch the latest Strong Bad email. Holy carp, they are so much better than Ask The Fish!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Eric - what the Hell were you talking about in the letter to the possibly overweight girl a few questions down? What does you loving Old School have to do with Dodgeball? And Tom Greene is in NEITHER of those movies! Have you gone off the deep end?
-Kennyb

Dear Kennyb,
Dude, I'm a halibut. I live in water 3600 feet below sea level. The very word halibut comes from the Scandinavian word, halliflundra, meaning 'a fish that can be found in deep holes'. It doesn't get any deeper than my end.

Wait, that didn't come out quite right.
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Mr. Fish,

Evolution or Creation?
-Herbei Swizzles

Dear Herbei,
Evolution. To be blunt, everything we know about science--from general principles like Occam's Razor to specific areas of zoology, biology, anthropology, genetics, and countless other disciplines--leads those who approach this question without a preexisting agenda to conclude that evolution is the best-supported theory available. And yes, while it is still "just a theory" and therefore subject to the flaws and gaps inherent in all theories, it holds up not just better than the rest, but remarkably well, at least as well as several other "theories" that go comparatively unchallenged, for obvious reasons. (A look at a Biblical concordance will yield precious little in the way of a counterargument against quantum physics, for example.) It requires a deliberately credulous mind to take evolution's flaws and gaps and build from them (as one builds a castle from sand) a competing theory rife with far more flaws and gaps, one which draws as heavily on unscientific articles of faith as it does on science. Creationism--or, to use the designation this unscientific belief has been given by adherents seeking to tart it up in pseudoscientific drag, Intelligent Design--is, I think, representative of a mindset I find somewhat frightening, one which looks back on centuries of advancement in the realm of scientific thought and sees a tragedy in the making. (This is borderline ad hominem, I know, but oftentimes it's a mindset adhered to by the same individuals who kick around the possibility of allowing states to make birth control illegal. And this is doubly true for those who bypass the Intelligent Design ruse altogether in favor of the old-school argument that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, because a series of ancient Hebrew religious writers said so. (Those dinosaur bones they dig up? Put in the ground by the devil as a test of your faith. Carbon dating, schmarbon dating!)) But we can be less confrontational about this, can't we? I hand the reins over to writer Rand Simberg, who recently addressed this very controversy.

Of course no such proof [of the validity of the theory of evolution, as often demanded by proponents of Creationism/Intelligent Design] has been offered. Proof of the validity of the theory (and there's nothing about that word that should shake our confidence in evolution or any other scientific theory) of evolution does not, and cannot, exist. And that's true not only for evolution, but for gravity, quantum chromodynamics, and any scientific theory that one wants to consider. Proving that theories are correct simply isn't how science works. How science works is by putting forth theories that are disprovable, not ones that are provable. When all other theories have been disproven, those still standing are the ones adopted by most scientists. ID is not a scientific theory, because it fails the test of being disprovable (or to be more precise, non-falsifiable), right out of the box. If [proponents of ID don't] believe this, then let [them] postulate an experiment that one could perform, even in thought, that would show it to be false. ID simply says, "I'm not smart enough to figure out how this structure could evolve, therefore there must have been a designer." That's not science--it's simply an invocation of a deus ex machina, whether its proponents are willing to admit it or not. And it doesn't belong in a science classroom, except as an example of what's not science. I've made my position on this subject quite clear in the past. ID, and creationism in general should be able to be taught in the public schools. Just not in a science class--they need to be reserved for a class in comparative religions. Of course, I don't think that public schools should even exist, but that's an entirely different subject. The point is that ID isn't science--it's a copout on science and the scientific method, and as I said in my post a couple years ago, creationists attempting to get their views into science class, whether explicitly as the 6000-year-old solution or dressed up as science, as in ID, is a failure of their own personal faith in their own beliefs. They seem to think that if science doesn't validate their faith, then their faith is somehow thereby weakened, and that they must fight for its acceptance in that realm. But that's nonsense. Faith is faith. It by definition requires a suspension of disbelief. If their faith hasn't the strength to withstand science, then they should reexamine their faith, not attempt (one hopes in futility) to bring down a different belief system that is entirely orthogonal to it.

I think this last argument is worth reiterating. Creationism and ID are not just inimical to science--they're inimical to religious faith as well. There is nothing, literally nothing, to suggest that a belief in the creation of the universe by God and a belief in the theory of evolution are incompatible. Science is now and always will be mute on the question of What Started It All, simply by virtue of what science is: science can only examine existence, and if anything exists beyond existence, it's out of science's purview. We know about the Big Bang and all that, but how did all that crap get there in the first place? Science will never have the answer; religion might. To take it back to the question of evolution, why couldn't God have set it up that way and just let things, you guessed it, evolve, rather than stepping in time and again to show how boss He is, as proponents of ID would have it? The answer is that there is no reason why he couldn't--unless your faith in God is so weak that you think He'd give us such marvelous brains that we could puzzle all this stuff out but then demand that we ignore the picture we put together from the pieces. The God of such people apparently thinks it's okay, say, to wear eyeglasses, but it's not okay to interpret the world around us logically, as have some of the finest minds of the past 150 years. One fruit of the progress sciences has made since the book of Genesis was written thousands of years ago is fine, yet for some reason another such fruit is not. That's a very weird God, no? (Okay, I'll level with you. I'm holding out for evolution because I'm hoping it means that one day I'll sprout feet, like in all those nifty Darwin-fish bumper appliques. I simply cannot wait to go shoe shopping (even though I hear parking at DSW is a real bitch.))
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
If the meek are going to inherit the earth, then why don't they look a bit more smug about it?
-Adam

Dear Adam,
I don't have an answer to this, but I did want to take the time to tell Adam that this is the funniest question that we've gotten here at Ask The Fish in a really long time. Thanks Adam!
-ATF

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Dear Ask the Fish,
Why when you look at a strobe light do you see the light as constantly on not constantly off?
-Xtine

Dear Xtine,
The reason for this is related to the fact that the sink in my bathroom never seems to be emptied. You see, all sensation in the body (human and fish) occurs through some pathway in our nervous system. This nervous system is actually a seriously remarkable network of nerve and other types of specialized cells, the complexity of which is completely freaking mind-boggling.

Anyway, when you have any sort of sensation (such as when a strobe light flashes near you), certain nerves fire, sending a signal along the optic nerve back to the brain. The way nerves from cell to cell is by secreting a chemical called a neurotransmitter into the gap between cells (called the synaptic gap). Now, the neurotransmitter sits in that gap for a period of time, and is not instantaneously disappated (they can be reabsorbed into the cell, destroyed by enzymes specific to that task, or just diffuse out of the synaptic gap). Because it sits there for some time, the theoretically instantaneous stimuli (strobe) appears to last longer than it actually does.

In case that doesn't make it clear, what is happening is that the to your brain is taking a series of point events, and averaging them over time so that they appear connected. The dark points are NOT stimuli - they are periods marked by lack of stimuli, which are washed out by both the (physiologically) prolonged flashes of light, and the dude who thinks it's real funny to do the robot.
-ATF

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