Thousands of years ago, the Chinese developed a lie detector using two cups of rice:
Fill the suspect’s mouth with rice.
Ask some obvious questions to elicit a known truthful answer
Have the suspect spit the rice into a cup and count the grains
Fill the suspect’s mouth with rice again
Have the suspect spit the rice out into a cup and re-count the grains. If he spits more rice out the second time, you have found your man. The Chinese were working on the supposition that when you lie your mouth gets dry. Therefore if you were lying, less rice would stick to the inside of your mouth and you would spit more back into the cup. The question with the known truthful answer was supposedly a control to see how much rice would stay in your mouth when you weren’t fibbing.
Arty Bees have discovered a book published in 1981 which includes a section on paranormal projects for plant communication that tells you how to build a lie detector for your philodendron.
After detailing the construction of the lie detector and a chart recorder for plants that are eavesdropping on your thoughts, there follow pages and pages retelling the results of various experiments and `games’ the author and others have played with plants. Lying in front of them (i.e. purposefully not telling the truth, not lying in a horizontal position) to get a reaction.
The chapter finishes on an even odder note (is that even possible?) when the author details his anecdotal results in getting plants to control various electrical devices for him. This means hooking up a plant to a combined `detector/controller’ which can turn lights on or off, and then by directing different types of thoughts at the plants he convinces the plant to create the required sequence of events that will trigger the circuit, in a repeatable manner! Beats getting up from your comfy chair to turn the light off, yes?
… you must think in a “language” your plants understand and react to in order to get them to work for you… you might have to threaten the plant with injury to get it to turn on your reading lamp.”
more unusual lamps to be found here
gimcrack hospital (PG) 
I keep threatening to smoke my plant, but he/she just ignores me.
Passive aggressive philodendron?
I tried coming over all aggressive to my Yukka plant, but she just keeps laughing at me. Do you think it’s because of my accent?
is it full on guffawing or just tittering? If it’s the latter she could be flirting with you
I hooked a rubber plant to the internet and thought evil thoughts about world domination at it. A few days later, a package of condoms and a leather face mask arrived via eBay.
I need to work on using a language that’s slightly less abstract, i think. Or at least one that’s a bit more pun resistant.
hmmm… if i could learn to communicate with plants, perhaps the same technique could be used to communicate with some of our denser physicists, who occasionally resemble plantlife…
Ah-HA! I knew it! It’s those fucking plants! I was wondering who was betraying all my mischief to Mrs. Wife. And all this time I thought I didn’t know how to tell a proper lie.
what mischief exactly? C’mon UB, spill the beans
Those lamps are creepy but cool.
The lamp designs are awesome.
Aren’t they just?
WTF. I say something and get nothing. Uh says the same damn thing and gets acknowledgement of his comment. Where’s the love. ha ha
So you want me to say “aren’t they just?” twice?
jeez bearman, if I had to think of an answer to every comment I wouldn’t have time to think of something to blog about. Nor would I have time to visit other blogs – including yours, which by the way, I visit twice as often as ~uh’s~
That’s because I give you shout outs in my blog posts. Like just yesterday http://beartoons.com/2009/07/16/guest-cartoon-at-cocknbull/ haha
I can just see installing one of these artifacts in my massage room, for a mood effect.
oh dear. i’m vegetarian. this is upsetting to me! they can think?? what is this language they speak? must i threaten them to get them to do my bidding? do i threaten them with eating and then eat their dead brethren anyway – but that fucks with trust issues you know and then i would have an atmosphere of fear and loathing in my house…no no, rather just switch the damn lamp on myself and eat my veggie lasange in peace
wow those lamps are creepy, the noose lamp? i dunno if i could have that one in my house~very odd!
But what a conversation piece…..
I used to have all my house plants acting as free labor for me until now, they’d clean the windows, do the dishes, everything. Then when I moved to Spain I thought I’d lost my touch; that my pimp hand had gone soft. Now I know! I guess I’ll have to start threatening these putas in Spanish!
I only have cacti around the house. There’s nothing you can threaten them with. They love not being watered for months.
You could threaten to pull out their spikes
I have no fear of any lie detection method ….. I’d fail all of them completely …… add this comment to one and you’ll see I’m telling the truth ……
That. Is. Awesome.
How can plants eavesdrop of my thoughts if they speak a different language than I do?
Plants are omniscient, you need to wear a tinfoil hat to protect yourself against them
Maybe the FBI/CIA/MI5 should read this it would save them a fortune.. however it is a kin to the ducking stool.. if she drowns she is not a witch… lol 😉
My brother is a leather-shoe wearing vegetarian. He got all high and mighty on my one day (as I’m a carnivore) and I retorted with “But yes, what about the wholesale slaughter of vegetables? Who speaks for the carrots?”
Thanks for clearing this up.
Prefect
The King
nursemyra is the handmaiden of the carrots 😉
Great tip myra–maybe I can get the weeds choking my azaleas to power some sexual devices. Speaking of which, there is Spassfabrik for your inspection.
You know what? I’m gonna try whole rice-in-mouth thingy! Some eejit has been keeping my book for more than a year but no one wants to fess up!
Thank you luv….i truly am all the wiser the more i visit your site
This does not surprise me in the least. I don’t trust plants.
Anything that sits and listens to what Prince Charles has to say is obviously a bit shifty.
I believe the seminal work on the subject of intelligent plants was The Secret Life Of Plants, or some such.
I have some shamrocks that hate my ex. They’re pretty smart.
Welcome to the gimcrack gnusnow – do you have a blog of your own?
Not really, Nursemyra. I’m sorta the poop deck at Steamboat McGoo’s place, recently installed. All shiny mahogany and oak I was too, until the seagulls showed up. And now I know why it’s called the poop deck.
I have always theorized that plants had emotions. Someday man will only be able to eat chemicals without feeling guilty.
Oops… sorry about the HTML. You get the idea. I’m suce a babe in the HTML forest.
such. Sign.