Not Different, Just Better

As many of you may have seen, Kraft recently produced a hilarious vending machine that denies children free pudding by using Intel technology to detect their age. 

As a red-blooded American, I have developed an alternative application of this technology that I feel could benefit the nation as a whole. I present my idea, tentatively entitled “Sorry, Lardbucket.”

Anybody with a facebook account is probably aware of the upset over the status of the upcoming ceremony for the anniversary of 9/11. Rather than explain things myself, I’ll just quote it here:

Due to “lack of room,” NYC Police Officers, Port Authority Police Officers and FDNY Firefighters are not “invited” to the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at Ground Zero. Funny - they weren’t invited on that day in 2001, either - they just “showed up” and became our heroes. Please re-post if you think they belong MORE than the politicians who are invited

First off, I want to say that it is incredible, commendable, and relieving that Americans still care about 9/11 and the heroes who responded to the tragedy enough for this to become so endemic on the social network. However, a quick google search reveals that there is some misinformation being passed around here, as is so often the case with viral posts. The reason there’s no room for the New York emergency services at the ceremony is because of the massive number of people who were injured or who lost loved ones in the tragedy. It isn’t that there is no room for them because of the presence of thousands of politicians, but because of the thousands of victims. In fact, one of those sources goes as far as to quote that “…only a limited number of lawmakers from the Tri-state area will be allowed to attend.”  Even if organizers didn’t invite a single politician, there still wouldn’t be room for all the emergency responders-and that wouldn’t be fair either. It’s already been decided that another ceremony will be held for the heroes you mentioned. The planning certainly was handled incorrectly-I don’t understand how simultaneous events could have taken place, and I think Mayor Bloomberg’s response to things was pretty insufficient. However, the issue doesn’t call for this kind of flak given the circumstances. It definitely calls for flak-but informed flak, please.

Some time ago I made a post regarding the hole in the world of pop culture the release of the final part of Harry Potter would create. The culture-wide obsession is something that visits us every ten years or so, beginning with Lord of the Rings and including such franchises as the first three Star Wars films. Having realized it will be at least several years until a new option enters the fray, I have decided to shoulder the burden myself of selecting several potential candidates for you, the teeming masses. Look for more in upcoming posts in a move I tentatively title “staying motivated to post here at any cost.”

First up is “Cone-ing.” Like planking, but requiring the brain cells to keep a straight face and the coordination to use your hand like some kind of twisted bird-claw, cone-ing has the potential to be a fantastic new internet meme. What’s more, it requires real-life participation, therefore also making it a valuable campaign to prevent vitamin D deprivation among the youth of our generation. I understand it would be difficult to make a feature-length film featuring cone-ing exclusively. However, I believe that with the proper “star power” it is within the realm of possibility, as long as one downplays the lack of a plot, characters, or moral. It worked for the second three Star Wars films, after all. What’s more, a film opens up the way for a wide range of other media-“Cone-ing: The Junior Novelization.” “Cone-ing: Action Figure Playset.” “Cone-ing: Official Collector Statuette”

See, the last two would actually be the same thing but the second would cost twice as much.

That’s right folks, I’m back. Just like a herpes infection, every time you think you’ve got me beat I come right back-I was hiding in your nerve endings the whole time!

A lot’s happened since we last checked in-but it all pales in comparison to the stupendous return of this blog. Jumping right into things, I’m still rather irritated over the buzz-a-buzz regarding North Korea lately. Every time they open trade with China there’s a massive conflagration of speculation and fear. I have no idea why this is the case. You’ll note that pictured here is the same country we’re so worried about. We’re concerned that a country that can’t even light itself at night is trying to feed its own people through trade. Do we have a right to be concerned regrading North Korean nuclear power and aggression? Yes. But we should be MORE worried about the deaths of millions of their own civilians in a nuclear accident that will startle no one, given the shining track record of communist nuclear power. On that note, there’s probably more concern to be had regarding the hundreds of lost Soviet nuclear warheads that are now safely in the hands of dozens of bickering, unstable subfactions of the former USSR. Seriously, can someone remind me again why that ISN’T still a major issue in the media?

 Speaking of disappointments by the global market, somebody else’s recent return was a remarkable disappointment. I’m looking at you, Duke. Proof that, like supermarket cheese, a mass market video game does NOT become better by sitting for 14 years. 

In conclusion, something about global warming to get me slipped into a lot of tumblr feeds.

The United States has launched missile strikes on Libyan air defenses and radar installations in an attempt to enforce the no-fly zone that has been in effect. The strikes were launched from Navy vessels stationed in the Mediterranean Sea, conveniently far from any source of retaliation. Casualty details are not available for now, but numbers are probably low given the unmanned nature of these installations. It seems the US is going to attempt to keep this a remote fight for as long as possible, which is sensible. However, it’s completely within Gadhafi’s power to strike said Navy vessels with the same forces he’s been attacking his own people with. The Libyan army has recently begun moving into population centers to prevent the airstrikes the US and allies would otherwise begin deploying. For now, it seems the USAF is going to be there for the long term regarding the air patrols. At the moment, there doesn’t seem to be much of a predictable outcome here. The likelihood of Gadhafi stepping down is low, considering human rights and basic decency haven’t stopped him yet. At any rate, this conflict is actually a case where the US has the unchallengeable upper hand, so I feel confident that no matter what bridges we have to burn we’ll win this one. Whether that’s what is ethically right or wrong is the real question. How far is the US willing to stretch its influence for the purpose or policing and peacekeeping? 

That’s right. The search engine that was formerly the unlovable redheaded stepchild of websites, live search, has beaten Yahoo as the second most popular search engine in the world. Surely they will be able to inflate their now-massive 4.37 percent market share to surpass Google’s mere 89.94. 

But remember kids, just because you want a computer with this great search built in, don’t pirate Windows! Stealing is wrong! We would never do anything like that!

Oh, additionally, I think it’s time I became a magician, considering I’ve perfected my vanishing act.

This bad is news. Bad news indeed.

Mubarak has decided to stay in office. Rather than write a long anaylsis or interpretation of the events, I will simply quote Egyptian Nobel peace prize recipient Mohamed ElBaradei: 

“”The Army must save the country now. I call on the Egyptian army to immediately interfere to rescue Egypt. The credibility of the army is on the line.” 

Rescue. Rescue Egypt. He also stated how “Egypt will explode” in response to the news. By the way, considering the way the army was recieved when it entered Cairo, I’m going to assume that by “interfere” ElBaradei means “violently overthrow the government.”

The Egyptian prime minister has implied that the government will be “riding out” the protests. The same protests that resulted in torching government buildings, and the same protests which the military greeted with practically open arms. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is a major tactical error on the part of the Egyptian government. This is the way mostly bloodless coupes turn into bloody coupes. I am going to go out on another limb and say that that is probably not the result President Mubarak and the prime minister are after. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that is not even remotely near what they’re after.

Made with LucidCharts and Photoshop

First, a bit of background. As you can learn from this article, if you stand on the front of a train and fire a gun the bullet will exit the gun at its normal speed, but will start at the speed of the train, adding those two speeds together.

Now, scientists often cite the fact that mass increases proportionally with speed to refute the concept of light-speed travel: accelerating to light speed becomes virtually impossible as whatever accelerating object becomes exponentially heavier. Additionally, said buzzkill scientists state how unrealistic the power requirements of such a speed would be. Such things considered, here is my humble proposal for intergalactic lightspeed travel.

1. Get about 10 spaceships of incrementally decreasing size, each equipped with an engine capable of propelling the first ship at 1/10 the speed of light. For the purpose of this thought experiment we are assuming technology has advanced enough to make engines that can reach this speed. Since each ship will be around a tenth smaller than its previous craft, the final ship should be capable of reaching the speed of the first ship at 10 times its weight using the same propulsion as that ship. The design of all but the last spaceship should only be complicated enough to allow it to carry the other spaceships and release its cargo on command from the front of the craft.

2. Nest all of the spaceships inside each other. The smallest spaceship should contain whatever needs to be ferried at lightspeed.

3. Launch the largest craft, carrying all the others, and bring it up its top speed (1/10th the speed of light.) 

4. Open the front of the largest craft and drive the next spaceship out, until that ship reaches its top speed. The second ship is now travelling at 2/10ths the speed of light.

5. Continue this until you have reached the 2nd to last ship. Said craft should be travelling at 9/10ths the speed of light.

6. Open the front of the last craft and fly the final ship out until it reaches its top speed. You are now travelling at the speed of light and the universe has disintegrated.