Veripolis

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Take away this kid's screwdriver!!!

Watch this sweet commercial. He's so precocious.

Watch again... Watch it!!!

I know this commercial is supposed to be all adorable and about how the kid is exploring his world of electronics, and his parents have big dreams of his future in the world of computer science. He's taking things apart, learning about computers and electrical systems... I was that kid. I took things apart to see how they worked, and not everything went back together quite right (always had a pile of important looking shit left over).

But he's taking a screwdriver and digging up the traces on the motherboard, before he jams that wretched tool into the IDE and power ports and bends all the pins into a completely unusable state!

He's destroyed what would be, to a consummate computer professional as myself, merely a $100 piece of equipment. But, given his retard parents, he's probably demolishing their entire $1000 Dell desktop with no hope of repair. Say goodbye to all that savings you devoted to Lit 101 and 102!

I want to encourage any kid I have someday to explore his interests. But I don't want him opening the hood to my car, jamming a screwdriver through the fuel line, knifing the timing belt and trying his hand with the wire cutters on the brake lines. That's not learning... it's just vandalism.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Fairness doctrine in action

Tonight I gave a chance to a reprehensively bad episode of the new Fox breakout: Lie to Me. Besides the criminal use of Tim Roth in this one-trick pony of a team of deus ex machina truth detectors, I saw the Fairness Doctrine in action without the need for government intervention.

I saw the team, over the course of an hour, demonstrate the effect of "microexpressions" (in the form of ham-fisted displays of obviousness) to solve their crimes CSI-style. They even-handedly used images and video of Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Chief Justice John Roberts, juxtaposed over the hour with videos of President Obama and President Bill Clinton to illustrate examples of people lying.

This show decided to use government officials as example of liars, which is well within reason. But it knew not to go the now standard Bush-bashing route (oddly, I didn't see any imagery of Bush himself) to sell its product.

It does a decent job of using the weaknesses of our government controlling a message or keeping a secret, but at least it doesn't paint the whole apparatus as an institutional lie factory.

Still… terrible show.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Just a weapons malfuction... how are you?

Holy Christ, this old guy isn't afraid of death.

Your delta-wing plane has no engines. Physics dictates that you and your passengers are doomed to a fiery death. How do you deal with it?

Apparently, when you're a millionty years old... calm and composed.

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Hats off, of course. Enough crazy has happened in the last couple of weeks to wipe clean the achievement of a perfect water landing (in layman's terms, a horrific firey drowning exercise). But the composure of not only the pilot jarting headlong into hydro-doom... but of the air traffic controller executing emergency procedures and activating emergency response in the unlikely event that some star child were to survive the splashdown. Wow... just, wow. How are you?

My favorite part is the guy on the edge of the wing falling into the water. When you're the considerate nice guy first out of the plane, you walk to the furthest edge of the wing. What's your reward? Wet coldness with your life-raft (read: AirBus 320) floating away. I feel for you, Properly-Walking-To-The-End-Of-The-Wing-Guy.

Awwwww

We give trophies to dipshit kids for losing every game in the season.

Then, this happens. Sometimes, the most inspiring things come from the least exceptional of us.

This gives me a happy.