Science!
If you're studying for an exam or just want to know how the universe works, then I'm your man. I'm here to answer a few simple science questions, be it a physics or biology or chemistry or even a psychology question. Hopefully I can fire up the engine of thought that is your brain.
1. Who created the universe?
It's not really a question of who but what. What created the universe? Was it a big bang? Was it a computer?
Actually it was that first one. The Big Bang. Basically what happened was there was a Big Bang and then suddenly stuff was. Billions of years later our solar system formed and now here you are, reading this blog.
2. What is evolution?
Evolution is a naturally occurring phenomenon, theorized most famously by Charles Darwin. It takes a long time to occur. Take a herd of a buffalo for instance. The herd is only as fast as its slowest member, and should a predator attack the herd, they're all going to want to get the hell out of dodge. Enter evolution. Over millions of years, buffalo have evolved into expert getaway drivers. Now when they spot a carnivore, they can be seen climbing into various fast sports cars and burning some motherfucking rubber.
3. Someone told me the moon affects the tides. Whaaaaaat?
That someone is absolutely right. The moon does affect the tides, using its psychic powers. What most people aren't aware of is that the moon is a sentient being, capable of concealing portions of its face in shadow to look more menacing. That face on the moon is, in fact, a real face, staring right at you with pure loathing. And yes, it is made of cheese.
4. Is time travel possible?
Of course not. Don't be absurd.
5. My boyfriend wants to do it, but I'm on my period. Help plz?
This one isn't really a science question, so I can't help. Sry.
6. What is meant by "splitting the atom"?
Basically what it involves is heating a knife until it glows red. Place the atom on a largish cutting board and carefully cut down the middle. The hardest part is finding an atom.
7. How are stars born?
By picking up a guitar and auditioning for American Idol.
8. How is it that I can think and feel and all that cognitive stuff?
The brain is a very complex organ, possibly the most complex there is. We don't know much about it, which makes sense because our brains are the ones that decide what we know in the first place and for all we know they are hiding dark secrets they don't want us to find out about. What we do get is pychology, which is the study of our mental quirks and such.
9. You didn't answer the question.
No I didn't.
10. Are you a real scientist?
If by scientist you mean Arts student, then yes.
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Saturday, 3 November 2012
The hardest part of having a pet
A poet was reading the local newspaper over breakfast one morning when an advertisement caught his eye. The old man who lived over on the top of the hill was going away for the week and needed someone to house sit for him. Thinking he could use the spare cash (because he was a poet) the man decided to answer the ad.
He walked up the hill that same afternoon and knocked three times on the large wooden front door. The old man answered immediately. He was dressed in his pyjamas and looked very happy to see the poet.
"I'm here about the house sitting job", said the poet.
"Thank god," the man exclaimed. "I'm just about to leave - my bags are packed and everything - but I still need a house sitter."
He beckoned the poet inside and closed the heavy door behind him. Then he set about explaining himself. As it turned out, all he needed was someone to make sure his cat stayed fed and to keep his antiques collection safe.
"I'm awfully afraid of being robbed," he said. "Those youths downtown keep trying to make off with all my expensive stuff. But my biggest concern is the cat."
"Why?" asked the poet.
"He's a very special animal," the old man explained. "He must never be allowed outside."
The poet shrugged. "Okay."
The old man grabbed him by the shoulders and gazed deep into his eyes. "Promise me you will not let the cat out!"
The poet suddenly felt uneasy. "Okay," he said. "I won't let the cat out."
The old man became cheerfully once again and his attention turned to the other rules of the house. What could be used and how to use it; what was to be kept clean and what was not to be touched at all. After that the poet helped him put his bags in the back of his car and just before he left he handed him a key.
"Make sure the house stays locked," he said.
That night the poet fed the cat, locked all the doors and sat down next to the old man's antique gramophone with a glass of wine from his cellar. The old man didn't have any modern music in the house so the poet had no choice but to listen to old jazz records. Eventually he went to sleep. He woke up later to the sound of the cat's wailing. When he got up it was scratching at the door and begging to be let out. Remembering what the old man had said he shooed it away and went upstairs to the guest room where he slept soundly for the rest of the night.
The next morning the cat was at the door wailing again. The poet fed it and and this occupied it for a while. But when it was finished it returned to the door and resumed its begging. The poet ignored it and went upstairs to write poems.
When he returned in the evening the cat was still wailing. By now the bottom of the door was covered in scratches and the cat was mewing louder than ever. He had changed its litter tray that morning but it hadn't been used since. Clearly it didn't need to do its business. The poet wondered why it was so desperate.
"You can't go out," he told it. "Stop asking."
The wailing kept him up all through the evening. He covered his ears with the pillow but it didn't seem to help. At this point he was so fed up he considered just letting it go outside to do whatever it wanted to do. But then he remembered the look in the old man's eyes when he said it must not be let out and decided against it.
When he woke up the next morning it was still by the door, screeching at the top of its lungs. The poet, tired and driven almost insane, tried to shoo it away but it wouldn't leave. The door was now badly damaged, and the poet thought at this rate it would probably be able to dig its way out. He put his hand on the knob, wrestling with temptation as the cat looked on impatiently. The old man's deadly serious face came to him again, but he pushed it out of his mind and finally gave in, throwing the door open and watching the cat flee into the daylight.
"I hope you're happy!" he shouted after it. "Don't come back!"
He went to close the door again but a strange, distant noise stopped him and he looked up at the sky. At that moment a solar flare, a hundred times more powerful than any other in history, bombarded the Earth. It burned away the ozone layer in an instant and pummelled the planet's surface with a heat so intense that every living thing was instantly incinerated. Trees and other plant life was reduced to ash as the oceans and seas boiled away. The moon exploded.
And that is why you can't let the old man's cat out.
The end.
He walked up the hill that same afternoon and knocked three times on the large wooden front door. The old man answered immediately. He was dressed in his pyjamas and looked very happy to see the poet.
"I'm here about the house sitting job", said the poet.
"Thank god," the man exclaimed. "I'm just about to leave - my bags are packed and everything - but I still need a house sitter."
He beckoned the poet inside and closed the heavy door behind him. Then he set about explaining himself. As it turned out, all he needed was someone to make sure his cat stayed fed and to keep his antiques collection safe.
"I'm awfully afraid of being robbed," he said. "Those youths downtown keep trying to make off with all my expensive stuff. But my biggest concern is the cat."
"Why?" asked the poet.
"He's a very special animal," the old man explained. "He must never be allowed outside."
The poet shrugged. "Okay."
The old man grabbed him by the shoulders and gazed deep into his eyes. "Promise me you will not let the cat out!"
The poet suddenly felt uneasy. "Okay," he said. "I won't let the cat out."
The old man became cheerfully once again and his attention turned to the other rules of the house. What could be used and how to use it; what was to be kept clean and what was not to be touched at all. After that the poet helped him put his bags in the back of his car and just before he left he handed him a key.
"Make sure the house stays locked," he said.
That night the poet fed the cat, locked all the doors and sat down next to the old man's antique gramophone with a glass of wine from his cellar. The old man didn't have any modern music in the house so the poet had no choice but to listen to old jazz records. Eventually he went to sleep. He woke up later to the sound of the cat's wailing. When he got up it was scratching at the door and begging to be let out. Remembering what the old man had said he shooed it away and went upstairs to the guest room where he slept soundly for the rest of the night.
The next morning the cat was at the door wailing again. The poet fed it and and this occupied it for a while. But when it was finished it returned to the door and resumed its begging. The poet ignored it and went upstairs to write poems.
When he returned in the evening the cat was still wailing. By now the bottom of the door was covered in scratches and the cat was mewing louder than ever. He had changed its litter tray that morning but it hadn't been used since. Clearly it didn't need to do its business. The poet wondered why it was so desperate.
"You can't go out," he told it. "Stop asking."
The wailing kept him up all through the evening. He covered his ears with the pillow but it didn't seem to help. At this point he was so fed up he considered just letting it go outside to do whatever it wanted to do. But then he remembered the look in the old man's eyes when he said it must not be let out and decided against it.
When he woke up the next morning it was still by the door, screeching at the top of its lungs. The poet, tired and driven almost insane, tried to shoo it away but it wouldn't leave. The door was now badly damaged, and the poet thought at this rate it would probably be able to dig its way out. He put his hand on the knob, wrestling with temptation as the cat looked on impatiently. The old man's deadly serious face came to him again, but he pushed it out of his mind and finally gave in, throwing the door open and watching the cat flee into the daylight.
"I hope you're happy!" he shouted after it. "Don't come back!"
He went to close the door again but a strange, distant noise stopped him and he looked up at the sky. At that moment a solar flare, a hundred times more powerful than any other in history, bombarded the Earth. It burned away the ozone layer in an instant and pummelled the planet's surface with a heat so intense that every living thing was instantly incinerated. Trees and other plant life was reduced to ash as the oceans and seas boiled away. The moon exploded.
And that is why you can't let the old man's cat out.
The end.
Thursday, 1 November 2012
The Core
Yesterday it was Halloween. I didn't have any candy so when some kids came to my door I gave them heroin instead. They're dead now.
In the spirit of Halloween, I'm going to talk about disaster movies, because that makes fucking sense. Actually I saw this one movie which is so awful I just have to rant about it. Last night I watched The Core and I nearly died of how bad it was. It was so bad I wanted the ozone layer to disappear and for everyone on the planet to die. That's how bad it was.
The Core is a disaster flick whose scenario is simple enough: the core stops rotating which causes all kinds of natural disasters. So a group of scientists and astronauts pilot some sort of drill-ship into the centre of the Earth to detonate nuclear warheads and hopefully restart the planet's engine. Little do they know that the government secretly has a back-up plan called D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. (or some such A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.) which, should their quest fail, will kill them and everyone else in the world. How do they know this? Because IT CAUSED THE WHOLE CORE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. More on this later.
The government in this movie is one big colossal fucking moron. They're all Americans, because Americans are always the ones tasked with saving the planet. Since we don't actually find out about the Destiny project until the final act, it seems at first like the problem is a natural phenomenon. When a university lecturer (played by Aaron Eckhart, handsome and young like all teachers in movies) discovers what's going on, they immediately become concerned as all hell and summon him to explain his findings. And I kid you not, he uses FRUIT to explain to the PEOPLE WHO RUN AMERICA how the Earth's core works. They're all sitting there like fucking primary schoolers, with furrowed brows and looks of confusion; "Are you saying the Earth is big delicious nectarine?". Then Aaron borrows some air freshener off a scientist and uses a lighter to explain what the Sun will do to the Earth without its "protective atmospheric electromagnetic layer". When everyone in the room suddenly gasps in astonishment I laughed so hard my face fell off. Do these people seriously need a practical demonstration to understand that the Sun is hot? That would be like if I created a model of a volcano and poured baking soda and vinegar into it and the government was all like "Holy shit! Now we know that volcanoes erupt! Thanks Mr. Expert!" What's even more disturbingly stupid is how Aaron is the only person who figured out the problem. No other scientist on planet Earth was able to look at all the bizarre disasters and think maybe there's an upcoming apocalypse.
That reminds me, the disaster scenes are retarded. In the opening scene a flock of pigeons goes apeshit and starts killing people. In a montage reminiscent of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, you see them dive bombing cars, breaking windows and pecking peoples' eyes out. Then all of a sudden they leave for no reason. Half an hour later there's some kind of freak electrical storm, capable of singling out specific landmarks such as the Colosseum and causing them to actually explode by pummelling them with lightning. The last one, however, makes both of these scenes seem like brilliant filmmaking. The Sun melts the Golden Gate bridge, blows out the tyres of hundreds of vehicles and gives one guy a bad case of sunburn. Seriously, the Sun is melting iron and yet someone gets sunburn. What. The. Fuck.
While all this horrifying stuff is happening our team of heroes is busy cracking wise and training. Most of their preparation is actually spent making sure their group contains every cliche character in the book. You've got the handsome hero (Aaron); the hot chick (it's Hilary Swank so it's a bit subjective); the annoying jerk who disagrees with everything (Stanley Tucci); the decoy leader who is actually just there so he can die first and allow the handsome hero to be dramatically thrust into the leadership role (a guy who played the exact same character in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek); the black guy (a black guy) and some other guy who's just there to add another death to the film.
Having wasted 50 minutes doing nothing they finally jump in the black guy's giant laser-shooting drill and begin their journey to the centre of the earth. The whole thing reminds me of another movie. I can't quite remember what it's called. You know that one about the journey to the centre of the Earth? Anyway a couple of not particularly sad deaths later they reach the core and realize their original plan to reignite it, which they spent about two seconds coming up with, will not work. As it turns out, the core is a lot thicker than they had originally estimated. This is what happens when you hire four scientists to save the world instead of - oh I don't know - FUCKING ALL OF THEM. THE PLANET IS ABOUT TO BE BURNED TO A CRISP JUST LIKE THE FRUIT AND YOU HIRE A UNIVERSITY LECTURER, TWO REALLY SHIT SCIENTISTS WHO AREN'T QUALIFIED TO WORK IN A FUCKING MCDONALDS AND A BLACK GUY WHO LIVES BY HIMSELF IN THE DESERT TO SAVE IT. FUCKING WHHHAAATTTTTTTTTTT??????
At this point America decides to use Destiny as a backup plan and then it turns out this whole problem was caused by Destiny in the first place. Hey guys, you know how last time we set off this giant laser it broke the planet? How about let's do it again and just maybe everything will be fixed this time.
Okay! What a smart idea!
Aaron enlists the help of a hacker he barely knows to risk a lifetime in prison stalling the Destiny project. This is one of those movie hackers who can move their hands over a keyboard really fast for a minute and suddenly have access to the FBI's most secret shit. He manages to divert all the electricity being used to power Destiny towards some other source and the government doesn't suspect him at all, despite the fact that he's looking around shadily and despite the fact that they specifically hired him to hack into things.
I'm getting really sick of talking about this movie so I'll wrap things up. They find another way to restart the core. There are some really, really terrible CGI explosions, Aaron Eckhart gets half his face burned off and leaves to fight Batman. Hilary Swank becomes a female boxer and dies. The end.
It's an awful movie. Don't watch it.
In the spirit of Halloween, I'm going to talk about disaster movies, because that makes fucking sense. Actually I saw this one movie which is so awful I just have to rant about it. Last night I watched The Core and I nearly died of how bad it was. It was so bad I wanted the ozone layer to disappear and for everyone on the planet to die. That's how bad it was.
The Core is a disaster flick whose scenario is simple enough: the core stops rotating which causes all kinds of natural disasters. So a group of scientists and astronauts pilot some sort of drill-ship into the centre of the Earth to detonate nuclear warheads and hopefully restart the planet's engine. Little do they know that the government secretly has a back-up plan called D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. (or some such A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.) which, should their quest fail, will kill them and everyone else in the world. How do they know this? Because IT CAUSED THE WHOLE CORE PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. More on this later.
The government in this movie is one big colossal fucking moron. They're all Americans, because Americans are always the ones tasked with saving the planet. Since we don't actually find out about the Destiny project until the final act, it seems at first like the problem is a natural phenomenon. When a university lecturer (played by Aaron Eckhart, handsome and young like all teachers in movies) discovers what's going on, they immediately become concerned as all hell and summon him to explain his findings. And I kid you not, he uses FRUIT to explain to the PEOPLE WHO RUN AMERICA how the Earth's core works. They're all sitting there like fucking primary schoolers, with furrowed brows and looks of confusion; "Are you saying the Earth is big delicious nectarine?". Then Aaron borrows some air freshener off a scientist and uses a lighter to explain what the Sun will do to the Earth without its "protective atmospheric electromagnetic layer". When everyone in the room suddenly gasps in astonishment I laughed so hard my face fell off. Do these people seriously need a practical demonstration to understand that the Sun is hot? That would be like if I created a model of a volcano and poured baking soda and vinegar into it and the government was all like "Holy shit! Now we know that volcanoes erupt! Thanks Mr. Expert!" What's even more disturbingly stupid is how Aaron is the only person who figured out the problem. No other scientist on planet Earth was able to look at all the bizarre disasters and think maybe there's an upcoming apocalypse.
That reminds me, the disaster scenes are retarded. In the opening scene a flock of pigeons goes apeshit and starts killing people. In a montage reminiscent of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, you see them dive bombing cars, breaking windows and pecking peoples' eyes out. Then all of a sudden they leave for no reason. Half an hour later there's some kind of freak electrical storm, capable of singling out specific landmarks such as the Colosseum and causing them to actually explode by pummelling them with lightning. The last one, however, makes both of these scenes seem like brilliant filmmaking. The Sun melts the Golden Gate bridge, blows out the tyres of hundreds of vehicles and gives one guy a bad case of sunburn. Seriously, the Sun is melting iron and yet someone gets sunburn. What. The. Fuck.
While all this horrifying stuff is happening our team of heroes is busy cracking wise and training. Most of their preparation is actually spent making sure their group contains every cliche character in the book. You've got the handsome hero (Aaron); the hot chick (it's Hilary Swank so it's a bit subjective); the annoying jerk who disagrees with everything (Stanley Tucci); the decoy leader who is actually just there so he can die first and allow the handsome hero to be dramatically thrust into the leadership role (a guy who played the exact same character in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek); the black guy (a black guy) and some other guy who's just there to add another death to the film.
Having wasted 50 minutes doing nothing they finally jump in the black guy's giant laser-shooting drill and begin their journey to the centre of the earth. The whole thing reminds me of another movie. I can't quite remember what it's called. You know that one about the journey to the centre of the Earth? Anyway a couple of not particularly sad deaths later they reach the core and realize their original plan to reignite it, which they spent about two seconds coming up with, will not work. As it turns out, the core is a lot thicker than they had originally estimated. This is what happens when you hire four scientists to save the world instead of - oh I don't know - FUCKING ALL OF THEM. THE PLANET IS ABOUT TO BE BURNED TO A CRISP JUST LIKE THE FRUIT AND YOU HIRE A UNIVERSITY LECTURER, TWO REALLY SHIT SCIENTISTS WHO AREN'T QUALIFIED TO WORK IN A FUCKING MCDONALDS AND A BLACK GUY WHO LIVES BY HIMSELF IN THE DESERT TO SAVE IT. FUCKING WHHHAAATTTTTTTTTTT??????
At this point America decides to use Destiny as a backup plan and then it turns out this whole problem was caused by Destiny in the first place. Hey guys, you know how last time we set off this giant laser it broke the planet? How about let's do it again and just maybe everything will be fixed this time.
Okay! What a smart idea!
Aaron enlists the help of a hacker he barely knows to risk a lifetime in prison stalling the Destiny project. This is one of those movie hackers who can move their hands over a keyboard really fast for a minute and suddenly have access to the FBI's most secret shit. He manages to divert all the electricity being used to power Destiny towards some other source and the government doesn't suspect him at all, despite the fact that he's looking around shadily and despite the fact that they specifically hired him to hack into things.
I'm getting really sick of talking about this movie so I'll wrap things up. They find another way to restart the core. There are some really, really terrible CGI explosions, Aaron Eckhart gets half his face burned off and leaves to fight Batman. Hilary Swank becomes a female boxer and dies. The end.
It's an awful movie. Don't watch it.
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