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If this spoils anything, you were never going to get round to playing it anyway.
Ogham Blogging
Ogham is an ancient Irish system of writing. As we are a deeply lyrical culture with a rich history, we used the most advanced writing technology available at the time: rocks. Specifically, one rock carves notches in the side of another, larger rock. There may have been metal, but when your national sports are "Being killed by Vikings" and "Trying to grow enough food to not starve before the vikings arrive", anyone using metal for anything but swords, or swords-that-can-also-dig, gets removed from the gene pool pretty quickly.
An ancient gaelic notepad
Ogham should be the required input language for all blogs. The computer can translate it into text for display online, but every word you write has to be carved into a chunk of stone using only a shard of granite. When you have to erode rock to write, you think about what you're writing. You have something you really, truly want to say. The phrase "So, I can't think of anything to write about" has never been written in ogham. There are no monuments, inscribed by sweat and labour, bearing the message "I am SO BORED right now" through the ages. It'll be an awesome cure for the swamp of blogs so full of such mind bogglingly tedious minutiae that even Proust would scream "Fuck off! I don't care!".
The lead singer of Jamiroquai doesn't exist in this language, if that's any help
Within a few months, there will be no more ten thousand words whining rants, ever again. A week of chiseling "life is pain" every night and even the most sunlight deficient teen whiner will be able to tear the limbs from any would-be wedgie-giver. He'll look like a quarterback crossed with Adonis, and you'd be amazed at how much he doesn't hate the "popular girls" clique when they're prepared to touch him. Baby.
An ancient gaelic notepad
Ogham should be the required input language for all blogs. The computer can translate it into text for display online, but every word you write has to be carved into a chunk of stone using only a shard of granite. When you have to erode rock to write, you think about what you're writing. You have something you really, truly want to say. The phrase "So, I can't think of anything to write about" has never been written in ogham. There are no monuments, inscribed by sweat and labour, bearing the message "I am SO BORED right now" through the ages. It'll be an awesome cure for the swamp of blogs so full of such mind bogglingly tedious minutiae that even Proust would scream "Fuck off! I don't care!".
The lead singer of Jamiroquai doesn't exist in this language, if that's any help
Within a few months, there will be no more ten thousand words whining rants, ever again. A week of chiseling "life is pain" every night and even the most sunlight deficient teen whiner will be able to tear the limbs from any would-be wedgie-giver. He'll look like a quarterback crossed with Adonis, and you'd be amazed at how much he doesn't hate the "popular girls" clique when they're prepared to touch him. Baby.
From n00b to nerd
Another article up and running over at Cracked, and I've taken another step towards being a real-life writer: I've been edited.
Most of it is pretty painless, cutting down and sharpening sentences (and apparently I hate American teenagers more than just regular teenagers now), but they also cut my favourite gag! Yes, I am not only being published, I'm writing material TOO HOT TO PRINT. Material I will now print anyway, because that's the way I roll:
"Babies were invented by God to give sex a downside. This is why christians oppose both birth control and relationships which lead to fabulous outfits instead of reproduction. I don't usually go around calling omnipotent beings pussies, Christian God, but any Celestial Scheme that can be thwarted with a thin sheet of rubber sucks ass. Nobody foiled Zeus with a little latex balloon unless they wanted a lightning-blasted crater where their genitals used to be."
Cracked seems to draw the line at calling God a wimp. PC, or merely good business sense?
Edit: The article has also been Fark'd (6th article down). Go Team Internet!
Most of it is pretty painless, cutting down and sharpening sentences (and apparently I hate American teenagers more than just regular teenagers now), but they also cut my favourite gag! Yes, I am not only being published, I'm writing material TOO HOT TO PRINT. Material I will now print anyway, because that's the way I roll:
"Babies were invented by God to give sex a downside. This is why christians oppose both birth control and relationships which lead to fabulous outfits instead of reproduction. I don't usually go around calling omnipotent beings pussies, Christian God, but any Celestial Scheme that can be thwarted with a thin sheet of rubber sucks ass. Nobody foiled Zeus with a little latex balloon unless they wanted a lightning-blasted crater where their genitals used to be."
Cracked seems to draw the line at calling God a wimp. PC, or merely good business sense?
Edit: The article has also been Fark'd (6th article down). Go Team Internet!
Money for old string
Superstring theory is hot with scientists trying to understand the entire nature of the universe (as opposed to, say, inventing a way to block cellphone reception in cinemas). The idea is that all the particles and forces in the universe are different notes on appallingly tiny strings. A key tenet of this theory is that there are at least ten dimensions, that's six more than the four we can access, but that the others can't be measured or in any way observed because they're too small. Seriously, that's the entire argument. And an invisible and untouchable dog ate their homework. Also, the dog cannot be smelled.
One of the main arguments in favor of string theory is that it correctly predicts the existence of the graviton; this would be the graviton that nobody has ever actually detected, by the way. The graviton we only "know" about at all because another theory (Quantum Field Theory) says it exists. Oh, but that theory stops working if you actually try to use the gravitons in it. It's like saying elves have to exist otherwise there'd be nobody to make toys for Santa.
The problem is that gravitons are points, and as soon as you bring the field theory down to a point the probabilites of something or other become infinite. Since it's only actually possible for something to be 100% probable, you don't have to be a mathematician to understand that an answer of 101% is probably wrong, 200% is definitely wrong, and infinity-% is indescribably moon-bendingly wrong.
Superstring theory solves this by saying that gravitons aren't points; they (and everything else) are little strings around those points, so you never get there. That's right. The geniuses, the guys who would have been rocket scientists a couple of generations ago, the frontline in humanities quest for cosmic knowledge solved a problem in the theory by drawing a little string circle around the point and saying "Don't go here or our stuff breaks". Good thing they weren't rocket scientists or we'd have star charts marked "Don't go this way because planes stop working".
After that the evidence gets even weaker, as if that was possible. Some starry-eyed scholars who may have spent a little too much time indoors point to the inherent symmetry and beauty of the mathematics, and how it fits in with the other graceful theories that describe the universe. I have two things to say:
1) Anybody who thinks mathematics is pure art and elegance simply hasn't done enough integration.
2) The concept that all particles and forces are made up of different notes on the same string all throughout the grand totality is very nice, but given the choice on how to arrive at it, I'll choose a joint and a bean bag over ten years of fiendishly difficult mathematics.
Of course the real support for superstring theory is that it would be really nice if it was true. Alas, the same factor has not given my "Lots of hot cheerleaders doing my bidding" theory the same financial and public support. But when you can't provide a shred of evidence for your belief system (other than the fact you like it better than the alternatives), and certain parts of that system actually refuse the idea of being experimentally tested - well, there's only one thing to say:
Welcome to the Church of Superstring.
One of the main arguments in favor of string theory is that it correctly predicts the existence of the graviton; this would be the graviton that nobody has ever actually detected, by the way. The graviton we only "know" about at all because another theory (Quantum Field Theory) says it exists. Oh, but that theory stops working if you actually try to use the gravitons in it. It's like saying elves have to exist otherwise there'd be nobody to make toys for Santa.
The problem is that gravitons are points, and as soon as you bring the field theory down to a point the probabilites of something or other become infinite. Since it's only actually possible for something to be 100% probable, you don't have to be a mathematician to understand that an answer of 101% is probably wrong, 200% is definitely wrong, and infinity-% is indescribably moon-bendingly wrong.
Superstring theory solves this by saying that gravitons aren't points; they (and everything else) are little strings around those points, so you never get there. That's right. The geniuses, the guys who would have been rocket scientists a couple of generations ago, the frontline in humanities quest for cosmic knowledge solved a problem in the theory by drawing a little string circle around the point and saying "Don't go here or our stuff breaks". Good thing they weren't rocket scientists or we'd have star charts marked "Don't go this way because planes stop working".
After that the evidence gets even weaker, as if that was possible. Some starry-eyed scholars who may have spent a little too much time indoors point to the inherent symmetry and beauty of the mathematics, and how it fits in with the other graceful theories that describe the universe. I have two things to say:
1) Anybody who thinks mathematics is pure art and elegance simply hasn't done enough integration.
2) The concept that all particles and forces are made up of different notes on the same string all throughout the grand totality is very nice, but given the choice on how to arrive at it, I'll choose a joint and a bean bag over ten years of fiendishly difficult mathematics.
Of course the real support for superstring theory is that it would be really nice if it was true. Alas, the same factor has not given my "Lots of hot cheerleaders doing my bidding" theory the same financial and public support. But when you can't provide a shred of evidence for your belief system (other than the fact you like it better than the alternatives), and certain parts of that system actually refuse the idea of being experimentally tested - well, there's only one thing to say:
Welcome to the Church of Superstring.
5 Most Annoying Banner Ads
The Top 5 Annoying Banner Ads, identified by me for you over at Cracked.
EDIT: This article linked (via Jointblog) over at FARK, where it did very well. Apparently writing for Jointblog is very easy - you just find someone else's work, cut it to fragments, jam in some wikipedia'd numbers and you're done!
EDIT: This article linked (via Jointblog) over at FARK, where it did very well. Apparently writing for Jointblog is very easy - you just find someone else's work, cut it to fragments, jam in some wikipedia'd numbers and you're done!
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