By CHRIS PACKHAM
TV Science: Unhappy people watch more television, wow, what a perfect opportunity to wind up my dick-punching fist (my right fist) and punch television right in the dick like an edgy cultural firebrand who totally rejects your precious rules, society. But you know what? I am lame and I totally like television.
Last night, I saw the final episode of HBO's The Wire, and wow, was it ever good, you guys, I was so happy to see Mr. Prezbo one last time. Just based on that one scene with Mr. Prezbo and also finding out that Lester actually did settle down and marry that one dancer chick from season 1 (sorry, spoiler, eat it, you guys) totally made me forgive television for that episode of The Office from three weeks ago where Dwight was pretending to be pregnant with a melon under his shirt, laying on Michael's desk with his pantsless legs in the air. If they're going to do that shit, they might as well switch to a four-camera laugh-track format. The Office is now Mama's Family, sorry, we'll always have The Sarah Silverman Show, y'all.Oh, before I morphed into Aaron Barnhardt, there, I was talking about how some scientists determined that television viewers were unhappier than non-television-viewers or something, but they're not sure about the whole causation issue. Are they unhappier because their opportunities for interaction with other people are limited by their daily habits? Or are they self-medicating their stinky personality disorders with tons of TV? I don't know, but I do know this: Duquan Weems needs to get off the junk and back into school, y'all, he's going to end up just like Bubbles if he's not careful. After the jump, MORE SCIENCE. Click here or here:
Sexxxy science: According to science, women looking for brief relationships rate men with facial scars as more attractive than men with creamy, baby-smooth skin. Unfortunately, on those occasions when I've cut my face open — for instance, after an embarrassing bicycle accident back in June, the day Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination — doctors have come along and sewed it back up. Therefore, in my interpersonal relationships, I've always had to rely on the crutch of my enormous brain, you guys, I don't want to brag, but the huge bulge in my forehead is HOT CHICK CATNIP. Anyway, scientists speculate that scars make a dude appear "brave" or "dangerous" to women, which would have totally offset my bowtie and beret if my ER doctor wasn't the best at stitches. I'm looking to establish brolationships with dudes who have facial scars, to examine a hypothesis that standing between two of them makes you look sexier, thereby attracting sexual partners so enthusiastic as to render you spent and bruised, clutching a raw steak over your balls like palookas with black eyes in movies from the 1940s.
Ladies, does Phil Witt flanked by attractively scarred Baltimore gangsters Marlo Stanfield and Omar Little look even more super-sexxxy and weirdly immortal than he does usually? I think that's nearly as good as having your own awesome facial scar. Also, my new theory about Phil Witt is that he has walked the Earth for thousands of years, and once every generation he must fake his own death and travel to a new land, assuming a new name like "Schmill Schmidt" and establishing a new career in local broadcasting or whatever.
Rubbery rocket balls: None of futurist Ray Kurtzweil's big projections have come true yet, but since they're kind of plausible-sounding, he still seems smart. Take the idea of a technological singularity. Basically, without any of the underlying math or physics, the theory is that technology progresses in an exponential, rather than linear, fashion, like swear words at a daycare center. And that one day technological progress will explode so quickly that it's impossible to predict what the world will look like on the other side. It's all very hippie/optimistic, like Star Trek and Universal Unitarianism, and predicated on the idea that technology will soon be smart enough to begin augmenting itself.
But which technologies do you want augmenting themselves? A self-aware and artificially-intelligent Billy Bass could modify itself to be wackier, more entertaining and could conceivably even fill out your complicated college applications and whatnot. On the other hand, take kinetic fireball incendiaries — rubbery rocket balls fired into hardened underground bunkers at high speed, bouncing and breaking through walls and doors while burning at 1000 degrees fahrenheit. Obviously, nobody wants them figuring out how to make themselves smarter, bouncier or more fiery, particularly if they've been programmed to enjoy and seek out human companionship. Imagine how sad and tearful they'll be when the locus of their programmed affection explodes into flame on contact, you guys, that is totally heartbreaking, just like Wall-E.
Anyway! Some writer at Silicon.com asked Kurtzweil the following dumbass question: "Will super intelligent machines ever have souls?" This presupposes the whole idea that people have souls, obvs., and honestly I have absolutely no idea what that even means. But Kurtzweil justifies his reputation for brilliance, completely sidestepping the question by immediately redefining "soul" to mean "consciousness."
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I always visit your blog and retrieve everything you post here but I never commented but today when I saw this article, I couldn�t stop myself from commenting here. Wonderful bro!
The Office is still funny, it's just got nothing to do with real offices any more. Daily Briefs is still funny, it's just got little to do with newsbriefs anymore! Every thing changes!
Yeah, so maybe it's jumped the shark ever since Pam and Jim got together for real, but I'm the kind who stays true to her school, even if her school sucks and is horrible.
intelligent design learning fair projects should not look like their creators son't give a shit, that defeats the purpose! And the Office sucks now, good call Chris.
You're absolutely right, Megs, The Office is WAY funnier now that it's completely divorced from reality and any semblance of human behavior.
I totes take umbrance with your Office talk, meester. That part when Dwight's testing the stroller and he throws it over the cliff and yells, "Playtime's OVER!!!" was hi-fuggin-larious. Yeah, there was a laugh track all right. In my pants.
so...smart machines are awake?
cool...kinda like that guy that always sat in the front of the class in high school who ended up marrying the head cheerleader, the who knew how to blow at the CYO. He stayed awake all the time.
i think - i was wasted a lot in high school.
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