Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Thursday, April 22, 2010
I wanna dance the night away
Why? I will now try to investigate why people feel the need to abruptly move their bodies and/or limbs when sound is expressed harmoniously.
What gratification do we get out of dancing? It's one thing to tap your foot or snap your fingers, but for the most part we have all partaken in some form of swinging or jiving or grooving (why I can only come up with extremely outdated examples is beyond me) how about getting jiggy with it? There isn't really a tangible satisfaction gotten from moving in the aforementioned ways, but we still feel the need to do it. It's more voluntary than laughing but still so very hard to resist. Even a little steering wheel tap, head bob, or foot tap could be all you really need to "feel the music." But what does that even mean? I understand that pleasant sounds, aka music, is nice to the ears as opposed to say, a foghorn, but why does it result in the act of body movements? Why wouldn't we rather punch something? Or blink incessantly? Or roll around on the ground?
To my knowledge every culture has some form of dance which overrules the possibility that it's an acquired function. It seems to be innate. Please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikTxfIDYx6Q
(not sure how to put a link on this baby, literally)
Even chimps, our closest biological relative, do not dance. I've heard that some birds do but come on, it's a bird. It's probably just mocking us. However boggled my mind is, I kind of like not knowing why humans feel the need to dance. It just makes us that much weirder.
What gratification do we get out of dancing? It's one thing to tap your foot or snap your fingers, but for the most part we have all partaken in some form of swinging or jiving or grooving (why I can only come up with extremely outdated examples is beyond me) how about getting jiggy with it? There isn't really a tangible satisfaction gotten from moving in the aforementioned ways, but we still feel the need to do it. It's more voluntary than laughing but still so very hard to resist. Even a little steering wheel tap, head bob, or foot tap could be all you really need to "feel the music." But what does that even mean? I understand that pleasant sounds, aka music, is nice to the ears as opposed to say, a foghorn, but why does it result in the act of body movements? Why wouldn't we rather punch something? Or blink incessantly? Or roll around on the ground?
To my knowledge every culture has some form of dance which overrules the possibility that it's an acquired function. It seems to be innate. Please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikTxfIDYx6Q
(not sure how to put a link on this baby, literally)
Even chimps, our closest biological relative, do not dance. I've heard that some birds do but come on, it's a bird. It's probably just mocking us. However boggled my mind is, I kind of like not knowing why humans feel the need to dance. It just makes us that much weirder.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Fighting evil piece by peace
So I invented something. Technology won't support this until presumably the year 2060, and the people of earth will probably have the same attitude towards it as well, but just hear me out.
There will be a database for every individual and their possessions. It will be a personal log of everything they own, bought, borrowed, or even stole, that only they have access to unless otherwise needed by the government or someone else of importance. I was thinking about this because I lost my straightener. I had it, and now it's gone forever. There needs to be a way of keeping track of your things. Everything will either be made with, or implanted with a pin sized microchip that will be logged into your Possessions Database (name pending) and will be automatically entered into it once synched with your PD. There will also be an option to modify your items and place them into specific categories if desired, such as "Return to Jimmy when done." (What am I borrowing from my nonexistent pal Jimmy? How about a wrench.)
Aside from merely keeping track of everything you own, your house will be programmed satelitically on a high powered global positioning system so that the microchip that is implanted in your items can be tracked down to the very room. You type in "straightener" (in what I'm assuming to be an ipod-esque device) and it will show exactly where it is, or if it was say, stolen, it would show where it is on a map, much like the mapquest balloons.
So you see, this invention will also help with robberies and missing persons if the police become involved. Items can be tracked, as well as the clothes your missing daughter was wearing at the time of her kidnapping. Ethically there will have to be some new human rights implemented in order for the government to gain access to this database, but they can figure that out later. And who knows, by 2060 we might not even have rights or privacy protection so it won't make a difference. Anyway, your personal device will be a retina and fingerprint scanner so that it's extremely difficult to hack, except for a trusted family member/friend that is chosen and programmed in only by the PD owner himself.
The PD will not only keep track of things but fight crime. Pretty soon the world will be an organized peaceland.
I swear I'm not crazy.
There will be a database for every individual and their possessions. It will be a personal log of everything they own, bought, borrowed, or even stole, that only they have access to unless otherwise needed by the government or someone else of importance. I was thinking about this because I lost my straightener. I had it, and now it's gone forever. There needs to be a way of keeping track of your things. Everything will either be made with, or implanted with a pin sized microchip that will be logged into your Possessions Database (name pending) and will be automatically entered into it once synched with your PD. There will also be an option to modify your items and place them into specific categories if desired, such as "Return to Jimmy when done." (What am I borrowing from my nonexistent pal Jimmy? How about a wrench.)
Aside from merely keeping track of everything you own, your house will be programmed satelitically on a high powered global positioning system so that the microchip that is implanted in your items can be tracked down to the very room. You type in "straightener" (in what I'm assuming to be an ipod-esque device) and it will show exactly where it is, or if it was say, stolen, it would show where it is on a map, much like the mapquest balloons.
So you see, this invention will also help with robberies and missing persons if the police become involved. Items can be tracked, as well as the clothes your missing daughter was wearing at the time of her kidnapping. Ethically there will have to be some new human rights implemented in order for the government to gain access to this database, but they can figure that out later. And who knows, by 2060 we might not even have rights or privacy protection so it won't make a difference. Anyway, your personal device will be a retina and fingerprint scanner so that it's extremely difficult to hack, except for a trusted family member/friend that is chosen and programmed in only by the PD owner himself.
The PD will not only keep track of things but fight crime. Pretty soon the world will be an organized peaceland.
I swear I'm not crazy.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, ex-zip-it A
So today I learned what the YKK stands for on all those zippers in the world. 90% to be exact. Now that is a lot of zippers. 2 million a day to be exact. Alright that's enough exactness. It got me thinking again about how little people think of so many things in the world. I've seen that little YKK trillions of times before (3 trillion to be exact) and thought about it for a split second, but never gave it another thought. Learning about it today was purely accidental. This company even makes the machines that make the zippers. Now I don't know about you, but I don't like thinking about machines. What even are they. There's no way a bunch of metal can do stuff. I guarantee no one understands them. Too complicated. They're hollow. It's magic.
Sure sure SOMEONE understands that stuff. Like .007% of the population. James Bond is the only one. Oh and Mr. Yoshida. First you have to make up a zipper in your head. Then build it out of something completely different than a zipper, because zippers don't exist yet. Then figure out how to build a machine that just spits out zippers a million miles a second??? Unbelievable! I'm sorry if you don't care as much about zippers as I do, but just think about it. It's incredible. And that's only one of the things in the world. This happens for everything. How simple life was when there was just dirt. Now we have cups made of dirt but they don't look like dirt anymore, they're clear and in the shape of a cup. How? No one will ever know. It's a mystery to us all.
So next time you zip up your article of clothing containing a zipper, give thanks to the zipper maker man for giving you this luxury. Imagine a world without zippers. Buttons ruling the earth. A drafty world it would be.
Sure sure SOMEONE understands that stuff. Like .007% of the population. James Bond is the only one. Oh and Mr. Yoshida. First you have to make up a zipper in your head. Then build it out of something completely different than a zipper, because zippers don't exist yet. Then figure out how to build a machine that just spits out zippers a million miles a second??? Unbelievable! I'm sorry if you don't care as much about zippers as I do, but just think about it. It's incredible. And that's only one of the things in the world. This happens for everything. How simple life was when there was just dirt. Now we have cups made of dirt but they don't look like dirt anymore, they're clear and in the shape of a cup. How? No one will ever know. It's a mystery to us all.
So next time you zip up your article of clothing containing a zipper, give thanks to the zipper maker man for giving you this luxury. Imagine a world without zippers. Buttons ruling the earth. A drafty world it would be.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
This is no laughing matter.
Alright, obviously this was going to come up.
Laughing.
What is a laugh? Why does our body shake when we find something amusing? What even is amusement?? Finding something that makes us happy? Not exactly..? It's hard to make sense of anything once you start getting down to the nitty gritty words. They each have a meaning that we just know. We don't have to think about what amusement means, it's just programmed in there. But when you really start to think about it, it's just strange that a bunch of letters put together mean something. I can't even explain it using other words. Happiness? Fun? What do THOSE words even mean??
ANYWAY back to laughing.. it isn't even that nice of a feeling. Your stomach spasming, eyes watering, face hurting. Don't even get me started on the "ha ha ha" part. Ha? What!
Not to mention the different types of laughs we all have. Not only between people but individually. If something is kinda funny, pretty funny, hysterical. A version of laughter will take care of you. And how does "getting your laughs out" WORK exactly? Suppressing it only makes you want to do it more. But once you start laughing, there's always an end. It's not funny anymore once you have laughed it out sufficiently. I mean don't get me wrong it's still funny, but you don't laugh about something until the end of time. There's a threshold of laughability.
If I was ever in a situation where I was laughing at an inappropriate time, I would think of the word 'ashtray'. That is not a funny word. It's disgusting and kind of boring. It almost always did the trick. So if something is funny enough to ensue a laugh, it can be, not only suppressed but extinguished once something unfunny interrupts it.
I'm not really sure why, but I absolutely love laughing. It's one of my favorite things to do. So I'm going to keep doing it even though it makes no sense.
Laughing.
What is a laugh? Why does our body shake when we find something amusing? What even is amusement?? Finding something that makes us happy? Not exactly..? It's hard to make sense of anything once you start getting down to the nitty gritty words. They each have a meaning that we just know. We don't have to think about what amusement means, it's just programmed in there. But when you really start to think about it, it's just strange that a bunch of letters put together mean something. I can't even explain it using other words. Happiness? Fun? What do THOSE words even mean??
ANYWAY back to laughing.. it isn't even that nice of a feeling. Your stomach spasming, eyes watering, face hurting. Don't even get me started on the "ha ha ha" part. Ha? What!
Not to mention the different types of laughs we all have. Not only between people but individually. If something is kinda funny, pretty funny, hysterical. A version of laughter will take care of you. And how does "getting your laughs out" WORK exactly? Suppressing it only makes you want to do it more. But once you start laughing, there's always an end. It's not funny anymore once you have laughed it out sufficiently. I mean don't get me wrong it's still funny, but you don't laugh about something until the end of time. There's a threshold of laughability.
If I was ever in a situation where I was laughing at an inappropriate time, I would think of the word 'ashtray'. That is not a funny word. It's disgusting and kind of boring. It almost always did the trick. So if something is funny enough to ensue a laugh, it can be, not only suppressed but extinguished once something unfunny interrupts it.
I'm not really sure why, but I absolutely love laughing. It's one of my favorite things to do. So I'm going to keep doing it even though it makes no sense.
Monday, January 4, 2010
I'm making plans. Big plans.
I've decided to enter the blogworld. The blogisphere. The blearth. My peanut sized brain can't keep track of all my immensely interesting and extraordinarily intelligent thoughts. Like those adverbs?
Anyway, this is what I've been thinking about today.
This evening, I was flying the friendly skies and looking out the window at the twinkling lights. Now I'm sorry. but the amount of people flicking their lights on and off is absurd. Like, make a decision people. On or off! I've been on oh let's say, 28,000, nay 29,000 flights in my dear old life and I just realized that maybe it's the trees? No it can't be, I've stared and searched and scanned the skies so many times. I'm almost positive there are no trees waving in the wind making it appear as if the lights are flickering. The ratio to flickering lights to nonflickering lights has got to be around 40:60. Insane. Why are they flicking on and off. Just why. I'm sure there's an explanation. It's not the clouds. It's not an obstruction of any kind. Although I may not rule out the tree theory. 30% it could be trees.* So the question lives on. Never to be answered or thought of again.
*These numbers are based on actual facts.
Anyway, this is what I've been thinking about today.
This evening, I was flying the friendly skies and looking out the window at the twinkling lights. Now I'm sorry. but the amount of people flicking their lights on and off is absurd. Like, make a decision people. On or off! I've been on oh let's say, 28,000, nay 29,000 flights in my dear old life and I just realized that maybe it's the trees? No it can't be, I've stared and searched and scanned the skies so many times. I'm almost positive there are no trees waving in the wind making it appear as if the lights are flickering. The ratio to flickering lights to nonflickering lights has got to be around 40:60. Insane. Why are they flicking on and off. Just why. I'm sure there's an explanation. It's not the clouds. It's not an obstruction of any kind. Although I may not rule out the tree theory. 30% it could be trees.* So the question lives on. Never to be answered or thought of again.
*These numbers are based on actual facts.
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