Kris’s Wink Leaks

This week my links are here:

• Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer – While we’re on the subject, due to the WGA strike, we expect a large influx of new readers fleeing the deluge of reruns on TV, and we’ll try to keep up with demand by posting everything we thing of.
• Gameplay footage from the new Ghostbusters game! – I look forward to watching you play this!
• The Futurama Theme Song! – Pretty much. Kind of. And a pretty good video.
• Wainy Days Episode 12: “Happy Endings” – Hottest scrabble today. I already can’t remember why I typed that.

These are some pretty good links, I think. I’m happy with them.

“HTF?” with Dr. Kris #2: I can has sientifik methd?

This week’s question:

Dear Dr. Kris,
I has cat, and I r wundering. How teh fuck iz cats alwayz land on his feet?
- Curious About Killing Cats

Answer: Because the feet are on the bottom, you dumb shit! “But Dr. Kris,” you then ask, “how the fuck are they on the bottom?” and you’d be right. I see there’s no fooling you! I know the answer, but instead of just giving it to you, I’d like to teach you how to fish.¹ And by “how to fish”, I mean, “the Scientific Method™“.

The Scientific Method is a method used to extract the science out of a thing for future use. Its origins are hazy, but I think it might be in the Bible. One uses it by starting at the first step, and then progressing through the later steps in order until one reaches the final step, at which point one stops. Here is the current form of the Method:

The Scientific Method™

1. Explain in terms of magnetism (6^th century BCE)
2. Explain in terms of electricity (3^rd century BCE)
3. Explain in terms of atoms or chemistry (1803 CE)
4. Explain in terms of Einstein (this includes lasers and relativity) (1901 CE)
5. Explain in terms of space travel (1961 CE)

One can easily see the natural progression from simple to more complex explanations. The year in parentheses is the date that the step was developed and added to the Method. You might notice that the truth is not on that list. That is because science is a work in progress, and steps are added as new ideas occur to scientists. Science is not used to find truth, but rather to model reality in a way that is useful and meaningful to us as Americans. I personally suspect that in the future, the truth will be found to be Step 8², but some scientists suggest it may be as high as Step 42.

Let me walk you through the method, step by step. Strangely, the first step is not actually Step 1, but rather Step 0³, which is not listed in any published versions of the Method. This is to keep it from seeming too complicated to the uninitiated. It is a common belief in education that it is best to keep things simple, and to do that we must often leave out vital pieces of information. In this case, we have left out the starting point: the Hypothesis. “Hypothesis” is Latin for “question”, and it is the driving force behind all scientific thought.

For example, in our situation, the hypothesis is

“why do cats always land on their feet?”

There’s a bit of latitude regarding the phraseology. “How come cats always land on their feet?” or “why don’t cats never not land on their feet?” are also workable hypotheses. Statements, such as, “I can’t figure out why cats always land on their feet,” are not compatible with the Scientific Method. Try adding a question mark.

Now that we have our hypothesis, we move through the steps as listed above, starting with…

Step 1 (magnets): Earth has a built-in magnetic field.⁴ Cats land on their feet. Therefore, cats must have magnets in their feet. It is obvious why this is the first step developed for the Method, as it is quite easy to ascribe any observed effect to the use of magnets. In general, any movement or force is caused by the presence of magnets, and any stability or rest in a system is accounted for by the absence of magnets. For example, a gun will only fire when aimed in the direction of a magnet. Human beings, by the way, are also pulled toward the ground, which we ascribe to subdermal magnetism, the same as cats. But as they can be observed to be pulled straight toward the ground regardless of orientation (they fall on their heads and butts a lot), we must assume the magnets are spread uniformly throughout the body (likely every couple of inches or so) rather than concentrated in the feet.

Step 2 (electricity): Electricity is the flow of small particles called elections. When an area is negatively charged, it means that many of these elections have gathered in one place. Even though elections are small and basically worthless, the mass of a negatively-charged area is still higher than one without the extra elections. Since we observe that cats always land on their feet, we can assume that their feet are negatively-charged, and—due to the extra elections—weigh more than the top of the cat and are affected more by Earth’s gravitational pull. Therefore, they hit the ground first. This is similar to those goddamn “bop bags” that you punch but can’t fucking knock over.⁶

Ah! But this exposes a flaw in our theory! If cats always weighed more in the feet, then they could never lay down!

Ancillary Lesson #1: Often in scientific research, our findings do not match our initial theories. When this occurs, and it’s too late to change our findings, we must make adjustments to our theory. In this case the solution is quite simple: cats must polarize when frightened.

(A note on steps 1 and 2: In 1864, Jim Maxwell invented electromagnetism, which combines the effects of electricity and magnetism into a single package, making the originals quite nearly obsolete. (Though there are some effects (such as thunder) not yet properly emulated in electromagnetism, so electricity and magnetism still have their uses, however limited, and can still be found in use in antiquated universities and specialized laboratories.) Most scientists have since combined steps 1 and 2 into a composite “Step 1.5″, but the list is often published as above, again to reduce confusion amongst halfwits. It is best to work your way through both steps while learning, though, and you can combine them once you’ve become proficient in the use of the Method.)

Step 3 (atoms): Atoms are a tough one because they’re very hard to see. But not impossible. If you look very close (like with a microscope), you’ll see that atoms—and therefore all of matter—are made up of hundreds of tiny moving parts! These parts are called corks. Now, you’d expect something with a name like that to float, but no, these corks are heavy, and some more heavy than others. And since a cat walks upright, we’d expect the heavier particles to settle to the bottom of the cat, to the feet, like in salad dressing. This is [what] makes the cat “bottom heavy”, which gives it stability, and makes it more likely to fall “feet first”.

Ancillary Lesson #2: While this theory seems logical, that is not enough for science; we must find a way to test it. One can’t (or shouldn’t, I guess) shake a cat like you can salad dressing, so what I did was get a cat and keep it upside-down (or “feet-up”) for several weeks, expecting that the heavier corks would re-settle along the spine. At least, that’s what I attempted to do, but what I found was that holding a cat upside-down for even a couple hours is horribly boring and essentially beyond my capabilities. I suspect this is God telling me I am not ready to learn this particular secret of his. That is something one must get used to if one wants to pursue scientific exploration. Sometimes God will stop you.

Step 4 (Einstein): If you stand on your head, it looks like the cat is falling up! It’s all relative! This is my favorite step, because really: anything goes. Be crazy, have fun! Everything’s true… from the right point of view!

Step 5 (space travel): I have no idea how space travel can explain the falling habits of cats (since, to my knowledge, there are no cats in space), but luckily in this case that’s fairly inconsequential, because the cat thing really is done with magnets.

Well, that does it for this week. If you have any questions about this week’s subject, that means you don’t understand it. Maybe you’re not cut out for science. You have to be smart to do science. I try to make it simple, but it’s not for retards.

Footnotes

¹ There once was a saying, that if you give a man a fish, it would be okay, but if you teach him how to fish, that’s better, because what if he’s not hungry? The point being that fish don’t keep well, and just giving a guy a fish is creepy. It’s a metaphor.

² With “aliens” and “FTL travel” being nos. 6 and 7, respectively.

³ While most people count starting from 1, scientists, like computers, count starting from 0. This is because of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which states that “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. Science was a great leap forward in thought, so great that it pushed the first number back from 1 to 0 for those using it. The year 2012 is prophesied to bring about a similar leap in human understanding that is expected to push the first number to -1.

⁴ This can easily be verified at home by throwing metal objects through the air. Metals are attracted to magnets. A thrown coin (for example) will rise and fall in an arc called a parabola which traces the lines of magnetic force that Earth shoots out, starting at the North Pole and ending at the South Pole⁵. A thrown coin will always land south of where it originated. Non-metallic objects will fall following a similar path (though not always north-to-south) because gravity works in a similar way. The word parabola, incidentally, is a corruption of the phrase “pair o’ balls”, which was originally used to describe the shape made by stretching a circle out to encompass two smaller circles. The technical name for the resulting shape is eclipse. All curves found in nature can be described as a subsection of this shape, and are called conic sections after the most popular of them: the cone.

⁵ To some of my older readers, this may seem backwards. That’s because Earth’s magnetic field reverses (on average) every 250,000 years. Personally, I worry that rather than reversal of the magnetic poles, the next change may be from magnetism to electricity (now that we’ve unified the two), but many scientists think I worry too much. But imagine if there was lightning everywhere all the time! That would be… terrifying, to say the very least, and I plan to be amongst the first colonists on the moon to avoid the possibility. It’s not a chance I’m willing to take!

⁶ Some students get confused by this because they have been told that gravity’s acceleration is constant regardless of mass. This is true… but only in a vacuum. In schools they show a video of a brick and a feather being dropped in a vacuum, falling at the same rate, and hitting the ground at the same instant. This is a real effect, but it is not due to gravity. In a vacuum, without air resistance, everything moves at the same speed—the speed of light (c)—regardless of acceleration. (In space, those bop bags are easily bested.) But in Earth’s atmosphere, things can move at any speed (less than c), as evident in the proliferation of different speed limits you see when driving in your automobile.

Linking Is for the Week

I’m lazy. Here’s some links:

• Promachoteuthis sulcus – It’s a horrible monster!
• Question Cat and also this one the Ste will get – Cat macros are the new cat macros.
• Lunch Conversations #4223 – A depressing and hilarious argument for the practical adoption of a Robot Overlord-based government from the writer of DC’s Blue Beetle. I’m convinced! But… seriously.
• Wainy Days Episode 11 – “Zandy” – Watch for falling laughs!

Also, here; I made this for you:

A limerick about a haiku
(except it’s not actually lewd)
  Five-seven-five
  over three lines.
To a season you ought to allude.

Well. That was boring.

The Official™ Renophaston review of TMNT: “Enter the Shredder”

Did you guys catch the latest episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? It was episode #2 and it was called “Enter the Shredder“, and I think it was the best episode yet! But I bet you’re more interested in hearing what I thought about it! Beware: a serious Spoiler Warning is in effect from this point forward!

The Big Picture!

This episode had it all! We even got to see the turtles sans masks! From the introduction of three new villains to our first sight of the Technodrome, this episode left me wanting more, but still feeling satisfied! We finally got to see that Leonardo can definitely defeat Michaelangelo in combat (even if it was just practice!), and when they put cereal on their pizzas for breakfast, I was laughing my ass off! (“Choco-Puffs for me!” LO!L) When the Technodrome blasted through that wall of rock, I nearly lost my shit! That thing is colossal! And when Shredder said, “That’s quite a brain you’ve got, Krang!” and Krang said, “Of course it is, it’s all I’ve got!” I totally laughed my fucking shit off for hours! It was cool that the zoo was just two cages in the middle of a park in the city—I wish I lived in New York! The big fight against all the robots made me so hard I had to change the way I was sitting! (“Taste cold steel!”) Bebop and Rocksteady were pretty cool before they were mutants, but afterwards they were awesome! When Raph stuck his sai into Rocksteady’s gun barrel and made it explode, I was like “Oh shit!” That was tight!

Donatello’s Missing Cock!

When Michaelangelo gets captured by a robot, Donatello leaps into action! And for those of us paying attention, a long-standing question in fandom was finally answered:

In-You-Endo Watch!

This episode was the edgiest yet—the sexual innuendo was nearly off the charts! Here are some of the best (unintentionally?) sexual lines in the episode (titled, sexually, “Enter the Shredder”):

• “All I need are animals!”
• “My legions are waiting in Dimension X to storm into this world and crush it! All I lack is a body!” (This one’s more of a metaphor!)
• “That rock is freshly drilled!”
• “Man, look at the size of those tank treads!”
• “I need two of you for an experiment!”
• 
• “Now that’s what I call a serious pizza!”
• “I’m onto something big!”
• “Let’s boogaloo!”
• “There must be some way inside!”
• “We know how to handle ourselves in the sewer!”
• “Leonardo—cut it open!”
• “I feel like a marshmallow in a nutcracker!”
• “You think they wanna mix it up with us?”
• “Donatello—try to get to their rear.”
• “Hit it Leonardo!”
• “It’s the same guys we fucked last night!” [Edit: Oops! Turns out it's actually "fought last night"!]
• “You idiots!”
• “Come on Splinter!”
• “I just hope I haven’t missed out on the action!”
• “C’mon, lets annihilate those turkeys!”
• “You boys have fun together, and we’ll be back to check on ya in ten years!”
• “Ooooh, ya little bimbo! I’ll make ya eat that camera!”

The Verdict!

Out of the two episodes that have aired, “Enter the Shredder” is by far my favorite. I think the only thing that could have made it better is if we got to see Krang’s mechanical body he’s building, but they’ve got to leave us with a reason to keep watching! I give this episode 5/5 turtle power! It was cool as shells!

WoW Temptations.

God dammit the WoW figures are awesome. Dammit.

Zero points.

Star Trek Interview

In anticipation of the new movie, we managed to score an exclusive phone interview with Star Trek, available only here on kristuphil is telling you (KITY). As always, our questions are in bold.

kristuphil: Hello?

Star Trek: Na-nu, na-nu! I am a robot. [Laughs]

KSP: Wow, Star Trek! It’s an honor to meet you, sir!

ST: “Sir”’s my dad’s name. Please, call me Star Trek.

KSP: Alright, yeah. Let’s get started! We’ve heard a lot about the new movie coming out, when is it, Christmas 2008?

ST: Oh shit, seriously?

KSP: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s still a ways off! [Laughs]

ST: Man, I don’t think it’ll be done by then. Have they even started filming? [Unintelligible shouting] Yeah, he says they’ve still got some casting to do.

KSP: Who is it you’re talking to?

ST: I don’t know. Some nigger who works here.

KSP: You’re on the set now?

ST: Set? No. I think this one’s going to be all CG, right? Like Sin City? I’m at Desilu in Hollywood. I don’t think they start shooting until… I think I heard something about Christmas 2008? But I can’t remember who told me that.

KSP: The film’s scheduled to be released on that day.

ST: Right.

KSP: I uh… guess you’re a little behind. So… we’ve heard Leonard Nimoy’s going to be in the film. How was it working with him? It’s gotta bring back some memories, right? You two worked on The Original Series together.

ST: Oh shit, maybe. Wait no… [Shouting] What was that show I did with Nimoy? [Unintelligible] No, he was Kirk! [Unintelligible] Really?

KSP: I… I actually know that you—

ST: [Interrupting] He’s saying something about a hooker? [Unintelligible shouting] I think this guy’s fucking with me. But I think there was a movie? Anyway, I recognized him when he came in to read. He was cool enough. Great tits.

KSP: We might be thinking about different people.

ST: No. He is.

KSP: Umm. Some people are worried about the fact that the original characters are going to be recast with younger actors. Do you see this as a problem, that it’s maybe a mistake to recast characters that much of the fanbase seems to hold sacred?

ST: No, not at all. I mean, I never understood that line of thinking, because this happens all the time. You can’t tell me the Pirates of the Caribbean movie would have been better if they used the robots from the ride. Right? And we did it ourselves with The Next Generation, and that worked great! And that was with a whole new cast! Nobody had a problem with that. And this time we’ve got most of the original cast coming back. They’re all coming back. This is not a new cast.

KSP: They’re all coming back? This is the first we’ve heard—

ST: [Interrupting] They’re all coming back.

KSP: That’s… awesome! I think I just came in my mouth a little bit! I would have thought they’d make a bigger deal out of that.

ST: [Silence] …Oh.

KSP: So all those rumors about William Shatner not being involved? It’s all a publicity stunt?

ST: Yeah, they’re all doing a lot of their own stuff. We’ve still got stunt guys, but a lot of these actors are really itching to do as much of it themselves as they can. This is going to be a much more action-oriented film. More Transformers than Star Trek, really. The script is only like 10 pages long! [Laughs] And it’s like explosions and cars flipping over for the whole thing! We’re relying much more on special effects than we have in the past. I think it makes it much easier on the writers and on the actors. They don’t have to do as much, you know?

KSP: “Cars flipping over”?

ST: Oh, yeah. This is… I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say about this, but the big climax of the film takes place in New York, just before the 9/11™ attacks, and Old Spock picks up Young Spock and—there’s two Spocks, did I tell you this? It’s a time-travel thing. Anyway, Old Spock throws Young Spock from the ground, straight into American Airlines Flight 11—except it’s Oceanic Flight 11 because that’s JJ [Abrams, the director]’s thing—and it stops the plane from hitting the tower. That’s why they went back in time, to stop 9/11™. But since his younger self is now dead, Old Spock dies in Luke’s arms, and it’s this real emotional scene. I mean it will be, once the FX guys get done with it. But they all forgot about United 175, and so one of the towers go down anyway, so Spock’s death was all for nothing. It was this big thing about faith or destiny or something. That’s kind of the question posed in the film. Should we have destiny? Should we change the past? It’s big questions. I’m sorry, what did you ask? I can’t remember the question. [Laughs]

KSP: This… the film’s going to be about 9/11™?

ST: Oh yeah, you asked about the car stunts. We’ve got Steve Carell coming in to play this taxi driver, kind of the comedy relief for the film, and he’s just hilarious. [Laughs] I’ve seen him in character when they were doing the makeup tests, and it’s just… [laughs] People are gonna be cracking up. He doesn’t speak English very good—I mean his character—and he keeps getting himself into the middle of these really crazy situations—like I said, cars flipping over—I don’t know, he kind of becomes our hero, you know? Well, you know, for black guys. It’s real inspirational.

KSP: Steve Carrell’s playing a black taxi driver?

ST: Yeah, you know, we’ve always been about acceptance and tolerance and all that, but I don’t think we’ve ever really had the blacks represented realistically in our movies. Well, we’ve got Uhura, but let’s be honest, action-wise, she’s white. I mean, the way she talks? That’s not black. And it’s fun because we get to have her meet the Steve Carell character, and it’s like she can’t even understand him. It’s like future shock! She gets to see where she lost her way.

KSP: Uh… I don’t know what’s going on here. I think this is the most disappointed I’ve ever been. I’ve got some some questions from our readers I promised I’d ask, and then we’ll stop.

ST: Go for it.

KSP: Reader mr_cock writes, “First, I just want to tell you how much me and my girlfriend love your shows—we even bought a TV so we could watch them! In episode 1×03 [Where No Man Has Gone Before], Kirk’s gravestone is labeled ‘James R. Kirk’, while everyone knows that Kirk’s middle name is ‘Tiberius’. How can this be possible? My girlfriend says it was just a mistake, but Gene never made mistakes, right?”

ST: Yeah, we’ve gotten a lot of shit for this over the years. But Gene [Roddenberry] is not in the new film, so it’s kind of a moot point now. He’s not in the film.

KSP: Reader 5beermission writes, “me and my wife just got married, and we had a traditional betazoid wedding ceremony. as you know, this means we are all naked, and the thing is I had an erection through the whole ceremony. my wife thinks it was cute, but now it wont go away and I dont know how to tell her. help me startrek, your my only hope!”

ST: That was Princess Leia! That was a Leia line. I watched A New Hope again yesterday, and I realized that light sabers were pretty much just big penises! [Laughs] Seriously, watch it again! I mean, they’d make them “erect” and they’d be all hard and they can hit them on stuff, and then they’d go “flaccid” [makes light saber sound] and they hook them on their belt! [Laughs] I tried to get them to put that in the new movie, but I guess someone called Space Balls already did it? When I heard that, I immediately put it on my Netflix queue. Space Balls? Gotta see that! But my queue is pretty long, so I don’t know when I’ll get to it. So I guess that kind of relates to what you’re saying. Oh! That’s what she said! About my queue. And your erection! [Laughs]

KSP: Okay, last one. Reader BenjaminDisco69 writes, “My girlfriend and I were wondering, what show currently on television do you think most exemplifies what Star Trek was trying to do?”

ST: I remember the first time I saw Enterprise I thought, “this is a total copy of my show!” I mean, they even named the ship Enterprise! But then it turns out it was actually one of ours, so I’m glad we didn’t go through with the lawsuit. But I don’t know, probably The Price is Right? Is that still on? Anything where you can win a car is gonna be pretty high on my list. And the sets always looked pretty futuristic to me, but I haven’t seen it in a while. But they had a lot of lights and numbers and stuff just like TOS.

KSP: This has been the most disheartening experience of my life, I think. Anything… you want to add before I hang up?

ST: Uh, I don’t—Actually yeah, there was this thing that happened to me yesterday. So yesterday I was walking along the road and looking at the clouds which were all kind of messed up and weird looking. And because I wasn’t paying attention, I walked through a spider web, and I hate spiders. And I’m not saying I’m afraid of them—I’m not. I just fucking hate them, and now I’ve got web all over my shirt, and who knows if there was a spider in there at the time. So I’m freaking out and then I see this cloud directly ahead of me that looks kind of like a duck. Not really, but a little bit. And I think, man, that must be God telling me to “duck”, right? Under the spiderweb? Then I’m thinking, that’s kind of shitty, because I didn’t see the duck cloud until after I walked through the spiderweb, which is just like… I mean, I know it was there the whole time, but God could have maybe warned me a little better than that? But then later I noticed that if I had ducked before, the spiderweb would have hit me in the face, which would have been even worse, so. [pause] It kind of makes you think. It made me think. I’m not trying to sound preachy, because I’m not a religious person, but… it was a spiritual experience. I… I’m a spiritual person, but I’m not a religious person. You get what I’m saying? I think spirituality is important. And sometimes you have to have faith. And that’s kind of at the heart of the new movie. So come see Star Trek IV or whatever number we’re at, opening this Christmas! May the force be with you!

Interviewer’s note: It is the 11th Star Trek film, and it is called simply “Star Trek”. It opens Christmas 2008.

Deep Blue Worthless Post. Zero Points.

The wikipedia entry for the song “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something is funny to me. I mean, I think it is a reasonable entry, but funny anyway. It’s pretty much just a simple explanation of the songs lyrics. Good times.

Also, I found a funny picture. This picture might not show up because I don’t know how to use computers or the internet, and I might be doing something against the law by posting it here.

[edit: image removed by God]