Rock Like An Egyptian

First Tunisia, now Egypt. The whole Middle East is up in arms. There isn't much I can add to this that isn't already said, so here is my response to both situations, to the tune of "London Bridge is Burning Down".

Tunisia is burning down, burning down, burning down.
Tunisia is burning down, run Ben Ali!


Mubarak is going down, going down, going down.
Mubarak is going down, so much for the army!

We Can Defeat the World and Win "The Future"

Last night was the State of the Union address and Barack Obama has laid the foundation for the next year in Washington. He called for a lot of fun things like fast trains to keep Joe happy and a nifty high score system so teachers can see how good they're doing. Competition always makes things more fun! (grumble grumble) So after listening to the speech, I picked up two major points.

1. There is a game, it is called "The Future", and apparently we need to win the hell out of it.

2. We are apparently playing this game against the ENTIRE GOD DAMNED PLANET EARTH.

"We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world [...]  we need to win The Future."
-President Barack Obama

For those of you doing the math at home, we're talking 6583779486 players against our 311951347 or approximately 20 to 1. Well I've played my fair share of RTS games and I know that we have our work cut our for us. Luckily we have the resources to even the playing field, if only we could wean ourselves off of the Vespian Gas. I sat there, thinking about the big questions like how to defeat the world and whether to get chicken tenders or a wrap after the speech was done when Obama came to his thrilling conclusion.


We are a nation that says, "I might not have a lot of money, but I have this great idea for a new company. I might not come from a family of college graduates, but I will be the first to get my degree. I might not know those people in trouble, but I think I can help them, and I need to try. I'm not sure how we'll reach that better place beyond the horizon, but I know we'll get there. I know we will." We do big things.

"She told me her name was Billie Jean, as she caused a scene. Then every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one." -Michael Jackson

There it is. We do big things. I like it. It's how we roll. It made me think about a blog post I almost put up a few weeks ago about American awesomenessocity that was inspired, not by the leader of the free world, but by Richard Hammond, who while speeding along in a 1970 Pontiac GTO, said this,

The Germans will be remembered for their engineering. The French for their quirky brilliance. The Italians for passion. The British for the nimble roadster. But the Americans, they'll be remembered for giving us a laugh. I don't mean that spitefully. What I mean is they make cars like this that basically just say "Oh calm down, nobody died, it's just a bit of fun. Enjoy it!"

That ladies and gentlemen is the American spirit as outlined by a small British man. At least the former American spirit. We used to be a country that embraced stupidly hilarious ideas. We built cars that were just stupidly powerful. When we heard the Russians had sent a blippy box thingy into space, we decided "Fuck you guys, we'll play golf on the moon." We built a cities economy off of testing nuclear explosions that were stupidly close by. We even wanted to send men to Saturn using a giant nuclear machine gun strapped to a Hilton Hotel. Now we shut down major space programs faster than we eat Baconators, and we know how to eat some motherfuckin' Baconators. 

"No workers are more productive than ours."
-President Barack Obama

So yes, we have unlocked many achievements, we beat the fuck out of "The Past". I think today we take all of that stuff as a given and forget how hard some of them really tricky levels were. Now we have to beat "The Future". I'm sure it'll be a bitch. But we can beat it as long we continue our tradition of playing like a bunch of god damned mad men who create crazy awesome things for the fuck of it. As Steve Carrell once famously said, 


"The Wright Brothers decided to make themselves a flying machine. 'You fools, you idiots! What's your problem?' everyone shouted. 'That will never work because plywood weighs more than air.' To which the Wright Brothers responded, 'No, it doesn’t.'"


So get out there and unlock some achievements, for America.

"If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation [...] become a teacher. Your country needs you."
-President Barack Obama
"Alright, I'll do it. Just get off my back. Jeeeeeeeez."
-Moi

Screw Real Life Applications

Yesterday I moved back to Alfred and set up my computer and inevitably caught up on some web comics. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal has this excellent comic about science education that made me lqtm.

And then this happened...

Six years might be too short a time to jump on this project if you've been ignoring science your whole life, but it's not too late to learn the ancient art of leather tanning. Someone has to make that saddle, maybe you can get a free ride!