Adam's Thingy

One Nation, Under Goog

Google doesn’t just help you find the nearest pizza place anymore - now it helps doctors find where flu epidemics are going to strike next. Working with a group of epidemiologists, the tech megacorp has revealed a new system for tracking disease outbreaks by checking what people are searching for. By tracking the rise in searches on phrases like “cold/flu remedy,” Google said yesterday in a Nature article that it can predict with almost total accuracy where flu outbreaks are occurring, far more quickly than the American Centers for Disease Control can.

W-O-W.

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And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.

If you’ve read Twilight, you should read Midnight Sun.  It’s Twilight, rewritten from Edward’s perspective.  It was supposed to be a book, but it leaked.  The awesome thing is that instead of pissing and moaning (which she did), the author accepted that it happened and posted it on her website for free.

I haven’t gotten far into it, but this part is tits.  The first time Bella walks into the classroom, she stumbles over her feet because of how gorgeous Edward is.  All you read is how Edward uncomfortably grips the table.  Later on he tells her it was because she smelled so good.  Here’s what he meant:

Bella Swan walked into the flow of the heated air that blew toward me from the vent.

Her scent hit me like a wrecking ball, like a battering ram.  There was no image violent enough to encapsulate the force of what happened to me in that moment.

In that instant, I was nothing close to the human I’d once been; no trace of the shreds of humanity I’d managed to cloak myself in remained.

I was a predator.  She was my prey.  There was nothing else in the whole world but that truth.

There was no room full of witnesses—they were already collateral damage in my head.  The mystery of her thoughts was forgotten, for she would not go on thinking them much longer.

I was a vampire, and she had the sweetest blood I’d smelled in eighty years.

I hadn’t imagined such a scent could exist.  If I’d known it did, I would have gone searching for it long ago.  I would have combed the planet for her.  I could imagine the taste…

Thirst burned through my throat like fire.

Read the rest.

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Give them the money.

Here’s what I’m hoping the press conference will sound like whenever they decide on what to do with the automakers bailout:

Good afternoon, bitches.  After meeting, we’ve decided to approve this whole shebangabang.  Here’s how it’ll go down…

The era of the combustion engine is coming to a close.  If there’s one thing you three should have learned over the past decade or so, is that you can’t force feed gas guzzling vehicles down consumers throats.  Because consumers will not tolerate four-dollar-a-gallon gas.  And while the price of gas may have receded, it will go up again, and when it does we’ll be in the same situation we are now as long as we follow the same old plans.

So, we’ve set aside $25 billion dollars.

However, we haven’t set that aside for you.  We’ve decided to invest that money into the future.  The $25 billion will go to whichever company can design, blueprint, and mass produce a line of cars that are completely free of gasoline and cost under $16,000 to the consumer.  I’m not talking about hybrid technology… we need to move beyond that.  Maybe it’s hydrogen fuel cell, electricity, whatever.  I’m not an engineer.  But whoever is, and is up to the challenge, will get a $25 billion dollar investment from the American people.

Maybe that means a merger for you three.  Maybe it means Joe the Mechanic will be the next Henry Ford.  You have three months.

Seacrest out.

Here’s how I think it will go down:

Good afternoon, sirs.  How much do you need?  Twenty five bill?  That’s totally fine, pay us back whenevsies.

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Terminator: "Complications"

As Charlie Jane Anders puts it:  “Watching [Monday’s] episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I couldn’t help wondering why this show hasn’t become the new Lost.”

I’m telling you people (I presume few of you watch it), while Lost is still Adam’s Best Show on Television, Terminator is a show that takes itself seriously, and you should, too.

Monday’s episode was another one of the best.  It featured a particular story line that involved a time travel scenario that took some time to think through properly even after the show ended.

Imagine you are 60 years old, and the world as we know it has come to an end.  Our robots have rebelled and killed most of us, but for some reason you were spared.  The robots put you to use, because you had spent lots of time in jail and know how to “work” with people.  So you teach the machines the frailty of the human body, how to torture, etc.  In exchange, once your work is complete they send you back in time to live out the rest of your days in peace.  Except, when you’re back in time, you cross paths with someone else who has come back in time… one of your old test subjects.  They tie you up and beat you, but you refuse to admit who you really are (this was a scene reminiscent of Henry Gale).

So, they bring in a younger version of you.  Since you traveled back in time, you exist in this time period as, say, a 25 year old.  They say they’re not going to torture YOU for answers, they’re going to start chopping off the younger version’s fingers until you answer.

You end up talking, they end up killing you, and setting your younger version free with the knowledge that if he follows the same path, then he’s just witnessed his own death.  Your younger version takes the advice to heart, and sets off to do the right thing.  Except the FBI shows up at his door, showing DNA evidence that he committed some kind of crime.

“It wasn’t me!”  Your younger version says, though he knows the truth… his future self did something terrible and he’s taking the blame.  But what do you tell the FBI investigator?

You could lie, but you know the truth, and they’re going to see that.  But the story you would tell would make them think you’re crazy.  “Sorry, officer, it wasn’t me, it was a 60-year-old version of myself from a future where machines have taken over the world!”

Well, that’s what happened, and when he tells them, he gets locked up in a mental ward, the same “jail” where he learned how to “work” with people in the first place.  If our heroes had left well enough alone, none of it would have happened.

And that’s what makes the show so great.  We have a show where the main theme is saving the world from a bleak future you know is coming.  I think it’s why nobody wants to give it a chance:  they know how it ends.  The machines win, otherwise there’s no story.  But as we’re learning, I’m not so sure that’s the central concept of the show.  It seems like anything they do is only making things worse.

Makes me wonder if the whole franchise has been a ruse:  maybe it’s John Connor sending back the evil robots, and Skynet sending back the good ones to save him, because if John Connor dies, Skynet isn’t born.

Also interesting was the realization that Derek came back from a different future than Jesse.  Derek came back first, from a future where he was never tortured by the 60-year-old time traveler.  But Jesse remembers him being tortured implicitly.  So, either Derek has blocked the memory, or Jesse, having come back later than Derek, is from a different future because something Derek has done has changed his future for the worst.

The show still has a lot of unanswered questions that bug me, such as never following up on Cameron’s declaration of love for John, and never explaining if she’s constantly having to override the “Terminate John Connor” command, but maybe those answers are still coming.  Once they consistently start dropping hints at stuff like that, just to let us know that they haven’t forgotten and an explanation is coming, they’re one step closer to Adam’s Best Show on Television.

Also, it’s fun to think that we’ve now seen the same amount of episodes in season two as we did in season one!  But this time, the season is only half over!

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Twilight: Adam's Book Review

I finished reading Twilight last night.  I picked it up sometime in August and never got a chance to start it, and then Katy read it and liked it, and since then it has taken off in popularity and it seems like everyone and their mom (literally) has read it.  I lost interest in it then, thinking it was just “the next Harry Potter.”  Not saying that’s a bad thing, but if everyone else is going to tell me the story do I really need to read it myself?

I’m glad that I did.  Because if I had waited, I’d be forced into hearing the actors’ voices and picturing their faces instead of developing a picture of them in my mind all by m’self.  Not to mention if I had waited, all the books would have “Now a Major Motion Picture!” plastered all over the cover and, well, I hate that.

So, what did I think?  I really, really liked it.  It’s target audience is teenage girls, so at times I felt that I should be hiding the cover from view when reading in public.  But I felt like I enjoyed the story just as much as they did, and if that and listening to the new Taylor Swift album makes me a bit effeminate, I guess you can call me Queen Mary Polesmoker.  But maybe it also means that females are putting out better stuff than any dudes right now.

Speaking of, I think the differences between females and males is kind of what makes this story and consequently is part of the reason why it’s so popular among teenage girls who are trying to figure all that stuff out on their own.  Therefore the book should probably be liked just as much by teenage boys, and for that matter the rest of us who are still trying to figure out women (or men), but it’s not as well received with that demographic probably because we’re too busy playing with our dicks to talk about feelings.

I found the theme very disturbing but at the same time very erotic, and I think that’s why women are falling in love with the male lead character, Edward.  This is a phenomenon… girls and their mothers around the world are falling for Edward, a fictional character!  And I think it’s because what I find so disturbing can also be seen as dangerous.  And we all know women love a disturbed, dangerous, sexy guy.  ::puts on a tie::

My question, though, to anybody reading who has read the book, is this (and from here on out, there be spoilers, so tread carefully): are the scenes of Edward tracing his nose along her body, stopping at the wrists and neck to smell her blood, and constantly having to pull away from her because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from killing her, supposed to be sexy?

Katy thought not, and made me feel like a perv for thinking so.  I see it like this: it’s not necessarily about drinking blood, but more about how Bella is so alluring and tempting that he had to constantly restrain himself around her.  Replace “blood” with “sex” (or, to an unwilling prey, “rape”)  and you see the point.

The ultimate danger was kind of illustrated early on when they made the trip to wherever they went when she saw his skin sparkle (totes awesome, BTW). He said to her before they left: “let your dad know where we’re going, so I have some incentive to bring you back alive.”

If a normal guy said this, it would be creepy. If a serial killer said this, you’d shit your pants and run the other way. But if a vampire says this, you lean in closer and get all moist because it’s just so dangerous. And more than just the danger—it’s something that makes HER unique, it’s HER smell that’s doing this to him and she loves it.

You would, too.

The one thing that irritated me about the story—but not so much as to take away from the enjoyment—was the fact that Edward is really 107 years old.  Vampires don’t age, so even though he appears 17, he’s been alive since 1901 and has the mind of a 107 year old.

Why is no one besides me upset by this? Just because Edward looks 17 doesn’t mean he is. If we picture Edward looking like his true age, the story just gets perverted.

My point is that a 107-year-old man has nothing in common with a 17-year-old girl. I get the whole “love is ageless” thing and understand it, and that’s fine… at first.  But when the initial lust wears off, what are they going to talk about?

“Remember the Spanish Flu?”  Edward might say.  “The Great Depression?  World War I, and II?  Those were horrid!  Do you remember how we had to…?”

“No, Grandpa, I don’t,” Bella might reply, “let’s go drive a hybrid car and Google it.”

Megan brought up a good point to me.  She said:

During my reading of the book, I kept wondering if the reason I was falling in love with Edward was because of the type of narrative. I mean if the book had been written in third person-omniscient would I have loved him so intently? Or is the only reason I love him because the narrator (Bella) loved him so much?

How do you feel about Edward? Do you see him as someone you’d like to emulate? Or do you, as a male, fall for him with the same veracity that I, as a woman do? Or are you somewhere in between?

Edward is not someone, as a male, I’d like to emulate.  Not just because I don’t really have any appetite for blood, but because he’s the embodiment of an “old fashioned” male.  He lifts Bella up and carries her around, attends to her every need, tells her exactly what to do and yells at her when she doesn’t but then immediately forgives her and tells her he loves her anyway.  It’s this assertiveness, danger, protection, and forgiveness that I think women (or anybody) find attractive, but a year into the relationship can just be seen as being an overbearing asshole.

Then again, he is a vampire, so human characterists may not be applicable.

In the end, it’s just that he’s a bad boy that you can’t bring home to mommy and daddy.

But I do think Megan has a point in that if the story were written from a third-person perspective, it wouldn’t have been as effective.  I’d be curious if the series would have been as successful if you weren’t constantly inside Bella’s head.  I’d be willing to bet it would tank, because, really, it’s pretty easy to fall in love with Bella, too.

The bottom line:  Stephanie Meyer is one of those authors who truly has “the gift,” and has created a very powerful world with very real characters and done it at a “teenage” writing level so it’s not bogged down with big words for the sake of big words.  And that’s something that anybody—male or female—can appreciate.

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Regarding one sentance posts.

Katie Geiter asks:  “I don’t get these particular posts. You have title that says “I don’t know if it can help….and then you entry says …..but it can’t hurt, I guess.  What are you talking about? Is there a link that you are refering to? I don’t get it!”

She’s not the first to ask.  On posts like that, the title is generally a link and the one sentance blurb is me saying something about that link.  So click the link.

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Embarrassing Scenario #1

One of the most embarrassing situations I could ever find myself in involves food.  It’s thankfully only happened a few times in my life, but each time it was mortifying.  Example:

Person: What happened to that Apple pie I had in here?

Me: ::mouth full of food::  Huhm?

Person: I was saving that, where’d it go?

Me: ::holding a mouth full of food::  I, uhm.. ate it?

Person: The whole thing??

Me: ::thinking about the empty pie plate in the trash and how I had crammed the entire thing in my mouth::  Uhm.. yeam.  Nom nom nom.

Not only do you feel bad for eating their stuff, you feel like a tubbo every time.

Just me?

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Stomping grapes.

Have you seen this video?

And why did I miss it on Family Guy?

Hilarious.  Poor Stewie.

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Pot roast.

Katy and I are having a pot roast for dinner tonight.  I got up early to cut the vegetables.  It will be delicious.  I added the spices, too, and my mouth is watering as I think about it.

Before he died, my “grand” Uncle Gene said he should have eaten more pot roast.  If he did, he claimed, he would have lived longer.  Sounds like good advice to me!

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I got my new ride.

I got my new ride.  It’s a 2009 Chevrolet Cobalt.

People seem to have the same reaction:  “oh, it’s NEW?”  Yes, I wasted money getting new instead of used.  However, it’s frickin NEW, meaning I am the only one who will ever own this, so no hidden surprises like finding out it was involved in a front end collison 2 years after I bought it and therefore needs a new power steering pump every year and half.  And also, autotrader.com couldn’t find a used Cobalt with a manual transmission within 100 miles, so that’s that.

After 7 years of no real car payment, paying hundreds every month just to drive to and from work is going to be a huge adjustment for me.

And it makes me ill to think that I spent all that money repairing my old car, only to decide it wasn’t worth it 2 weeks later.  And that was cash, too, not credit.  That was cash I was saving each month for my wedding or an emergency, and I figured a broken car is an emergency, so I used it all up.  It’s the equivalent of me taking over a thosuand dollars and flushing it down the toilet.

Anyway, how long before I start saying “my piece of shit car?”  Hopefully when I’m done making payments, at least.

A few years ago I told myself my next car would be a hybrid.  I decided against that, because hybrid technology is not the solution to the problem we’re facing.  It’s kind of like plugging a little crack in a dam with a piece of duct tape.  And anyway, my little digital readout (I have a digital readout!) tells me I get 40mpg which is better than some hybrids.

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Americopoly

Dave, Logan, Rachel, Katy and I just played Americopoly, the American History version of Monopoly.

I suggested we play it like true Americans, where money is no object and if you get into trouble the government will help you, so Dave helped solidify the concept by defining the parameters:  as soon as you own eight properties, you are eligible for a bailout.  In other words, if you go bankrupt, the bank will give you 3x the mortgage value of all of your properties with no penalty to you as long as you own at least eight.  The second time you need a bailout—because hey, why not—you get 2x the value of your mortgage, again with no penalty.

Surprisingly, it added an interesting concept to the game, and worked just like our real economy—since you had to own eight properties to be eligible for the bailout, the bailout naturally went to the biggest, strongest players, pushing the little guys out of the game early on.

I’d recommend incorporating that new aspect to your game the next time you play.

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If GM goes bankrupt, what happens to me?

I understand, I guess, why the financial bailout was necessary.  If I understand the situation correctly, if nothing was done it would basically mean “nobody knows what the hell would happen besides all of the sudden the US dollar becomes worthless, not just figuratively, but legitimately worthless.”

Nobody wants to see that happen, so, okay, help them out.  (I’m angry at what I’m hearing about how there’s no oversight and the money has been largely used up already, but what am I going to do about that from my cubicle?)

Anyway, WHY ON EARTH would anybody be considering a bailout for the failing automakers?  Our economy rests on banks, not cars.  If automakers tank, it’ll suck, but we’ll be just fine.  Bailing them out would be like bailing out Target.  There’s no greater risk here:  when business fail to innovate and drive new business, they fail.  The automaker’s in this country pushed SUVs and cars nobody really wanted based on 100 year old technology.  Their fault.  Their loss.  Goodbye GM, hello whoever comes next.

Having said all that, I have a question I need to know the answer to.  If GM fails, and I buy a new GM car, say, tomorrow, with a 3-year warranty, what would happen to my warranty?

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