There have been a rash of really good superhero movies recently with the most current being the much-touted Iron Man (which I've yet to see so don't spoil it!) and Batman Begins (not only the best Batman movie ever, but one of the best movies ever made in my opinion).
Haven't you ever asked yourself, 'How cool would it be to have a superpower?
One question that always pops into our minds (ok, my mind) when watching these movies is, how cool would it be to have that power? How cool would it be to have a super-power at all! But what super-power would be best?
Well today, I give you that answer.
I thought long and hard about what powers would be most useful and powerful and there's many to choose from (Telekinesis, Mind-Reading, Shapeshifting, Illusion, and on and on). The problem is that each has a weakness or a situation that renders it useless.
Illusions don't work on machines and won't help you stop a bullet or save your darling as she plummets to her death from a tall building. So maybe go to Telekinesis to save your falling damsel, stop the bullet, and toss those robotic enforcers across the horizon, but then what about that secret poison needle that your "darling" is planning to betray you with? Mind-reading will come in very handy here, but is no good for attack dogs, Mexican wrestlers, or being pushed out of an Airplane. You see how this can go on for a while…
One superpower to rule them all...
Anyway, after long and hard deliberation, I've come up with a power that would fit nearly every need and be useful for everything from falling pianos to sticking your foot in your mouth. Undo.
That's right, undo. Imagine:
You spend four hours haggling on the price of a car and take it just a little too far. Undo the last thing you said and try again.
The red and blue lights flash behind you, undo, slow down, pass the speed trap, speed back up to 92 miles per hour.
Three words: Stocks, Racetrack, Vegas
Think of the possibilities!
Your wife gave you specific instructions to keep the dog in while she was gone, but during the game, someone comes to your door to tell you they just ran over a dog and they think it's yours. Undo, pause the game, get the dog, resume the game.
A guy breaks into your house which you find out only after they're standing over your bed with a gun telling you to "get up mutha*****!!". Undo, meet them at the door with a shotgun.
You just stepped off a curb and the blare of a horn announces your imminent grisly demise at the hands of a truck's grill. Undo, stay at the curb and let the truck pass.
And it doesn't have to be just once. If you turn down a street and get mugged only to undo and try a different street and get mugged again, go back a little earlier to when you left the hotel and take a cab instead.
If there's a limit to how far you can go, it's based mostly on how much of your life you want to relive. Maybe you just want to try the whole day over again. Maybe you made a horrible mistake a week ago, but didn't realize it until just now. Maybe you developed cancer months ago and if they had known then, you'd have survived. UNDO!
The Super-hero Gig
Maybe you can't stop a bank robbery, but you'd be able to call the SWAT team in at just the right time. Maybe you can't stop a meteor from coming down on your house, but you can back up a week and say, "Let's move! RIGHT NOW". You can't stop the violence in Iraq, but you could certainly help as an informant and keep yourself from getting killed if you went there.
Sure you don't get the glory of being in tights and impressing the all the chicks, but you'll never have to worry about missing a deadline, saying the wrong thing, being in the wrong place, or betting on the wrong horse.
The only two questions left are, what do you call yourself and is there any type of super-villain that could defeat you?
Note that I've already considered that you could defeat an undo power by just causing instant death. I have a solution to that worked out as well, but it gets complicated and I figured most people don't want to go that deep into my mind
Someone I know of who works at a three-letter agency forwarded me this CIA Simple Sabotage Field Manual from 1944 that was recently declassified. If you every wondered if someone was TRYING to get in the way at work, maybe they are…
Here's the full list in case you don't want the pdf:
Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
Make "speeches" Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments.
When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible - never less than five.
Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
Be worried about the propriety of any decision - raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated is within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
Demand written orders.
"Misunderstand" orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don't deliver it until it is completely ready.
Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.
Oder high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don't get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.
In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.
Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.
Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant.
When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.
To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
Multiply paper-work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.
Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.
Apply all regulations to the last letter.
Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.
Prolong correspondence with government bureaus.
Misfile essential documents.
In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done.
Tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone.
Hold up mail until the next collection.
Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope.
Work slowly. Think out way s to increase the number of movements necessary on your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one, try to make a small wrench do when a big one is necessary, use little force where considerable force is needed and so on.
Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can: when changing the material on which you are working, as you would on a lathe or punch, take needless time to do it. IF you are cutting, shaping or doing other measured work, measure dimensions twice as often as you need to. When you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary. Forget tools so that you will have to go back after them.
Even if you understand the language, pretend not to understand instructions in a foreign tongue.
Pretend that instructions are hard to understand and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.
Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right.
Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.
Snarl up administration in very possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so, that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.
If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on.
Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questions.
Report imaginary spies or danger to the Gestapo or police.
Act stupid.
be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble.
Misunderstand all sorts of regulations concerning such matters as rationing, transportation, traffic regulations.
Complain against ersatz materials.
In public, treat axis nationals or quislings coldly.
Stop all conversation when axis nationals or quislings enter a cafe.
Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks.
Boycott all movies, entertainments, concerts, newspapers which are in any way connected with the quisling authorities.
I like webcomics particularly those involving video games (because it just so happens that I like video games too). However, I've noticed a bit of a trend concerning our beloved Nintendo character Mario. For posterity (and because it makes it easier to show these to other people this way), I've collected all the relevant comics here (warning, these are probably NOT safe for work (NSFW)):
As I said before, the only way to get a good deal with your telco is to switch services every now and then or at least threaten to. After checking what Comcast would give me to stay, it was clear that Verizon FiOS would be the better deal and I tried to set a date. Here is my story.
First of all, there were flyers on our door and people going door to door several months before this began all advertising FiOS. When we actually tried to GET it though, they said it wasn't in our area. Song and dance, call after call, nothing. We were stuck. So we set up a DSL package because it was still better than Comcast.
They delayed install for weeks sending us only a cryptic message that they were checking into the possibility of giving us DSL (which is crap because we had it before). I suspect that they were delaying us on purpose until the FiOS became available, but whatever. We wanted FiOS anyway.
When it finally got "turned on" and we were able to do so, we canceled the DSL order and set up one for FiOS instead. Everything went fairly smoothly even down to them calling the day before-hand to remind us and confirm the install date. Then the tech comes out and says that he couldn't install it because they hadn't actually run the fiber from their box in the ground to our house. That and some switch down the street hadn't been set yet (whatever).
He said they'd call us to let us know when the diggers would be out and that he'd already set up the install for the cable for us. They didn't call, but a few days later we found the front lawn spraypainted all over the place (no big deal since we're renting). I called anyway to confirm that they were going to do this right and found out that part of the order was entered wrong. The guy promised to fix it and gave me a tracking number.
As I was writing this, some guy from a third-party fiber installer pulled up and left a note on my door. I caught him and he says that they'll be out to install next week (ugh). Hopefully I can get them to expidite the actual install after that's done.
Reactions
So far, this process has been far less painful than I thought. The incompetence is there, but less than I feared. Also, the customer service people were helpful, spoke English, and were polite. We'll see how this turns out in a week or so.
Digg users are reporting that the "Church of $cientology" has posted a response website to the continued on and offline harrassment by the group calling themselves "Anonymous". However, the poster of this article points out that the "death threat" video on the Scientology server is actually better quality that the one on Youtube.
If this is true, it means that Scientology has the original copy of the video and they either:
I can believe both theories. I wouldn't put it past Scientology to do something like that, but I also wouldn't be surprised if someone sent them a real death threat. First, others have done far fewer terrible things to get death threats and also the "group" called Anonymous isn't really a group. It's anyone and everyone who feels that the Co$ is bad and wishes to join the movement against them.
That means any crackpot could call themselves Anonymous. Even someone willing to make death threats (which would be the exact worst thing to do by the way).
A timeline comparing the beliefs of Scientology verus actual science. And also this:
Science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard's most notorious space opera is the religion of Scientology, which is packed with aliens and space battles and waves of invaders to our solar system.
"People have been scared out of their minds to speak out about Scientology," said Hill, Miscavige's niece, in an interview. "Nobody should have to be that scared to speak out about a church."
Wiseman echoed the sentiment, adding that the Anonymous campaign had influenced her decision to reveal her identity last week. "The Internet is listening. If something happens to me, all of these people will know."
The neice of the head of scientology is afraid for her life. That's just not cool.
Today on CNN, they are reporting that the Clinton campaign might be stalled due to lack of money. I say it's ridiculous and wrong that it requires so much money to run for President. It should not be a matter of who can put out the most ads. In fact, it should be illegal for prospective politicians to advertise. They should each have a website sponsored by the government that enforces fairness across all the candidates sites and provides their stances on major issues.
Note that the article references one of my recommended movies, "V for Vendetta", which was an excellent movie about resisting an oppresive totalitarian government.
See, in all cases, he hasn't even had to go to court: the company calls him up the day before the court date and gives him a settlement. It seems they prefer to do that then pay to fly a company representative who isn't fully versed on all the facts to court.
They may have found a way to modify regular skin cells into working like stem cells. Having another source that is easier to get, far more plentiful, and lacks those nasty moral issues would make the technology thrive. Let's hope for the best.
I see noise about "Ron Paul" everywhere. Streets, media, online. It's enough to get on your nerves. But as with all things popular, eventually, you want to see what the fuss is about.
I checked out his website today and if half of the things there are true, he might be our best presidential candidate in a long, long time.
For one, he doesn't hide behind political speech. Is he against abortion? Yes, yes he is. It's not hard to find out his stance on almost anything. And, I for one, can definitely agree with this:
The biggest threat to your privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding citizens’ personal matters.
I remember the morning of 9/11. I was getting ready for my first day of work at Best Buy and we saw the buildings on TV as I grabbed my stuff and went out the door. I hardly cared at all.
It was years later when I visited the Oklahoma City bombing memorial that I finally understood the tragedy that took place that day. It took seeing the rubble, the mishapen building, and cluttered former workspaces of the building accross the street to really get it. I realized that people, even strangers accross the country, matter. Every one of them had a life and a family, both of which was taken by someone with no right to do so.
Remeber this: if you are ever asked, "what is evil", there is one unarguable answer: harming innocents.
Today, while there are moments of silence and observance accross the country and around the world, don't forget to say a prayer for the secondary victim of the crime. The United States of America, under rule of Bush, has taken a beating day after day for 6 years because of the administration using 9/11 as a justification to tear down the balance of government and the rights of citizens.
Collateral damage has left poor Miss USA battered, broken, and bruised and I can say with certaintly that given the two, Bin Laden or George Bush, it is the latter who has hurt us more.
I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, but it did. Smoking damages your genes and some of the damage is irreversible. The article doesn't say, but I wonder if that means you can pass the defects on to your kids or if that kind of stuff gets filtered out. Someone with more biology experience than me can clear that up.
The new Chinese law specifies the rules and regulations for reincarnation including the need to seek government permission. What sounds insane at first turns out to have a legitimate reason… if you're a country like China.
But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.
