Geek Drivel

Doom, despair, and agony on me!
Deep dark depression, excessive misery!
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.
Doom, despair, and agony on me!
— Recurring skit from the TV show Hee Haw

This sounds like a great idea. But I have to wonder about it.

I know a woman, a friend of ours, with totally abysmal luck. She suffers minor — and very odd — disasters on a regular basis. And it’s not from anything she does — they’re just random events that could happen to anyone, but that happen to her with far more regularity than mere chance would allow for. On a related note, she loves to complain about her life, and these little visits from the misery fairy seem to give her plenty of fodder. It’s an open question whether the complaints come from the bad luck, or the bad luck comes from the complaints.

On the other hand, I know one person who could fall into a sewer truck and discover a gold nugget, and I can’t attribute that to any particular perspective on his part.

I also know people who technology hates — they get near a watch and it starts gaining time, and woe betide them if they try to use a computer. And others (like myself) who technology adores, and whose mere presence often fixes wonky machines.

It’s enough to make you seriously consider that there might be an element of truth to The Matrix, that the entire universe is nothing but a simulation that we’re all in. Which gives rise to some interesting philosophy, and might explain quite a bit, when you think about it.

Well, duh! That’s what shields were invented for!

In one of the science fiction series that I used to read, the hero kept in constant contact with his robot companion through a surgically implanted microphone and earphone. This isn’t quite in that league, but it sounds like a solid piece of work.

I have to wonder if it would work on denture-wearers, though.

“Seriously, though, wouldn’t you have killed for this when you were 14?” I certainly would have. Sometimes I regret the inevitability of growing up (or at least older ).

(Via LifeHacker’s “Remains of the Day” feature)

An interesting idea for getting cargo into space. Oddly enough, it’s not something that I’ve heard about in science fiction, so maybe it’s not as obvious as it looks in hindsight.

If you’ve ever read (or even just heard about) an Erich von Daniken book, this will sound awfully familiar.

At least a dog is likely to listen, or look like he’s listening. Cats, children, and non-scientist adults (unless you’re paying them) aren’t likely to even pretend interest.

Unfortunately, the people who need this the most will probably never think to look at it.

(I sometimes have really fascinating dreams, the kind that I wake up and think, “hey, that would make a perfect science fiction story.” Until I review them several hours later, and almost always realize that there’s nothing even vaguely interesting about them. Oh well.)

Haven’t they ever heard the old saying, “beware of geeks attempting grift”?

And neither can fairies, according to this fellow. What a bummer. Tinkerbell and Archangel Michael will be so disappointed when I tell them about his research.