Friends
I don’t often talk about religion. Or science. But a recent video of a gorilla walking at a zoo has prompted some of my friends to insinuate the debate about evolution is clearly over. Yes. A YouTube video is the pocket ace, Christians be damned!
I tend to believe both evolution and creationism are true. Of course, I believe the universe exists because God created it. I also don’t believe that Chick-Fil-A is closed on Sunday because God was able to create humans in 6 days and wanted to rest for a delicious chicken sandwich.
The bible’s interpretation is just that — an interpretation. Maybe God intended for evolution. But this video has signified the end of the evolution debate for some. Though, I’m not really sold that it does that. Maybe when the gorilla stops throwing poop around, and tells us his views on entitlement reform, the proper role of government, and the role of the UN in US diplomacy, I will be impressed. But that is unlikely to happen in my view.
If you’ve never visited my friends’ blog about local dining in Falls Church, you should. They’re bringing it back with some new restaurants to review. Enjoy.
So tonight I actually went to the DC Social for the “Cheezburger Network.”
Alright. It is official. I’m a huge nerd. I’m OK with telling you this because you likely already know. I guilt tripped my friend Ben into attending, but I knew that deep down, he really wanted to go. It was at the Washington Post building, there were free things, free beer, free cheezburgers, and people who like memes. I love memes. We got there and quickly realized that while we thought we loved memes, we were mere hobbyists compared to most attendees.
If you don’t know what the Cheezburger network is, click here. If you don’t know what a meme is, click here.
I had invited my girlfriend Mary, who works two blocks away. Truthfully, I was afraid she’d be weirded out by the whole thing. You know, like that scene from Knocked Up where they follow Paul Rudd to the draft party? So, rather than hide the hobby from Mary, I figured I’d bring her into the fold. Ben and I quickly grabbed some free cheeseburgers, bought copies of the books by Ben Huh, got them autographed, and got our own versions of Happy Cat (see below.)
Earlier in the day, I emailed the RSVP link to my friend from college, Chris, who lives in town. Turns out his girlfriend had already RSVP’d them, and he was there. Seeing as they introduced Mary and I, my worries diminished. Then some weird guy kept talking about second life, complete with a projector screen of his character, a copy of the Kool Aid man. We all hoped he would stop before the girls got there. Thankfully, he did, but the projector kept going. It was awkward, especially knowing that we were the most conservative people there. (Which may not actually be the case, given Gawker’s hit piece on Huh.)
I was torn whether to get the free Happy Cat or the LOLRUS, which really brought me into the meme world. His commentary on the mortgage crisis brought me in hook, line, and sinker. Here’s an excerpt:
Reta Sanden from Turlock, California:
I am a realtor in the Central Valley of California, one of the hardest hit areas in the recent housing crunch. I too own a home, and my husband and I are struggling not just because I am not making any commissions lately, but because everything is going up – food, gas, taxes, you name it. We refinanced our home in November 2005 to do some much needed improvements. Now our adjustable rate mortgage is due to adjust in November. We are not sure what it will adjust to which is very worrying as my income has been greatly affected recently.
Banks used to be happy to talk to us and lend us money. Now we really need help and they don’t want to know us. We want to keep our home, and make the payments but if banks are going to turn their backs on us, then they deserve the losses they incur. Unless people are relieved of their prior credit damages, and are given a reasonable chance to pay back their debts, then they are in serious trouble.
Lolrus says:
Scuse, please? Why? Why come you buy ARM? Why not purchase bucket at affordable fixed rates? Scuse, as a realtor you should knows better. Me wish could lives in California but too expensive. Good fish there.
How can you not love that? All in all, it was fun.
1- Go to en.wikipedia.org and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to en.wikiquote.org and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to flickr and click on “Explore the last seven days” Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use photoshop or similar (picnik.com is a free online photo editor, worked really well) to put it all together.
5 – Post it with this text in the “caption” and TAG the friends you want to join in!
So, here’s what I got… h/t to ammertime
I saw this video and was enamored. I only took one physics class at SLU, and there wasn’t much of an aerospace component to it. I needed to know if it was possible. So, Bomble.com reached out to its network of aerospace engineers and aviators, one of which confirmed the possibility that this video is real:
now technically yes this is possible. very difficult, due to the turbulance of the air going over the air craft. i assume the right fan is pushing air from the right to left and the left one is sucking the air in. Pretty cool stuff, I’ll have to pass that around the office.
Another Bomble.com reader and engineer, disagrees:
Nope, this is fake. The stability issues alone, not to mention that a good chunk of this video has the airplane at negative angle-of-attack, would doom this from the start. Add in that the “pushing” air fan would add a rotational flow element given it’s close proximity to the airplane makes me think that someone is a great video editor.
So, who around here has two of the exact same fan? I presume they have to be the same fan to ensure that the airflow and airspeed are the same. Being outside makes things harder, so the experiment would have to take place indoors.
And now some tunes for your morning consumption:
For some 360* view of the Old Senate Chamber, click here.
For the Capitol Rotunda, click here.
For some of the enrolling of the DADT repeal, click here.
H/T- Marc Shultz
Friend of the blog Bobby Metzinger recently posted a year in review for social media. Enjoy.
From the Old Spice ads to Mark Zuckerberg being named TIME’s Person of the Year, it’s been anything but quiet on the social media front in 2010. More than any year prior, the world is now realizing that social media isn’t just a party crasher – it is here to stay.
It was the year of “Mother Knows Best.” A recent studycommissioned by Child’s Play Communications from The NPD Group Inc. found that 79 percent of moms with children under 18 are active in social media. Breaking it down further, 55 percent of moms said they purchased a product because of a personal review or blog post while 40 percent said they did so because of a Facebook recommendation. Just imagine if June Cleaver or Clair Huxtable had an iPad!
2010 might also be known as “The Year of the Check-In,” as the social space has moved from “What Are You Doing?” and “What’s Happening?” to “Where Are You?” As mobility and user accessibility meshed into social networking, businesses began to capitalize on the check-in craze. Near a Starbucks and craving a latte? Well, there’s a good chance that when you check-in with Twitter, Gowalla or Facebook Places, your craving might be quenched – at a discount!
And now we pause to remember those we lost during 2010:
1. Leslie Nielsen
2. Google Wave
3. Google BuzzIf 2010 is the year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac, we in the social media world just call it the Year of Facebook. Did we go anywhere or do anything without Facebook playing a role? Think about it. We can let our friends know that we’ll be at the movies while we’re in line for tickets to “The Social Network.” That’s like getting a fresh hot dog at the butcher. Not only was the movie a smash box office hit, it’s getting serious Oscar heat. But then again, it’s not exactly “Stealing Harvard,” either. While somewhat dark and disturbing and with Hollywood taking some obvious liberties, the movie revealed the true psyche of social media. That, and if you surround yourself with the right people while you’re a Harvard undergrad, you’ll eventually be named TIME’s Person of the Year.
Speaking of Mark Zuckerberg, the guy is everywhere. At 26, he’s the Rockefeller of social media. Quick, name the CEO of Twitter. I’m sorry, time’s up. From interviews with Oprah and 60 Minutes to being lampooned on Saturday Night Live by Andy Samberg, the Doogie Howser,M.D. of the CEO World solidified his presence ten-fold in ‘10. And while he may not be the most P.R.-savvy leader (his $100 million donation to the Newark school system in light of “The Social Network” reviews raised eyebrows), it really doesn’t matter when you can dive into a pool of money like Scrooge McDuck.
In a year that gave birth to the iPad and the tablet arms race, iPhone 4 and the rise of the Android, it was social media picking up steam like an avalanche and dominating the headlines. This cross-cultural obsession is changing the way we absorb news, weather, stock information and sports. Traditional media is doing all they can to ride the coattails of social media; even our own Dallas-based FOX affiliate spoofed social media — to the tune of almost 300,000 unique views. Why watch a high-speed police chase when you can fly the helicopter?
Thanks, 2010. It’s been real. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I see a Double Rainbow.
RELATED:
One of my co-workers sent me a link to a new Groupon-esque/Living Social site called “Bloomspot.” Frankly, I think there are too many of these websites and I do not trust the new ones. Why am I going to give my credit card info to them, or pay them through paypal? Anybody can set up a nice website and give you customized pdfs. A robot can do that. I can do that (see below.)
I don’t think these new sites will stay up forever, and frankly, I’ll just stick with GroupOn and Living Social. I don’t want to get scammed.
One of my fellow fellows from the Partnership for a Secure America, Kelvin Stroud, is currently participating in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Moscow Global Policy Fellowship. He has set up a blog to detail his experiences, check it out!
