People and the Band Wagon

     Hey interweb! I have been watching the increasing campaigns and mud slinging in preparation for the United States presidential elections next year. I'm not going to start political blogging, nor will I be stating any bias or preference, but something I have noticed is how much I hate the methods and reasoning abilities that the vast majority of people use to come to conclusions on important topics. It seems like everyone feels a compulsory need to immediately disagree with anything and everything. There is an extreme bandwagon effect with this need because as soon as someone comes up with a hyperbolic opinion and puts it on the interweb, 90% of people will take this opinion as their own because it makes them feel informed, intelligent, controversial, progressive, and active as a citizen.
   
     I personally do not understand why it is beyond the mental and emotional capacity of many people to take it upon themselves to read deeply into a topic, think about what they have learned, and form their own opinion after some degree deliberation. Just because a person has read a few facebook status updates on a topic does not entitle him or her to an opinion, let alone the right to take any form of action regarding the topic. This includes speaking, which generally is not a problem for these people because they cannot continue a conversation on a topic for over 2 minutes because all they have to say is "it's stupid and wrong."

     I'm not saying that I blame people for not being an expert on every possible topic, nor am I saying that people should be as big of a nerd as I am trying to learn something every second of every day. What I am saying is that if someone is going to have an opinion on something or take action in regard to sociopolitical topics then they need to use some semblance of intelligence that I know most people posses. If you don't do it for the sake of everyone around you, then please do it for yourself so that you do not appear like you should be in a zoo throwing feces against a wall. Don't allow yourself to be further evidence for de-evolution. Also, if you are going to argue your opinion, please know how to logically form a coherent argument.  

      This is something that I feel very strongly about and I have just deleted about 6 more paragraphs of this rant to keep the topic applicable to everyone who reads this. What do you think? Am I just a bitter pessimist or is there truly a noticeable decline in people's ability to think for themselves or even think in general?



    
     

Under The Weather.

     Hey interweb! I have been on a small hiatus from the blog and from catching up on yours for a while. This will most likely continue for a few more days. I have unfortunately been feeling pretty under the weather and my smartass abilities have been as tired as I have been. My days have consisted of laying around watching the same old TV shows and a good opening week of the NFL, none of which were inspiring enough for me to have much to say other than "will you get me some more ginger ale?" I hope that you all are doing well and look forward to getting caught up with your blogs!

    

Ridiculous Engineering (Wothless Inventions)

     Hey interweb. As an engineer, one of my favorite things to do is peruse technology stores. I like to look at the newest innovations, concepts, and advancements in just about all facets of technology. I also keep up in the techno news with things like healthcare tech, computer technology, entertainment technology, automotive technology, and my favorite is green technology because it represents mankind doing something totally new and answering difficult questions. Mankind really has done many amazing things over the last century and I have an uncontrollable desire to know how it all works.

     The reason for this post however, is the less glorious side of engineering, the problems that were either poorly solved or things that are solutions to problems that do not exist. I came across something called the privacy scarf. Basically the purpose of this scarf is to go around your head and the piece of technology on which you have sensitive information, hiding the screen. What part of this seems like a good idea?! Basically if you are using this in public, you are putting on a sign that says "I have an expensive piece of technology with private information on it and I can no longer see my attacker, so please beat the bloody piss out of me and take my laptop and my identity. While you're at it, please treat me like your prison 'friend."' That's a long sign but an invention this ridiculous deserves it. There are screen protectors that limit peripheral viewing.....buy one!
 
     A few days after seeing this, I found a waterproof in-car GPS at a local store. The only practical reason for this to exist in my mind would be if you don't leave it in your car (like 99% of users) and you don't put it in the case (UNlike 99% of that 1%) and you accidentally drop it in a puddle. But the only realistic application that I could come up with was that they could discover your coordinates of where you drowned when your car went off the road.
    
     A product that just came out recently is the goatee shaver. This is a mouthpiece that you hold in your mouth and goes around your lips like a duck that got punched in the bill. This just screams sanitary. The female version of this is the lip stick guide which is a Hannibal Lecter mask for women preventing lip stick smears. As if women needed any other excuse or way to be absolutely terrifying in the morning.
 
     A relatively new one in the automotive world is water sensing windshield wipers. What do you think the chances are of something going wrong with these automatic windshield wipers when compared to something as complex as ..... a switch? But they are very necessary, I can't tell you the last time that I was driving a car and could not see the rain, or was frustrated that my arms were so short that I could not reach said switch. Just something else to drive up the cost of the car. This is simply an expensive trick for a man in the midst of a mid life crisis to show his friends when he sprays his car with the hose. Another one from the automotive world is the exhaust pipe that grills hamburgers. It supposedly has no contact with the exhaust gasses but I know that I still wouldn't eat it during the survival situation where I somehow got my car in a place that I couldn't walk out of or call AAA.

     To me, these are nothing more than things made by people trying to get rich off of the impulsiveness and ignorance of the masses. As an engineer, we are trained to try and think about all of the ways in which a consumer will potentially use our product and try to make sure that the product can withstand the greatest amount of foreseeable abuse. As a consumer, we need to be trained against the stupidity of some engineers and their ability to steal our money.

     What is the most useless thing that you have ever bought? I myself have unfortunately and shamefully bought a Snuggie.
    
      

De-evolution

     Hey interweb. First I would just like to say that I am a firm believer in the process of de-evolution. This is a very scientific and proven theory that has far reaching effects and implications within the human species. Basically the theory has the following formula: man + woman (in the presence of alcohol) = reproduction for reasons other than having desirable qualities. This leads to the human species becoming gradually dumber, uglier and generally more worthless than the previous generations. There are a few signs that this is happening, including but not limited to:

1. Disclaimers on everything.
     A few years ago, you didn't have to tell people not to touch the bar on running chainsaws, that coffee will burn you, that the stunts on "Jackass" are performed by jackasses, that you are NOT Bear Grylls, that eating fast food will make you morbidly obese, that alcohol will cause intoxication, that the stunts in video games cannot be performed in real life, and you are not a good enough driver to be in the real life "Fast Five." I mean COME ON people, who would have guessed that common sense would be the first human faculty to go the way of the dodo bird?

2. Amusement Parks

     I love amusement parks as much as the next person, but have you ever noticed how much better your self esteem is after you leave? Have you ever taken the time to "people watch" as I like to call my narcissistic internal judgement of other people based solely on appearance and actions? If you take the time to be entertained by some of the craziness that you will see in an amusement park crowd, you will realize a few things in America. We really are a fat nation, out of 30,000 people at the theme park you are only attracted to five, most people should not be allowed to chose clothing (especially when they chose small quantities of it), reproduction should be a privilege, parents are insane, most tattoos will be regretted at some point in one's life, humans are far to addicted to their endogenous hormones, and because of all of this the human species is doomed.

3. The riots in Canada and England
     Self explanatory.
 
4. Our fascination with reality  TV
     I have fallen into this trap several times, but am getting better at restraining it. But throw on an episode of "The Dog Whisperer," "Real Life," "Man Vs Wild," or "MTV Cribs" and I am completely unproductive for at least an hour. Why are we so entertained by watching other people, do normal everyday things while they scream and fight about it. These shows have no value and why do we care?! Why do we watch people spray tan themselves, buy a gallon of hair gel, dry hump, drive around, and complain about things that have nothing to do with anything? These people aren't even acting, they are just naturally douche bags. I'm sure that we all have plenty of these in our own lives. And judging by the statistics of a lot of social problems, I would say that most of us have enough "real life drama" in our own lives. Maybe it just takes these dumbasses on TV to make a lot of people feel like there really is someone dumber and worse off socially than they are.

5. Our complete and utter dependence on technology of the past decade.
     I'm pretty sure that if you take any teenagers cell phone away for a period longer than a week, that they will go into a deep state of psychosis. And if facebook crashed....that would be the end of society. Why are we so dependent on these things? Just a decade ago we were entertained by things as crazy and ridiculous as face to face contact. How many of us are guilty of texting or calling someone that is within shouting distance? If you say no, you're lying like a techno politician.

     Finally is our complete inability to do anything for ourselves. I know that my parents and most of their friends know how to fix their car, sew on a button, replace and fix things in their house, balance a check book, cook food that doesn't require a microwave, several hobbies of their choice, graduate high school, and most of them can still even use a computer with some degree of efficiency. Many of my friends and I however....well it's a good thing that we have so many numbers like AAA, the plumber, and the pizza place in that cell phone that we can't live without.    


     So what do you think? Is De-evolution real? Are humans getting dumber and slowly moving backwards?