You Deserve A Break Today

Okay, I think it's a how-to video kind of day. What should we do... I know! Let's learn how to perform open-heart surgery!



...er.... okay, let's not, then. Maybe try something simpler. Washing one's hair properly.



I'm afraid to go to this guy for a science experiment. So let's take a Gummi Bear and do one without him. This isn't a try-this-at-home experiment. This is a science-teacher-demonstrates-in-class experiment, and believe me, it's fast become a science class staple. See, a Gummi Bear is made of sugar. Or, more accurately, it's made of sucrose.

In a separate realm of the chemical world, you have potassium chlorate, which is one potassium atom, one chlorine and three oxygen. Normally, when you subject that to a high temperature, it will just split off the oxygen, leaving potassium chloride. However, add the sucrose- which contains carbon- and it will react violently with the heated potassium chlorate, throwing out the large amount of energy contained in the sucrose. You have energy, oxygen and heat, which means you have fire.



Come to think of it, that guy from the other two videos might have had a hand in this one too.

Baby In A Box

One thing you notice after looking at the news a while is that stories have a way of meandering around the various outlets. Not everything's going to get front-page blanket attention by everyone under the sun, but even the smaller stories- sometimes little more than factoids- get passed around a while. The news version of a retweet, basically.

You know that already. I just need a setup.

Anyway, this is one thing currently making that meander, as there's no real anniversary going (although it is 75 years at this point) and no particular reason this comes up now. It's just a thing someone noticed- it looks like this chain originated with Helena Lee of the BBC- and which has made its way around the past few days, and now comes here. What's being passed around... is a box. See, Finland has had a tradition going since 1938 that the government will provide every pregnant mother, regardless of background, a gender-neutral baby starter kit, containing things a new mother needs to get through the first stretch of time- the exact contents change with the times, but it's currently things like clothes, winter clothes, toiletries, a towel, bra pads, a teething toy, even a picture book (no formula or bottle, though, so as to encourage breastfeeding). The kit comes in a cardboard box with a little mattress at the bottom, as the box itself can be used as a starter crib. Originally, it was intended just for low-income mothers, but after the war it was expanded to all mothers, sending the message that every child deserves an equal shot in life. All you have to do to get it is to get to a doctor or a pre-natal clinic by your fourth month. (You can also take a grant of 140 euros, but usually mothers take the box because it's worth more. If you have multiple births, you get the money and the box.)

In the 1930's, Finland had an abysmal infant mortality rate- 65 per 1,000, around what Uganda's rate is today- and the box was created as a way to try and bring that rate down. To say the least, it's worked; the rate is now 3.38, 12th best in the world by 2013 estimates. The United States, at 5.9 per 1,000, ranks 53rd, and part of the reason this is getting passed around is that American commenters would like to get the US closer to Finland's number.

Paid parental leave would probably help get the number down too. You know, seeing as the US doesn't have that.

We Almost Had A Bacon Forest

Parks are nice. Parks are pretty. Parks are fun to be at. But note that plants in a park usually don't bear fruit. You've got oak trees, maple trees, spruce trees. But no apple trees, typically. Meanwhile, private residences often put up fruit trees. There are apple trees by the side of my house. But the owners typically don't like you plucking that fruit. Pretty much just an accepted thing.

Until now.

Currently under construction is the Beacon Food Forest, in Seattle's Beacon Hill District, funded through money from a park levy from back in 2008. This is a concept common in tropical regions, but not nearly so much in temperate zones such as, well, most of the United States. Fruit trees- as well as nut trees- will be planted in lieu of the maple/oak/etc. assortment, in not only the more common varieties but also some more uncommon ones, at least for Seattle (for example, pineapples). In addition, berry bushes are to be planted. They also plan to have beehives around, so there's honey available as well. It's originally slated for two acres and the plants will take a bit of time to start bearing fruit, but eventually, if this works out, the plan is to tease it out to seven acres, making it the largest such garden in the United States. Any food they bear is to be free (though garden plots are eventually to be leased out for $10 a year), with people invited to take as needed on the honor system. This of course means some asshole could come along and empty all the trees and bushes of every piece of food in sight, but organizers are hoping that guy doesn't come along; if he does, the solution is basically to plant so much stuff they can't possibly get it all.

Or that he doesn't know how to properly collect honey.

If you happen to live in Seattle, they are looking for volunteers to help plant all this stuff and maintain it once it's built. The people to contact for that are here. If you're not from Seattle, they also take money.

How To Win The America's Cup

1. First off, you have to take up yachting. Doy.
2. Then get really really good at yachting. Good enough to win the America's Cup.
3. Get through some qualifying rounds and then beat the guy who has the cup.

Well, that wasn't very instructive. But that's the important first step in winning the cup: the original win. Now comes the fun of defending it.

4. The holder of the America's Cup gets to set the conditions under which it is defended- time, place, and type of boat. This is important to you.
5. Put the race at your favorite spot. Preferably one other people hate.
6. Schedule it whenever you want. There's no set timeline.
7. As for the type of boat... oh, let me back up here a bit.

STEP ZERO: Grow up to be one of the ten richest men on Earth. (As of today, our subject ranks 8th.)


Now then.

7. Make the boat to be used for the race so expensive and unwieldy that you're one of the few people on Earth who can afford to build the thing.
8. Everyone else either doesn't enter, pulls out in frustration, or pulls out for safety concerns. As of right now, four boats are entered. The goal was 15.
9. Make everyone else run out of money... and you win! The America's Cup remains with you!
10. Confirm every single bad thought the non-rich have about yachting.

Ready... Set... ART

Episode 28 of Strip Search has gone up today, the ninth elimination. The season finale is set for June 18. Which means soon, those of us who aren't Game of Thrones people will have to sit and wait for Season 2, and oh I so want there to be a Season 2.

But that's fine. Strip Search is filled with young, talented artists. If art is what we're looking for, well, there's no shortage of art to find. And if you're a Penny Arcade reader and decide that videogames are something to make art from... how's Tetris as a medium?

I give you the work of Michael Birken, or at least, the algorithm he wrote because it's a bit much to ask to be quite THIS good at Tetris. Those gamers among you will know the images well. And will also remember that a standard Tetris board is ten blocks wide and note that this board has been teased out significantly.

As If Good News Was Coming Out of Syria Anytime Soon

The Journeyman Pictures link for this report lists Katalyst Productions. That's about all I've got for you on that front. The content of the report details what's going on in Syrian refugee camps in Jordan as they flee the ongoing civil war.

The answer: bad, bad, terrible things that will go make you go look for puppies to hug.

Don't Phone Home, Home Will Phone You

In 1983, the video game industry crashed and nearly died off. As of yet, there was no true review system in place, no kind of quality control, and no real way to find out if a game was good or bad other than to buy it and play it. If you got it wrong, it was an expensive lesson.

The game blamed for causing the crash was the most expensive lesson of all, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial for the Atari 2600. Longtime gamers like me know this story well, but for those who don't, the rights to make a game based on the movie were obtained in July 1982, and orders were given to programmer Howard Scott Warshaw (back then one guy was sufficient to make a console game) to have the game ready in time to have it on shelves for the Christmas season. He had five weeks. Even back then, that was flatly impossible- the time needed to do a game properly was about six months- but Warshaw, who had the critically-acclaimed Yar's Revenge under his belt from earlier that year, and who had created the first licensed game based on a movie (Raiders of the Lost Ark), did what he could.

What he could do wasn't nearly enough. The deadline was so tight that nobody bothered to even put the game in front of a focus group. They just printed 5 million copies, put them on shelves... and proceeded to get what is still the biggest lambasting in industry history. Many call E.T. the worst video game of all time. Certainly it did the most damage to the industry. Nobody wanted to buy ANY video game after that; with no review system other than word-of-mouth, consumers got gun-shy about spending their hard-earned money on a game that might be terrible for all they know. At least half of the cartridges went unsold, maybe as many as 3.5 million. Something had to be done with them. This grave mistake must be atoned for.

According to legend, what happened next was that, in September 1983, Atari took the unsold cartridges, drove them out to the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, and buried them, then crushed them and poured concrete over them . Snopes calls the story true (though noting that E.T. was not the only game buried at the site)... but the story seems like legend to gamers as Atari was not that eager to talk. Warshaw told the AV Club in 2005 that he believed the story to be false. Could that really have happened?

Well, either way, a camera crew is going to prove it once and for all, as the city of Alamogordo has given approval to Canadian film company Fuel Industries to dig up the landfill of legend for a documentary. The city council figures this will prove something of a tourism boon.

Inquisitr is fine with this.

Better to shoot the game into the sun.