20-Minute Topic: Calipers

           Fun fact: calipers didn't exist until March of 2006. After that, they disappeared, and no amount of searching will turn any up. Don't believe anything telling you different. If you happen to have a pair of “calipers”, WATCH OUT! They are probably a protractor or some other grammar schoolish tool in disguise. Did you know that fully 40% of everything is something else in disguise? Think about THAT. The next time you see something, there's a good chance that it isn't what it appears. Anyway, public service announcement out of the way, back to calipers. I understand that they were very useful. Though, I don't know what for. History books a bit contradictory on that topic, seeing as how they shouldn't even be IN history books.

          Wikipedia, however, never lies. It claims that a pair of calipers were used measure the distance between one side of an object and another. I take back what I said about them being useful. If you can't look at something, and see how big it is, there's something wrong with you. Unless, maybe, they had calipers with braille for blind people. Coincidentally, Braille for Blind People is the name of my one-man polka duo. It's a work in progress, but I've been told the name is in poor taste. Something about blind people having ultra-sensitive hearing.

 

          I'll go ahead and make an allowance for modern varieties of calipers. They are probably what they look like. Digital readouts, and 0-error and all that. Also, what's up with that? We have more varieties of these stupid things than we have kinds of modern men's underwear. Seriously, Google 'caliper', and you will be overwhelmed by options. Like underpants, they come in all shapes and sizes. There are probably a pair of calipers specifically designed to measure men's underwear. Not just one, one for each variety. It's ridiculous. I ask you: What is more important? Knowing how big something is; something that you can see, and, indeed, TOUCH, or having properly fitting underwear? What if there was some breakthrough in underwear technology that we haven't discovered, because we were too busy measuring less important things? Talk about poor prioritization...

          Sort of talked myself into a corner here, didn't I? NOPE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Brake calipers, suckas! Totally had another angle to play out there, and you didn't even see it coming. Granted, I don't actually have the slightest clue what these things DO, but I know they exist, and I'm glad my car has them. I think. I mean, I've never heard of someone cursing the presence of brake calipers. You also never hear about anyone bragging about their brake calipers. I guess it's probably possible to have too many of them...buried under a mountain of brake calipers. That would probably make ME curse them. Fewer, indeed, would be better. My guess, though, is that I would have more trouble making my car comply with my demands if they weren't present. I don't have any proof, but someone probably does. Someone with a mullet and overalls, undoubtedly.

   

20-Minute Topic: Malevolence

           Malevolence. I COULD leave it at that, but then I would depriving the world of the valuable experience that is reading my written word. Well, words. Plural. One word was necessary in any case. Malevolence is probably not something that needs a lot of explanation. If you aren't yourself malevolent, you likely know someone who is. Or have at least seen on in a Disney movie. I think we call them sociopaths now, or something. I don't know.

          Since everyone probably already knows what it means, I'll take things in a different direction. Work malevolence (that is, the word. I don't advocate actually BEING malevolent. Not publicly, anyway.) into your everyday conversations. It doesn't have to be correct usage. In fact, it's often better if it's not. Misattribute quotes. Get crazy. Malevolence makes the world go 'round. It's as the bard says, your malevolence warms my heart, baby. That guy's nose makes me malevolent. I have a malevolent growth on my butt. That's not incorrect usage, I just thought you should know. There are two possible results of this experiment. Well, one. Two results from one result, I guess. You're going to confuse people. That's gonna happen. That confusion will birth two different things. Actually, three. Maybe more. My credibility is going down the eau de toilette. People are either going to be apathetic toward your remarks, because they don't understand them, and write you off as being smarter than they are, be confused to the point of looking up the word when they get a moment, and realize you used the word wrong, or recognize your error right off the bat. Two of those outcomes are net wins for you. 66.66%. Not bad.

          Something occurred to me while I wrote that. I saw it as a win, because you were manipulating people and/or wasting their time. Does this mean that I myself am...malevolent? Can you be malevolent without realizing it? Is it consciousness of the malevolence which makes it thus? Truly a question for the philosophers. Thankfully, I'm as close to a philosopher as we got these days. I'll take a crack at this conundrum.

          I don't think you CAN be malevolent without realizing it. I have to believe that. It's either that or incriminate myself. However, my postulation isn't without support. That would be gross. Just sort of...suspended there. Nothing holding it up. The widely accepted Webster's definition says that malevolence is marked by a desire to do harm to another person. Seems pretty cut and dried to me. That being said, I guess I did just incriminate myself anyway. Variables are introduced when the discussion of whether there is a difference between knowing that you're hurting someone and knowing that hurting someone is wrong. I think that'll be my defense, should it come to that. Sociopathic and generally crazy. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some malevolence to achieve before bed, and it's not getting any earlier.

20-Minute Topic: Coaxial

          At least it's not a P word again...But, seriously, I'm going to have a talk with the guy giving me these words. Mathword loving Mathnerd. Coaxial. You know what? I can work with this. Aww, who am I kidding? I can work with anything. Despite SOUNDING scary, it's not, really. Then again, I'm not sure why it would be scary. It's just a word. Words aren't scary. At least, they shouldn't be. ANYHOO! In the scientific sense, it's a highly self-explanatory word, assuming you have a basic understanding of the parts that make up its whole. “Co”, meaning basically, “alongside”, and “axial” which describes an axis, a “straight” “line” in 3-dimensional space. Now, put them together, and you get one seriously unscary word.

          Now that that's over with. Screw coaxial. Seriously. The best thing they ever did was make those little red, white and yellow wires. That was it. That was the pinnacle of human invention. When I was a kid, we had a TV so old, it didn't even have one of THOSE in the back. We had to get an adapter, because coaxial cable was too high-tech. Man, scr-- you get the idea. I still have nightmares about having to adjust the cable, because it wasn't seated properly. There I would be, playing Operation Wolf, or LoLo 3 or whatever, and suddenly, no visual signal. That was really a drag, because I'd say that a fairly important aspect of that whole activity is visual. Audio would “go away” too, but it would send its surrogate, Howling Technobanshee, to keep me company.

HHHHOOOOOWWWWRREEEEEEKKKKKKSSSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

            *shudder* While Wolf...Guy, or Lolo would meet their fate, I would have to attempt to fix the TV. Being wedged next to a wall, this was usually no easy feat. This adventure usually ended with bleeding fingers, sweaty foreheads, and numerous adolescent swear-words, being uttered. <Gosh dang crap-stacking fart-box!>. I meant it, too.

The pain has far from ended. Some of these new-fangled cable boxes for the bringing of interwebs into your home have those self-same infernal cables. I recently experienced a flashback, similar to what I imagine PTSD is like, when I was attempting to figure out what was wrong with a friend's internet. If only I had known beforehand. Like, long beforehand. I would have headed that interaction off at the pass. “Hey, you want to be my friend?” he would ask, innocently, like a wolf in sheep's clothing. “Nope”, I would reply, “You're an *******************”. Problem. Solved. Forget killing Hitler, man. THAT is what I would do first. Hitler, a close second, though. Don't even get me started about HDMI. There is top and a bottom to those little plugs. You'd think you'd have a 50/50 chance to get that sucker in there right-side-up on your first try. Nope. Up-side-down EVERY TIME. You can't do that with RCA cables. I guess colorblind people might have some trouble with them, but they don't deserve to enjoy television anyway.

          You want to impress me? Someone make a cable that is as fast as an HDMI cable is supposed to be, with a round, omnidirectional jack. Then, the world will be perfect. The end.