World-Wide-Weariness!

Q: I've TRIED going online plenty of times; signed up for Facebook, Friendster, IMDB, CNN and even Twitter. But no matter how hard I try to entertain myself, I'm completely underwhelmed by it all!

I watch my friends and co-workers jumping online, clicking away, cackling uproariously and high-fiving each other as they surf -- but I just don't get it!

What's so good about the internet?

A: Well, dear reader, you have found one good thing about the internet, haven't you?

AskHarv is a miraculous resource for informative, and life-changing information, and it wouldn't be possible without this interconnected mess of wires we call the internet.

I used to laugh with my friends that if only I could somehow impart my knowledge onto a small handful of the general populace of the planet, it would probably solve all human issues in under a day.

Sure, I've only been able to impart a small fraction to the power of some astronomical number -- a number no calculator or computer would recognize as larger than zero -- of my knowledge via this medium, but even that has had positive intangible benefits to the world, and the universe. Perhaps even dimensions of space and time we have yet to recognize consciously, too.

Other than that. Meh. I could take it or leave it, too.

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Mmm... M&Ms...

Q: Ever wonder when you eat these little chocolate pieces...who actually print's the M&M on these little dudes???

A: You may believe it's Santa's elves, highly intelligent ticks with tiny fountain-pens, or even aliens from the planet "Alpha Candori" that perform this intricate task! But, dear reader, unfortunately the truth is much less interesting: fairly simple machines, designed by man.

However, your question has relevance in the field of ultrafast laser micro-machining, as the text on M&Ms were a precursor to this interesting field of miniaturization research.

Recently, researchers from the manufacturing firm Micreon GmbH managed to create a pair of glasses fitted to the head of a fly. And the amazing thing is that, not only did they fit, they were stylish!

I have heard, through my contacts at Nasa, Harvard and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, that Micreon's next project will be lubricated, vibrating condoms for African Dung Beetles. Admittedly, male Dung Beetles do get a whole lot less sex than you might think, but, when they do manage to get laid, they have an notoriously immutable talent for two things:

• producing offspring with almost every pop
• providing very little pleasure for the poor female shit-bug

That latter is, in large part, due to their horrific stench (yes its abhorrent even to females of the species), but it's still a praise-worthy research-goal nevertheless.

Slightly less praise-worthy is their other high-priority project of the moment: M&Ms that are 1/1000th the size of regular candies. I have seen a proof-of-concept, and to me it looks just like a multi-coloured bag of sticky sand -- and to be quite honest, it melts in your hand a lot easier than the regular size.

In my assessment: EPIC FAIL!

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Three times the charm!

Q: Are we close to a World War Three?

A: Yes, dear reader, we most certainly are. Every week I'm surprised that no one got nuked that particular week, and predict that it must happen the following one.

However, being anti-war is a little knee-jerk, I feel, as war provides many benefits to human kind, such as:

• Population control: war tends to wipe out a lot of people, and since a large percentage of our current population is essentially useless, chances are we'll cull quite a lot of those.
• The end of worry: sure, you may be one of the unlucky majority who gets their faces melted off, but, let's face it: we're due for one, so lets just get it out of the way so we can stop worrying about it.
• Mutation: the nuclear fall out from war would be devastating, sure, but if we ever want to see a real life version of the TV show Heroes or the comic book X-Men, we better get some significant sources of radiation going soon. Evolution relies on mutation, and we haven't had anywhere near enough of it lately.

I would suggest worrying less about war and more about things like, say, reality television. We can't stop war, but we CAN try get the ratings of shows like Survivor, Big Brother and Idol down as low as possible. That way, after the big war is over, the fledgling post-apocalyptic society that emerges won't remain under the misapprehension that such shows are cool and keep making them.

If we're not careful, they may even think its a good idea to clone Lindsay Lohan, or, heaven forbid, Gwyneth Paltrow, from the ashes of their blow-fly-ridden, charred, rotting corpses.

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