Europeans Will Doom Us All

If science fiction movies have warned us once, they’ve warned us a thousand times - and will do so a hundred thousand more - that machines will be the death of us all. But in an unexpected ray of hope from across the ocean, scientists may be working to prevent our inevitable self-created annihilation from coming to pass... or are they?

The Internet Offers Unlimited Opportunity for Doomed

Opportunity - the Chinese have over 8700 words for it, if I remember my high school Spanish class. The internet has proven to be a boon for all types of marketing and promotions - you can buy everything from Vi8gra to Vigara to Vaigira with just a few clicks of your mouse, taps from your fingertip, or even without human intervention because you have a virus in your browser.

It’s something about the spellbinding allure of the raw potential of an untapped market - the wide-open vistas of sheer promise, the waiting tsunami of cash which draws in people from all walks of life and every corner of the globe - as well as those posessed of every form of moral failing.

Now some entrepreneurial souls have discovered a crafty new way to earn a living. Just put people’s mug shots online, SEO the living daylights out of them, and ruin a person’s chances of ever getting a job again. Then - and this is the genius bit - charge them hundreds or thousands of dollars to take the photos down when they come begging you.

You see, in many U.S. states, the actions of law enforcement are placed online for public scrutiny and review. This includes mugshots of people who are arrested, whether it’s for murder, or financial fraud resulting in global economic collapse (hah, I kid), or even because they nabbed the wrong guy and he got released an hour later.

Rather than just waste this valuable raw material of public humiliation, with just a few clicks of a mouse and some devious manipulation of search engine ranking cues, you can ensure that anyone Googling a person’s name will see that mugshot plastered front-and-center atop the list of results. Forever. (just ask Rick Santorum)

So the next time you walk into a job interview, you’d better have a pretty funny story to tell about that time you got booked by the cops because you look a little bit like a mugger when you wear your football hoodie.

And if that weren’t enough to satisfy your appetite for cynicism, there’s this enticing offer from the southern region of a prominent northern-hemisphere continent which I won’t bother to name for fear of redundancy.

Science Explains the Obvious Again

You don't have to go far to get the impression that people are getting dumber - take reality TV shows, the nightly news from Washington, or just look in the mirror, you're a numbskull who can barely get a blog post online, aren't I?

In a compelling followup to the awe-inspiring triumphs of proving that matter and energy are different physical manifestations of the same thing, landing a dozen white male Americans onto the moon while Nixon was president, and creating an aerosol scent which irresistibly attracts young women and then naming it after an implement used to murder the same types of girls in horror movies, science has now concluded that - are you ready? - people are getting dumber.

I doff my cap to this achievement.

Upgrade Your Doom

Our flashlight apps need "performance enhancements".

This is why we are doomed.

Textbook Example

We’re not above well-trodden, tired subject matter here - oh my, no! It’s up there with (trite thing) and (very trite thing), is writing about loopy politicians in general and American ones in particular, but bear with me for the sake of those who’ve just recently been dropped off by the stork as this one serves as an especially perfect example of the category…

Congressman Paul Broun (Georgia, USA) is a politician who, in an ideal world, would have chosen another line of work, or at least would be kind enough to keep his mouth shut more often.

Death from Above, A Life Misunderstood, and Stinks?

If you’re one of those who think that awards shows are pathetic, self-congratulatory wankfests where empty suits and dresses line up to kiss each other’s statuettes, think again - and do it fast,  because firey doom is near at hand.

The William J. Perry award is bestowed “in recognition of superb contributions to precision strike systems” and is named for a Secretary of Defense from the Clinton administration, also its inaugural winner.

It pleases me to imagine that the awards luncheon features hors d’oeuvres fired into the mouths of attendees by glittering bespoke mortars located high atop adjoining buildings.

Last years’ award was given to a $3.5 million, 15-ton Air Force bomb called MOP which is designed to penetrate through up to 200 feet of earth before detonating with enough force to crack a 60-foot-thick concrete bunker wall.

“I’d like to thank God, my parents, the dedicated management and support team at Boeing, and the entire military-industrial complex...”

---

One of America’s most acclaimed authors and naturalists, Henry David Thoreau, is best known for his 1854 novel “Walden”, an ode to simple living and unspoiled natural environments.

A fitting tribute to his legacy has been realized by the University of Southern California thanks to a $40,000 government grant.


In retrospect obvious, the idea of making a video game based on the story may at first have struck the grant committee as somewhat absurd, counter-intuitive or even bafflingly idiotic. But it seems their tireless dedication to excellence and artistic truth finally overcame their initial burst of sanity, and a check was cut before an audience of homeless disabled veterans.

Thoreau’s urgings to “Simplify, simplify” can now be realized at home provided you have a multicore CPU with at least 2GB of RAM, and a graphics card which supports DirectX v10.0.3a on a 24-bit display of 1280x1024 or better.

---

And on a lighter, somewhat fruity note, a new fragrance has been created by artists in Australia. Wasting no time with hints of forest pine, essence of tropical mango or the subtle musk of an autumnal glade, they seek nothing less than to remind our eager nasal passages of the unique experience of unboxing a Macbook Pro.

With the assistance of a sophisticated French fragrance laboratory, they have blended the signatures of “glue, plastic, rubber and paper” to evoke the distinctive smell of a just-unwrapped $2,000 laptop, which sources close to the story describe as redolent of smugness, fanaticism and credit card debt.

Tragically for Apple fans everywhere, the fragrance was created exclusively for an art exhibition and is not available for purchase. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Apple never shoulda fired Steve Jobs...

Special retrospective - Best Of "Why We're Doomed"

Every now and then it’s good to take a few moments and reflect on all we’ve been through together here at TIWWD, don’t you think?  But instead of bringing back old highlights, I thought I’d just put out new Doom this week.

So sit back, grab a numbing agent of your choice, and get ready to shaden those freudes!