A few months ago I had to go to Emergency because of a case of scleritis, swelling in the sclera of the eye, several eye drops later I am fine, I think the Mid-Term elections were about to give me an aneurism. Anyway, I had to wait for a few hours and met a lady who had possibly broken her ankle and would not stop talking to me probably to keep her mind off the pain. She told me her teenage kids were showing her a Utube video about how ringing cell phones arranged in a circle around a pile of pop corn kernels would pop them into pop corn. My skeptical mind is too, well... skeptical, to believe such claims, I told her it's probably a hoax, it seems too far fetched to believe, it's probably a trick, but she saw it on the internet so it's true, right?
I finally got around to looking up the cell phone pop corn videos recently and lo and behold many more videos about how you too can create this trick at home, just as I thought, this lady was one walking gullible ankle injury victim, a victim of gravity and victim of Utube at the same time. The trick works by taking the magnetron out of a microwave oven, rigging it under a table, and placing kernels and cell phones accordingly I did a lot of reading about microwave ovens, turns out one should never take the magnetron out of a microwave, that's the bit that creates the microwaves, they contain beryllium oxide a known carcinogen in humans if crushed and inhaled and really should not be handled with bare hands at all, do not try this at home kids! Although you can get detailed instructions about how to do it online, despite electrocution, berylliosis from the beryllium, and the possibility of microwaving parts of your body by accident, do not do this, even if it's fun to trick the gullible.
I was going to write a piece about the dumb things people believe based on something they heard or saw somewhere, like microwave ovens are radioactive, they aren't, microwaves are used in many ways including WiFi but do not cause ion reversal in living cells like radiation, or, cell phone towers have mysterious waves coming out of them that will cause cancer and make your children stupid. Turns out the science is not in on this, maybe yes, maybe no, probably not, there are other proven reasons for cancer and your stupid children. Whenever I hear something outrageous like the Koran verse 9:11 says something about the World Trade Centers, I often check out the website Snopes that debunks most crazy claims one gets as chain email, or just go to the source myself, you can look up the Koran if you want and it surprisingly does not contain what the email said it did! I love and use the internet as a sort of virtual Encyclopedia, it's maybe the best thing about our times. One must be careful though, don't just believe anything, maybe check multiple sources, one can probably trust an article on the chemical chain of Vitamin D but probably not one about gun control or abortion, you might get a lot of differing facts. Consider the source darlings!
Did you hear about a potential bomb plot last Martin Luther King Day in Spokane Washington? Probably not, but I bet you know who William and Kate's Wedding planner is by now! Turns out someone left a very sophisticated cell phone triggered bomb with shrapnel and rat poison on a park bench along the parade route that the FBI are calling "the most sophisticated and potentially dangerous bomb in US history", it was noticed by someone and thankfully didn't go off, the FBI is still looking for suspects. This brings me to thinking about all the very destructive things intent angry or possibly insane people can find on the internet like how to make a shrapnel filled bomb. People seem to get very upset about sex on the internet and there are ways to block these sites, I have heard, I don't have kids so I don't worry about it, but people don't seem to get upset about all the other dangerous things online. When I looked up Jared Laughners videos on Utube I saw many links to Neo Nazi and White Supremacist videos, his weird video with the American Flag and Guns seemed to put him in a "if you like this video you may also enjoy these..." category. As a Canadian, the content of Neo Nazi videos violates your Charter Rights and is supposed to be banned in our country. There are many vile things on the internet that should probably be banned from your children seeing, as well as the criminally intent, yet there is no body to monitor this. I don't agree with rating movies or censorship in many cases but I do agree that hate speech and how to make a bomb should not be viewed by anyone. We seem to have accepted the internet as a Wild West of images and ideas yet do not accept the same notion for television and radio, remember all the furor over a little nipple slip at the Super Bowl concert? The Americans may take a different view of freedom of expression but I thought we agreed in Canada to not give a public platform to Nazis and radical groups like the Westboro Baptist Church? I guess all our middle aged politicians are too busy serenading us with Classic Rock songs to even know what the internet is used for these days?
Besides harmful content what else is the age of internet giving us and/or doing to our children? I think it's decreasing the level of patience, when entertainment is reduced to a minute or two Utube clip, can you sit thru an hours long movie? Like one that isn't all explosions and Angelina Jolie? Can anyone under 30 spell anything? I cannot tell you how many times I have seen the incorrect usage of then and than, apparently the word "than" does not exist anymore, nor do the forms of to and too, I'm sure kids don't even know one can spell two, it's already a number on my keypad! So, yay, we are raising a generation of illiterates who have no patience, this will help us in the future? How about all the texting these days? I cannot go anywhere without seeing the youth click-clicking away meaningless messages to their friends because being in the world, walking, eating, shopping, waiting for something is sooo boring :( Uh, kids, I was your age once and I know the dumb shit you are talking about, in my day we passed notes in math class, OMG Tammy is such a bitch! Look what she's wearing! One day you'll know this a total waste of time and phone companies are making a fortune! I hope that our society can place temporary fountains everywhere, for the walking and texting to fall into, can something be so important that you lose awareness of your surroundings, it's maybe not so funny, in my city people have walked into trains wearing Ipods.
Even though Betty White is close to 50 years older than me I very much agree with her joke "I have to admit I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I know, I think it's a huge waste of time."
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