You Missed It: Perfect storm edition

One day, I’ll be able to tell my grandchildren that I once used a “computer” for all of my information gathering and regurgitating. With the rise of tablet and the launch of the newest version of Windows, I thought back this week to my college computer. It was a Dell desktop and ran Windows ME. (XP wasn’t out for another few weeks.) The mouse it came with didn’t have a wheel on it, and the monitor wasn’t flat. This was only 11 years ago, and it seems as outdated as floppy disk. By the time my grandchildren show up, it will sound as ancient as the printing press. If you were busy wrapping up your campaigns this week, odds are you missed it.

Sandy in more than one sense
Hurricane Sandy transformed into a super storm and barreled into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, as forecasters had been saying for days. New York was flooded, but perhaps worst-hit was New Jersey, where coastal areas from along the shore were devastated by record-breaking flood levels. Piers and boardwalks collapsed, while some houses were simply washed away. The history books will one day say this was the worst thing to happen to the tanning booth industry since melanoma.

Leia is now one of the Disney princesses
This week it was announced that Walt Disney Co. would buy Lucasfilm for a cool $4 billion. On top of that, a seventh Star Wars movie is slated to come out in 2015, with two more in the years to follow. The acquisition has brought both praise and criticism from geeks. Personally, since Disney has acquired Marvel Comics and Jim Henson Co., I’m looking forward to seeing how the Muppets and Avengers helped the Rebels win and restore balance to the Force.

Wake the f%$& up
Just a couple weeks after Tom Hanks dropped the F-bomb live on Good Morning America, Aerosmith wanted to prove they still had it on Today. First, Steven Tyler forgot what show he was on, calling it Good Morning America, then he dropped the F-bomb talking to the crowd outside while Al Roker did the weather. Man, NBC will do anything to get back to the #1 spot.

Not so intelligently designed legal defense

A judge has ruled that David Coppedge was not dismissed from his job with NASA because of his belief in intelligent design, ruling that this was only one example of his scientific incompetence.

Coppedge had worked as a computer specialist for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory until 2011, when — according to JPL — he was let go for refusing to undergo training after it was announced that his project, the Cassini mission to explore Saturn, would be downsized. He was also reportedly the subject of workplace complaints for his unerring dedication to shoving his intelligent design beliefs and videos onto his coworkers.

In a stroke of the irony NASA is famous for, Coppedge is to be replaced with a new employee that was designed (whether by an intelligent creator or natural selection) to act like less of a douche in the lab.

Nuts taken, squirrels now on the lam

80,000 pounds of walnuts were stolen in the last two weeks from Tehama County in California. Who would do such a thing? Who … or what?

Two nut companies that bought approximately 40,000 pounds of walnuts each from a company in California have reported the shipments stolen. Police have deemed a delivery driver of the Russian accent variety as a possible suspect. But come on. Selling walnuts on the black market? That’s just dumb, even if the Russian mob creates an artificial shortage to do so.

Oh sure, it turns out that the man who picked up the nuts wasn’t the guy who was supposed to do so at all. Regardless, I suspect that the criminal mind involved in this theft is not of the two legged variety, but of the four legged variety. That’s right squirrels, I’m accusing you of such criminal misconduct!

While I’m not particularly keen on walnuts (I am of the belief that brownies and banana bread are made that much better without them), other humans enjoy them, and that’s all I need to know. Return the nuts, unchanged or bothered, and we may be lenient on you. Maybe.

Hail our new rat overlords

We all know that science is the reason we have so many problems today, but it seems they’re not done making the world worse for us. Now they’re getting our foes better acquainted with running our lives.

A team of researchers have set up a system that allows rats to control a “human-shaped avatar” in a virtual environment while humans control a similarly-shaped robot inside their cage. Apparently this is going to break new ground in how humans and animals interact.

If you ask us, it’s just one step closer to the animals being able to control us with their thoughts.