The Iron Yuppie

On the other hand, maybe I should just spend my entire blogging life recalling stupid pop culture references. See above re: WOPR and previous posts re: Joust.

Man, I wish I could talk like that computer though... "Would you like to play a game?"

Actually, that's probably a bad title. I was watching some Monty Python the other day (I believe this particular episode was filmed in the late 60's) and they had a fake newscast where the newscaster was remarking how there had been a recent surge in potty humor, and how this was going to bring down society (obviously this was satirical). The thing that struck me is that now, more than ever before, we have the OPPORTUNITY to go back and review opinions of an earlier time and prove that things were generally no more or less civil/well-behaved/etc.

I came across this in a recent discussion forum:

• The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. This quote was used by the Mayor of Amsterdam, Gijsbert van Hall, following a street demonstration in 1966, as reported by The New York Times, April 3, 1966, p. 16 -Anon., widely mis-attributed to Socrates
• I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint. - Hesiod
• The world is passing through troubling times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress. - Peter the Hermit, attributed, probably apochryphal
  

These are ALL probably apochryphal, but I'm 100% sure the sentiments were correct for the time period. Why? Because history repeates itself. Man, I feel I could do about a million stories covering nothing but that.

D

If for no other reason, than I'm a total follower. Basically, Robert Scoble is asking people to list this nonsensical word to test out search engine speed and blogs. Here's the search to track it: brrreeeport

Interesting experiment. Also, since no one can seem to spell it right:
breport
brreport
brrreport
brrrreport
breeport
brreeport
brrreeport
brrrreeport
breeeeport
brreeeeport
brrreeeeport
brrrreeeeport

Enjoy.

D

Yeah, I don't exactly know who you are, but here's my guarantee. You are not smarter than AT LEAST 17 out of these 29 people, and probably not smarter than all of them. Further you will not contribute any where near as much to our understanding of the universe as them. Have a nice day.

1927 Photo via Digg

(Top Row, left to right) A. Piccard, A. Henriot, P. Ehrenfest, Ed. Herzen, Th. De Donder, M. Schrödinger, Y. Verschaffelt, W. Pauli, W. Heisenberg, R.H. Fowler, L. Brillouin.
(Middle Row, left to right) P. Debye, M. Knudsen, W.L. Bragg, H.A. Kramers, P.A.M. Dirac, A.H. Compton, L. deBroglie, M. Born, N. Bohr.
(Bottom Row, left to right) I. Langmuir, M. Planck, Madame. Curie, H.A. Lorentz, A. Einstein, P. Langevin, Ch. A Guye, C.T.R. Wilson, and O.W. Richardson.

D

MAPILab - Company News: World Cup 2006 in Germany� - Calendar for Microsoft Outlook.

Man, Outlook is what I use to track EVERYTHING. It's nice having a single place to go and find any bit of data about your life that you want. For example... world cup!