Friday Lulz: Newtonian Edition.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Now that I am officially one semester closer to a degree in Mechanical Engineering I feel particularly qualified to speak on the following.

First let us review what we know...

Rule 1: You can't win, you can only break even.

Rule 2: You can only break even at absolute zero.

Rule 3: You will never reach absolute zero.

Questions? Bueller? Ok lets continue.

Forgotten Michael Jackson photos could power the world.

Contrary to the headline the article is not about using celluloid as an alternative fuel source. It's about a guy who took pictures of Michael Jackson back when he was 19 and is now trying to sell the heretofore-unpublished photos to raise money for his experimental electric motor (magic perpetual motion machine) that "...generates more energy than it actually draws from the battery".

I see three possibilities, in order of likelyhood they are...

One: The guy is just another snake-oil salesman.

Two: The guy is serious but a quack, which is in itself sad and a little poignient. Truth be told, if you've got an electric motor that puts out more juice than it's taking in you don't need to sell anything to raise the money to develop it. You just wheel that Bad-boy through the front door of GE and demand a seven-digit paycheck for life.

Three: The guy is serious and NOT a quack. In which case those guys predicting satueday's Apocalypse may well get the last laugh. You see, inventing a perpetual motion machine to end our dependance on oil is like developing anti-gravity to lose a few pounds on the bathroom scale. In fact, thanks to fun with relativity a functional perpetual motion machine would also be an anti-gravity device or time-machine depending on which variables it's messing with.

But what really frightens me is that I made the mistake of reading the comments. The naivety on display is simply breathtaking...

"The government as well as big oil, the automotive and defense industries, and the big brokerage houses will do everything they possibly can to ensure this invention never sees the light of day, as far as being adapted."

"If his motor works, it would NOT be a perpetual motion machine. He would be using a force of nature that is there, and very real. Solar panels are NOT perpetual motion machines, they are "free energy" machines. Learn the difference before you start flapping your jaw. People used to think the world was flat, and it is thinking like yours that will keep us using oil for the rest of our lives."

"i am sure 100 years ago! people said flying airplanes in the air violated the laws of physics and gravity! As long as the saying " Laws are made to be broken" holds, i say anything is a possibility. Goodluck to you Mr. Garcia, and i hope you take down our oil dependence with your invention."


The scary thing is that these idiots, all excited about solving the worlds energy problems, represent the "Conventional Wisdom". These people will campaign and vote on my country's energy policy without ever grasping the the literally world shattering implications of of being able to bypass laws of thermodynamics. I swear there's nothing that will crush what little faith I have in the US Educational system faster than the readers of CNN's "entertainment" section's knowledge of science.

Then again, If you were a Micheal Jackson fan with a functional Time-machine and needed some petty cash what would you do? Maybe the reason the pictures never published is because they were never taken, at least not in this timeline. ;)

I'm sorry, did I break your causality?

Comments

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

You NEVER read the comments at a source. Do I have to teach you everything? ;)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I always tell myself to NOT read the comments beneath Youtube vids and suchlike, but somehow I ALWAYS end up doing exactly that! Then I have to gather my brain with a spoon (which, on the upside, ain't that much).

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

but the comments are always the best part...

...and that's why i never read the original post in talk-politics.

what are we talking about anyway?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Also, never ever visit abovetopsecret.com, the home of internet conspiracy theories.

There's some interesting stuff hidden away here and there, but ye gods the stupidity and credulity will break your brain.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

I always thought guys like Elvis, MJ, and now Osama have some wormhole-opening device which allows them to travel between parallel Universes and hijack their counterparts from there and substitute themselves with them. Then something goes wrong and we suddenly see all those Elvis-es popping mysteriously up around gas stations in the Midwest, and MJs continuously staring at us from billboards even a year after his death. Now, as for Osama...

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Someone has been watching too much Fringe.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

You mean after his "presumed" death. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Wait, isn't Michael Jackson one of the MIB agents? He must have been called back on a mission.....

.....

Oh, shit, the Universe's fate rests in Michael Jackson's hands. We're all doomed.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

At least those of us over 13 are.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I know the article is about the pictures but as you say...

seeing some guy rant about his timecube perpetual motion machine is more entertaining

...and this is a Friday Lulz thread afterall.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

the secret source of his perpetual fuel is the moonwalk. trufax.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what it says about my slipping standards that I'm simply impressed that no one mentioned David Icke's Reptiloids.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

That's because we are all Reptiloids. Wait, you mean you aren't one of us!

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

If we wish to address these pedagogical shortfalls, it would require teaching marginal thinking and logical conceptualization from the age of four. Try getting that through any legislative body. People are good at learning the right words to say. Whether or not they understand not only the concepts of which they speak, but the implications which follow therefrom, is a crap-shoot. We are biological beings designed to run on immediate, step-wise, one-step logic. This is what is meant by "conventional wisdom", only the immediate conceptual issues involved are thought about. After all, eating and pooping and living aren't exactly complicated logical mechanisms designed to give us thorough-going analytical habits.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Good luck getting logic taught in a school system dominated by people who hate logic.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

It sounds like the guy might have ripped off the original inventor, Kohei Minato (http://www.rexresearch.com/minato/minato.htm). We'll see what the patents reveal, if he files one.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

Re: the comments,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

But what if the ones doing the judging are the ones who are actually incompetent, thus we don't know that the ones they claim to be incompetent are actually the incompetent ones...

Example #564,928,278 of Why Concentrated Political Power Is Dangerous

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

They vote on matters of economics, education, science, rights, energy, commerce, property, life, death, war, security, health, environment, etc.

The only way not to make everyone susceptible to the mistakes of a determined and empowered faction of idiots is to decentralize political power and not put all of our eggs in one basket. Stop expecting the State to educate children when force, the primary tool of the State, is the sine qua non for indoctrination, and it is idiots and fools who require forceful indoctrination to propagate their foolish and unpopular ideas in the first place. Yes, some of "The Children!" will grow up to be Creationists but surprise, they already do. It is in the environment of competition, fostered by liberty where ideas are most fiercely tested by reality and winnowed out.

"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
— Thomas Jefferson

"No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. Whenever the secular arm is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic."
— H. L. Mencken

"The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic."
— H. L. Mencken

Re: Example #564,928,278 of Why Concentrated Political Power Is Dangerous

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Who teaches those who can't/won't pay? McDonalds? Or should the children of poor or uncaring parents just be forgotten about?

[oportet.livejournal.com]

I'm not a scientist, or a mechanical engineer, but I did watch Chain Reaction and The Saint, so I am of the opinion that if you come up with an idea that has a chance of producing free or cheap energy, "big oil" and their friends will fuck you up before you can spread the word.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

And they'd be right to do so, don't you understand how dangerous it is to fuck with space-time?.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

You mean all that is standing in our way to free energy is some stinkin' law? Well I for one am calling my congressman!

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Sounds American Antigravity (http://www.americanantigravity.com/)ish.