Google Game: What’s the point?

It’s been a while and I been getting that existential itch. Here’s the answer to one of the fundamental queries above — can you guess which? It ranked highest among responses to a Yahoo! Answers post and provides vital clarity:

For amusement and fun!
In that sense, there isn’t really a ‘point’ to it..
It’s mainly for young adults (some elderly people) who want a bit of a laugh…
I guess the shine has been teken off it a little due to the fact that somebody died from doing it…

This Show Is the Bomb (I mean, I hope it bombs)

Yesterday I was ushered out of Columbus Circle by NYPD officers while the bomb squad investigated a suspicious package left under a bench near the central fountain. Then I came home and saw on TV a commercial for a new Amazing Race-ish game show Take the Money and Run.

Call me prude, but in this if-you-see-something-say-something age is it really appropriate to produce a show that encourages contestants to hide a locked steel suitcase from investigators? Here, citizen, take this unmarked package and bury it somewhere. Stash it out of sight. And show America the best way to elude authorities while you do it. Moreover: Parody criminality for profit.

There’s a lot of value in that case. But what happened to values?

The Department of Energy Unwraps Explosive New Technology

R&D Magazine (what do you mean you don’t have a subscription?!) just named the winners of its annual R&D 100 Awards for excellence in the field of R and the related field of D. Among them, Argonne National Laboratory’s work in renewable methane production. The Department of Energy lab announced the exciting news today:

The Enhanced Renewable Methane Production System is a low-cost process that accelerates biological methane production rates at least fivefold. …This system addresses one of the largest barriers to the expansion of renewable methane – the naturally slow rate of production. To overcome this hurdle, Argonne researchers examined the natural biology of methane production… to accelerate biological methane production while sequestering CO2.

Click through to learn how they did it. Continue reading

Reader Appreciation: The Ultimate Showdown

Thanks to the reader who found the site by searching
jesus vs justin bieber.”

Gaming the Google Game… for Charity!

If you Google “Sweet Home Alabama: A Performance to Aid Disaster Relief” you don’t get any automatic suggestions. But you do get a northern spin on a southern classic and an easy and duly rewarding way to contribute to the relief efforts in Alabama.

Listen if you want to, give if you can — and for goodness’ sake, pass it the heck on.

Arranged and performed by members of The Shake, Apollo Run and other yankee gonnabes. Directed and edited by our own Nick Schupak. Promise, you’ll never feel better (read: less regretful) about listening to Skynyrd.

Updated May 18: Go to help-alabama.org to care/give/help.

In case you forgot to hate the world today

They’re making another “No Strings Attached.” Except they cleverly swapped  out the leads (look close, it’s hard to tell: Justin Timberlake for Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis for Natalie Portman), and changed the name from one lame cliche to another. Miraculously, this one is even more explicit. “Friends with Benefits.” Behold and be sad:

I don’t know how many times I can endure this.

Old Testament, New Media

It’s important for observant jews to adapt to the evolution of modern technology. But remember, you can’t block God. He’ll totally know.