Seeing as this is the year for commencements, convocations, and many wonderful confections; I thought it would be proper for a little graduation send off with some flair. In this video, Steve Jobs gives the commencement for the Stanford University graduating class of 2005. It's about fifteen minutes long, and it is a rare look into the workings of one of the most enigmatic leaders of one of the most innovative companies in the world. It's also very touching for a piece of graduation advice, and I would rank it right under Geisel's perennial psalm, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"
A happy graduation to all of our friends here at Hobson's who are doing so. We wish you the best!
--Editor's Note: A big welcome to Luke Jones, the newest author for Hobson's Buffet! *applause* Luke is a fellow Harding-ite and an English major, so maybe he'll help our post average a bit. I know he'll at least have some interesting things to say.--
I'm going to be honest. I was asked to make this post over a month ago. My excuses are: Flying South for the Winter; Using an Off-Brand Controller; the Tunguska Event.
Now that that's out of the way, let's cut to the chase. I'm here to talk about action figures. Specifically, the best action figures, the ones that came out of the '80s. More specifically, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and The Transformers. I grew up with these guys. By the time I was coherent, though, it was already the '90s, which werenotkindto these humble toy lines. Eventually, they crumbled, bowing to the more visceral forces of Nikelodeon, TMNT, and other slime and mucus-charged properties. Later they returned triumphantly, but that's another tale.
Before this defeat, GI Joe and Transformers languished in the hard-rocking '80s, often meeting each other halfway in both comics and cartoons. Poor Bumblebee was actually mistakenly blowed up by the Joes at least once. Cobra helped rebuild Megatron once, and much later on, the two groups actually met in the middle of WWII.
But did you know that these iconic '80s toy lines are tied up in each others' origins?
Get this. So my Dad grew up playing with the original '60s GI Joes, the ones that were 12-inch military replicas. Back in those days, mothers were still calling action figures "dolls." But Japan, because they can be awesome, knew they were more than just dolls. So in the '70s, they licensed the basic body of old Joe, and turned him into an awesome robot dude! Like I said, Japan can be awesome.
But Japan is only like 12 feet long, so that space didn't allow for too many 12-inch robot dudes for kids to play with. This necessitated the downsizing of big 'ol Henshin Cyborg to the 10cm short "Microman." His small size allowed for extra extravagance in the realm of vehicles and whatnot. Microman flourished! His line was successfully brought to the US in the '70s by Mego under the name of "Micronauts."
As the '70s came to a close, Microman started to wane in popularity. Takara's goal of a unified sci-toy line (including both "real" and "giant" transforming robots) of magnificence was becoming more and more difficult. Around 1981, they introduced a line called "Microchange," featuring household objects which transformed into vehicles and robots that Microman could interact with. Near-simultaneously, Takara also rolled out Diaclone, a toy line consisting of transforming vehicles, robots, and bases. They scaled Microman down to a minute 1-inch figure with magnetic feet for this line.
Meanwhile, across, the pond, Hasbro relaunched the dead 12-inch GI Joe line as "A Real American Hero" in 1982. They downsized the figures to 3 3/4", based on the popularity of Star Wars and--you guessed it--Micronauts.
By 1984 or so, Takara had manufactured a small army of transforming robots of various sizes and scales. But the '80s were already in full steam, and where were the transforming robots in the US of A? Not to be outdone, Hasbro scanned the wide world and found Takara's army of robots, bought the molds to many of them (and a few other assorted robots from moreobscureplaces), and did their own thing with them. They removed the 10cm Microman and 1-inch Diaclone figures, focused solely on the transforming robots, and Transformers was born.
Ironically enough, Hasbro accomplished what Takara itself was trying to: create a unified sci-fi line. For that reason, Takara simply called it quits on Diaclone and Microchange, purchased the rights to sell Transformers in Japan, and did that. It was awesome. There was dancing.
These days, Hasbro owns the rights to dang near everything. I hope you know that there are Star Wars Transformers. Will there be GI Joe Transformers? Only time will tell.
I want to leave you with a vintage commercial for Battle Convoy, the Diaclone toy which would later become Optimus Prime. You will find that commercials for Japanese toys beat American ones by about 6000%.
Welcome to another Friday! and another Friday's Food for Thought! Where we give you a brief examination of what is interesting and unusual about the world for your mental stimulation. We hope you enjoy another thought-filled Friday!
"A gourmet coffee blended from animal droppings is being sold at a London department store for £50 per cup." To benefit cancer research.
They're not completely crazy, just mostly crazy.
Now then, a team quote! This quote supposedly originated with British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, but gained great popularity in the States thanks to the one and only Mark Twain. It is dedicated to all of the scientists, politicians, and statisticians who help make the world go round:
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
And finally, a video dedicated to tv news reporters. What wonderful moments of humor you bring us daily:
Come one, come all! It's a very special Friday's Food for Thought! We here at Hobson's normally try to avoid matters that are strictly of local importance, but this story is just too good to pass up. As most people who have some knowledge of Harding are aware, almost all students are required to attend a daily "chapel" service which lasts for about a half hour in which there are announcements and then a short Christian worship service of some kind. Since the entire student body as well as much of the faculty gather for this event with such regularity, it becomes the perfect time for students to plan and commit mischievous deeds of one sort or another. This Wednesday morning, one such deed occurred, and it seems to echo the themes of a previous post on Hobsons. Upon exiting the doors to the auditorium where we meet, I looked down at the ground and was greeted with the sight of fetal pigs. Someone seemed to have strewn them about all of the exits during chapel time, leaving them to be discovered by students on their way to get some breakfast or go to class. Most people were disgusted, but some like me were highly amused at the absurdity of looking down and seeing fetal pigs on the ground. With that story in mind, here is your fetal-pig themed Friday's Food for Thought! From USA Today, a slightly older story about a more aggressive prank involving fetal pigs: Swim team inpales fetal pigs on rivals' car antennas. From the TV Show Angel, a character named Willow professes her love for fetal pigs:
Willow: It had to be something specific. There's lots of jars in the world. Can't shatter 'em all. Oh, I mean you could, but, good things come in jars - peanut butter, jelly, those two-headed fetal pigs at the Natural History Museum.
[Wesley just looks at her]
Willow: Come on. Everybody loves fetal pigs!
As for a video, I will not bother disturbing you with most of the youtube results I found in a vain quest for an appropriate video. If you really want to see some fetal pig action, just search for it on youtube.
Well until next Friday, keep your mind active, and don't forget to stop and admire the fetal pigs of your life!
In honor of the late Arthur C. Clarke, a prolific science fiction writer who passed away at the age of 90 on Wednesday after having some breathing problems, the quote this week is from him. Clarke was the last of the "Big Three" of science fiction, surviving Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. As a journalist, I really like this quote.
"CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power."
- Arthur C. Clarke
News Story: One very interesting thing going on in the news right now is the case that recently came before the Supreme Court, District of Columbia v. Heller. Dick Heller is a D.C. security guard who filed suit saying that D.C.'s total ban on handguns is unconstitutional. It has now made it to the SC, and this will be the first time that the Second Amendment has been decidedly ruled on by them, and the first time in over 70 years they've even discussed it. One appeals court struck down the ban, but that will now be decided in the SC. Even if they decide to rule that the Second Amendment gives individual citizens the right to own guns, as appears likely, they must still decide on whether the handgun ban violates that right. The SC will decide on this sometime before June when their session ends.
Video: Fair warning - this is probably both the best and the worst thing I've seen in a long time. Just so you know going into it, EVERYONE in the video was fine afterwards.
This week, you get a bonus video. It is a remixed version of the previous one. You can find a lot of these on YouTube, but this was one of the funnier.
Welcome to a special Leap Day edition of Friday's Food for Thought here at Hobson's. Random fact: The average American will experience fewer than 20 leap days in their life. This day is better than a holiday, because it only comes once every four years and is used to help make up for the inaccuracy of humanity's timekeeping system! Feel free to celebrate the day by pondering the briefness of human existence and the inability of humanity to accurately quantify the world in which we live. Let's kick off the festivities!
"29 N.J. Eighth-Graders Get 2 Days Detention After Forking Over Nearly 6000 Coins." These students were given detention for holding up the lunch line when they each payed for their $2 lunch in pennies. Legal U.S. tender = against school policy.
Next we'll use a quote from good old Ben Franklin. I'm not sure if this ever appeared in Poor Richard's, but it is very fitting for the image of American culture that is thrust upon us by many major media outlets today.
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
And finally, everyone has seen the number one Youtube video of all time, Evolution of Dance. We know it, we love it; it's much better than the music video of some mopey punk-rock group being on the top. Some man (because no sane woman would do this) has made a parody of Evolution of Dance in which the comedian/dancer is replaced with an animated Optimus Prime.
It's time for another Friday's Food for Thought! Sorry to get it up so late, but here it is.
Quote:
"We grow up hearing that trumpeters blew down the walls of Jericho, that Gabriel's trumpet announces the will of God, and that the largest and hippest of all animals, the elephant, has a trunk mostly (we think) for trumpeting. These grandiose images shape the classic trumpet persona: brash, impetuous, cocky, cool, in command. Anyone who has ever played in a band knows that if the conductor stops rehearsal because a fight breaks out, if somebody takes your girlfriend, if a tasteless practical joke is pulled, if someone challenges every executive decision no matter how trivial, it's got to be a trumpet player. That's just how we are." - Wynton Marsalis
News Story: Google sponsors new race to the moon I heard about this a while back, but now's as good a time as any to post it since there's a recent story about it. Google is sponsoring the Google Lunar X Prize, which has a $30 million prize for the first two teams to put a robotic rover on the moon that can transmit data and images to Earth. 10 teams have announced their entry into the competition.
The first X Prize was the Ansari X Prize, which was won by a team led by Burt Rutan (who I profiled a couple of weeks ago). To win the $10 million prize, Rutan's team had to put their privately-funded manned spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, into space twice in two weeks. There are a couple other other X Prizes now: the Archon X Prize for Genomics, in which scientists must sequence the genomes of 100 people in 10 days to win $10 million, and the Automotive X Prize, which is in development but will deal with "designing viable, clean and super-efficient cars that people want to buy." Video: To show you all how I sometimes feel while editing stories for Harding University's newspaper, the Bison, here is "The Punctuation Police," courtesy of Picnicface.
Email is boring. Yes, I like some of you am easily excited by a late-night communique from Facebook telling me that someone has posted a one word message on my wall, but not all people revel in electronic communication with the same vigor that we do. Email has become a dry, uninteresting wasteland where only business people and the occasional nearly-illiterate relative trying out their new computer dare to tread. Or at least, so believe the people over at 3D Mailbox.com.
Showing an unnatural knack for what the youth of America consider "keen" they have taken the exciting concept of a three-dimensional virtual world and applied it to your email inbox. Popular Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games such as World of Warcraft use this concept to bring together thousands of players at once to roleplay that they are wizards, elves, or some other fantasy hero fighting against a greater evil that threatens to envelop the land, all while collecting more powerful weapons and piles of gold. 3D Mailbox uses this concept to help you check your email.
Yes, by downloading and installing 3D Mailbox you will be able to interact with each of your emails as if they were individual people. The first “level” of the program features a Miami resort with a beachside pool which acts as your inbox. Each of your new messages is portrayed as a poorly-rendered, swimsuited beach-goer who is bent on entering the resort. To do this though, they must first go through the bouncer, your spam filter. If they gain entrance, they dive into the swimming pool, waiting for you to join them in the water and "read" them. After they are "read" they towel off and sunbathe at the poolside. If the bouncer rejects the poor person as a spam message, however, they are sent to the beach outside of the resort compound to await being eaten by a great white shark.
This is not a fake website.
This is a real program that real people really use; just not for any practical purpose, say, like actually catching up on your email. I’m sure though there is a fourteen year-old girl somewhere who is probably quite enamored with the new hunk named “Re:Thank You” that her character met by the poolside yesterday.
So if you, like me, are bored and frustrated with regular old email, download 3D inbox* and interact with your email in ways that are beyond your wildest imagination! This video preview gives you a brief glimpse of the exciting world that is waiting for you!
The website also boasts of second and third levels which allow you to both take control of LAX and fight off a zombie infestation in a peaceful rural hamlet. I can hardly wait.
*I would never under any circumstances recommend this program for any sane, productive human being.
The LEGO block is over the hill today. The original patent for it was submitted at 1:58 p.m. January 28, 1958; however, the LEGO block we know today wouldn't appear until five years later when they began using the current materials to make it.
The LEGO company began as a Danish manufacturer of small wooden toys in 1932. Ole Kirk Christansen, the founder, came up with the name LEGO as a combination of the Danish words "leg" and "godt," which, put together, mean "play well."
The forefather to the modern LEGO brick was created in 1949 and was tweaked and developed until 1958, when it took the form still used today. Blocks from 1958 will fit with blocks from today.
One thing I did not realize is the sheer scale of the LEGO operation. There are 2,400 different brick shapes, and the LEGO company also produces 25 other product lines, and is sold in more than 130 countries (there are 190 countries recognized in the UN). Neatorama has a good article with the 10 Neatest LEGO Facts, in tribute to the wildly-popular toy's birthday.
I thought I would share something I found on YouTube: The Dark Knight trailer, in LEGOs. It's perfectly matched to the real trailer.
