Save Ferris or Fun With Math

So I was cruising the internet the other day with no particular goal in mind, just joy riding on the information superhighway, and somewhere between the latest Lonely Island video and meme of Darth Vader I found out that my home town is getting a giant Ferris wheel. It’s kind of depressing that I had to learn about this online but as I don’t spend much time outside in my hometown it’s not surprising.

I also found out the word "Ferris" is supposed to be capitalized. Who knew?

That’s right, 180 feet or 20 stories of pants crapping fun is coming to Hotlanta.

I hate myself a little for using the term “Hotlanta”.

This fun little kid's ride on steroids will consist of 42 gondolas with capacity to hold six, terrified riders as they get four nightmare fueling rotations in 15 minutes. I slept through the part of math class where the teacher explained why we needed to know that stuff (and so naturally the rest of year) therefore as a result I kind of suck at math. So I’m going to assume that this equates to a speed of 137 miles per hour. Math nerds are encouraged to prove me wrong, just be sure to show  your work to get at least partial credit. Some of these gondolas will be "VIP" which I assume means workers will clean out the various body fluids left behind by the previous riders.

I call dibs on the dry seat.

In case you can’t tell, I hate Ferris wheels with such passion that you might start to wonder if my entire family was ruthlessly murdered by a gang of them in a manner that suggests I’ve been forced into a life of vigilante justice. I could prowl the streets at night looking for ne’er do well carnival equipment and exact my revenge on them Frank Castle style.

Don’t get me started on the Tilt-A-Whirl

I assure you this is not the case. It’s also not as simple as being afraid of heights. It’s more like a case of being afraid of shoddy workmanship. Like most towns, we have a local carnival that comes in once or twice a year and sets up shop. There are rides, over priced games (cough, rigged, cough) and all sorts of food that is bad for you to begin with but made worse by deep frying it and then shoving it on a stick. To be fair the stick doesn’t make it any worse but rather serves as a delivery method to get a deep fried Twinkie into my pie hole. My apologies to the stick community. Some of my favorite things are on sticks.

Looks like we’ve got an angry mob on our hands

When said carnival comes to town a small fleet of trucks can be seen carting stands and booths and even the components to these "rides". I have a strict policy about riding something after I've seen it in enough pieces so that it can be hauled around by an F-150. I also have a feelings with regards to "rides" assembled by the same guy who dug the hole for the porta-potty.  Sorry, Ferris wheel, this means you. Now it's not like there are actual Ferris wheel related deaths...oh wait, yes there are.  Google search it if you don't believe me. You'll even learn about the death of five family members who feel 65 feet when the car overturned. Do you know how long it takes to fall 65 feet?  A little more than two seconds. Math nerds, please confirm, but I'm pretty confident in that one. Two seconds is a long time to fall to your death.  One one thousand.  Two one thousand. Please don't think I'm trivializing this tragedy. I genuinely hate these things and am using this as an example to validate my fears.  It's not like I'm afraid of something silly like clowns.

Crap. Now I’m afraid of clowns.

According to the Internet, which has never lied to me before and I have no reason to think it will start now, from 30 feet a fall is 50% likely to be fatal. At 50 feet the chances jump to 90%. This Hotlanta (damn if I didn't do it again) wheel o' death is 180 feet tall. That means roughly 75% percent of this machine falls within what I call the "holy crap we're going to die" zone. I don't really suck at math I was just to lazy to figure that first one out.

Jim, I think I know what the leftover parts were for.

Depending where you are when you start to plummet you may not get to say that whole thing, or you may have time to say all of it and are left with a second or two of awkward silence. As much as I hate these death contraptions, the worst part is they are going to setting this monstrosity up in a parking lot for the Tabernacle. As if parking wasn't bad enough already. Either way the 17 mile view of the city is not worth taking the chance. I've seen the city and its not much to look at. I'd rather check things out via Google Earth from the safety of my iPad.

That's one small step for pizza...

As I was busy not being a productive member of society this afternoon, I stumbled upon an article touting the success of a small quadracopter drone flown solely by brain waves. Apparently researchers at the University of Minnesota are hooking up 64 electrodes to some dude’s brain pan and using the power of his mind to fly what looks like an early predecessor of the HK Aerial from Terminator.

 

It is at this point that alarms start going off as this appears to be step one of four that ends with Skynet going live. While humanity may ultimately win that fight, if you have the time to find this blog and nothing else to do but read it, then you and I are not likely to be among the survivors. Go ahead and open another tab in your IE browser and Google image John Connor’s resistance. What percentage of his fighting force do you think looks the comic book guy from the Simpsons? Go ahead and do the math … I’ll wait …

Casualty Numero Uno

Pretty depressing, isn't it? So, it was with fears of post apocalyptic robots, roaming the earth and hunting down the last vestiges of humanity, that I decided to do a little research (and I mean “very little”) to see how close we are to Judgment Day. Now I might be the SEAL Team Six of procrastinators, but I do not want to get caught with my pants down when automated death comes looking for me. That would just be awkward. So I began digging deep into my sources, which is pretty much other news outlets and Google, to see if this was going to be my problem to deal with or if I could delegate it to my kids while I got busy fighting the good fight against another supreme pizza. Now that's how man was intended to eat vegetables.

As it turns out, drone technology is pretty far along. This isn't really news. The US UAV program goes as far back as 1959 and drones are used in a military capacity in at least 50 countries today. The military is always getting first crack at the coolest toys years before most of us are even aware such things exist. I’m convinced they were beta testing Fruit Ninja while I was still in front of my Atari 2600 trying to snag Indie’s parachute on that stupid branch. I hate the Raider’s of the Lost Ark video game so much.

Awesome

Not awesome

So while the US armed forces are flying state of the art, unmanned craft from the comfort of what I’m willing to call the coolest man cave in the world, provided someone installs a cup holder, the general public finally has access to what will one day be super cool RC death machines.  I’m sure major corporations and international conglomerates will find ways to responsibly use this tech to improve upon the human experience. It is during this super optimistic thought that a very similar article catches my eye. Apparently Domino's has found a way to do exactly this. May I introduce to you the air dropped pizza?

This little wonder is capable of carrying two large pepperonis courtesy of the same engineering that allows us to rain sweet democracy down on the Taliban.  Before this little rant starts to take on a tone that sounds remotely political, I must admit my first thought was “Only two pizzas?”. Not too worry, the UK agency developing this future leading cause of obesity is working hard to up the payload to include “a massive thing of Coke.” Seeing as they’re British I will be operating under the assumption this is equal to one hogshead of cola.

Oi, it's a thing!

Approximately 238 liters of carbonated goodness. Diet for me, please. Diabetes is nothing to fool around with, just as Wilford Brimley.  By the way, how many of these pizza copters do you think get shot out of the sky like a thin crust game of Duck Hunt? It’s a shame that Domino's can’t use all this money and brainpower to come up with a pizza that doesn't taste like somebody melted cheese all over a used Dr Scholl's shoe insert. Alas, progress can be slow and I can only hope that one day we will see widespread use of a remote controlled pizza delivery system. I will probably still end up experiencing those uncomfortable moments at delivery, wondering how much to tip or if I should invite him in for a slice. Of course this could always go the route of never fully realized dream that was the TacoCopter. Try not to think about the fact we’re already lazy enough to ask the local pizza pusher to drive out and drop off the greasy little box of heart attack helper. I’m sure remote controlled food delivery will endear us to the rest of the world -which already loves us and our obscene amounts of excess- while they're still delivering food via trebuchet. Well, before we start heading down that political side street again I better start running the kids through some survival drills so they’re prepared for the zombie robots someone is assuredly trying to build right now. Afterwards, for dinner I hear McDonald's now serves a turducken sandwich and Dairy Queen will launch ice cream at my face with a t-shirt cannon. Food by seige weapon. What a great time to be alive.