Alternate Reality Spam

So I was reading NAWLZ the other day and realized that although A_R (alternate reality) graffiti would be awesome, the spam would be terrible.

Just imagine walking down the street on a sunny Sunday afternoon, passing by your favorite grinder shop, going to get some comics and see what's going on in Peter Parkers life, when all of a sudden a message nearly blind-sides you with an epileptic seizure saying HEY OMG THIS GIRL RIT HERE IN THIS HUOSE IS SO FRIKKIN HAWT LIKE YOU CANNT EVEN BELIEVE ME MAN SO JELLII!! with a little arrow pointing to that building that's been abandoned for at least tree months.

Basically, it'd be the internet. But this internet surrounds you with noises that don't stop and images that follow your pupil so you can't look away.

Imagine New York City... No wait! Don't do that. Just.. just don't

Luckily for us this digital hell not too unlike a non-lightcycle Tron will never happen. Things like advertising space and how it interacts with your personal bubble is kept safe by laws. There will obviously be a system in place that will punish A_R spammers and … oh wait.. it's just like the internet. Nevermind, it'll be terrible.

If the government actually cared about this, we'd all be synched into it already. Child molesters would have their little digital scarlet letters floating over their heads. Crimes in progress would be channeled to proper authorities and people nearby would receive warning messages that they were in a danger zone. Concert tickets would be rendered useless because you could patch into someone else's view. Walking alone at night wouldn't be terrifying because you know how close every person near you is. Even the hobos.

But that stuff's not going to happen because no one wants Big Bro watching you poo. But once the tech gets built it will happen because we NEED to be jacked into everyone else's lives every second and there's no platform to prevent this spamming to happen. So enjoy these technologically deficit days where you can enjoy your surroundings and not have yet one more reason to become a hermit spending all your time learning how to Hadoken.

There Will Be No Flying Cars So Boston Will Have Tons Of Traffic

Been a longtime, but here it goes:

Anyone from not Boston knows the city has awful traffic. People from Boston usually don't realize it. They think it is normal so when they go to other places they drive according to their normal standards, which is the simple explanation of Massholism. Recently, I went back to my home city and my girlfriend had no idea why the traffic was so bad, and why the rotaries were so backed up, and why the roads were covered in potholes, and why the whole general status of road was that horrible, adding ''didn't they spend a lot of money building that tunnel?''

My answer was simple, because I had grown up knowing it: That's the way it is.

But then I started to think about it. In my travels I have never met roads as inhospitable as Boston's. For a moment I wondered why the city's roads are the way they are- then I remembered.

The officials are waiting for flying cars.

This is the important fact that Bostonians have such trouble explaining. Mainly because we are told by our second or third grade teachers in some passing moment and it makes so much sense we kind of just forget.

My hypothesis is that sometime in the 60's, a bunch of drugged-up people-with-power decided to divert funding from road repair and design to the Red Sox, assuming that by the year 2000 there would be flying cars. Obviously, with flying cars there is no need to fix potholes, plow snow, or move the roads around buildings (because flying cars fly over buildings).

It was a grand idea and everyone supported it because Bostonians love nothing more than the Sox. Maybe correct clam chowder and St. Patty's day, but in general the Sox are number one.

So forty years passed and the Big Dig idea got shot down because whoever was stupid enough to think fixing traffic would be worth it opened their eyes and realized flying cars are totally cooler. However, once the year 2000 approached and flying anythings were obviously not going to be happening, city officials freaked out. They actually started the Big Dig and began making signs to teach people how to avoid potholes (yes, they erected signs on the road so that people driving could read them -while driving- and know what to do when encountering a pothole. The answer was NOT bubblebeam even though potholes are ground/rock types. Bubblebeam is not very effective. People were so surprised they completely stopped paying attention to the road and just started crashing everywhere causing even more traffic. Good job city).

I dunno anymore... I just re-read all that. The truth is, I have no point. I'm just really certain that until flying cars are built nothing good will happen to Boston's roads. The officials are freaking out, but flying cars is the only option for them. So they're waiting.. and waiting.. and waiting.. I bet monkeys will take over the world first. Destroying all our advanced technology and electronics. Then, in the monkey steampunk future, in a coastal city called MonkeyBoston, some brilliant little super-chimp will say, ''hey! You know what would be cool, monkey-friends? Flying cars. That way we won't need to fix all these roads that keep breaking.'' But then the world will end. Sorry super-monkeys. No one can have flying cars.

We Will Be Full of Plastic

If you didn't know already, drinking copious amounts of “purified” water from plastic bottles makes you sick (because of the polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PDBE) that gets dissolved in the liquid). According to some recent research, “dust and other indoor sources” and eating meat can give you PDBE's.. so if you spend all day in a basement hacking banks, eating McyD's, and drinking Poland Springs, you're really set. For the meat thing I wonder what kinds? Texas Kobe beef or McDonald's half-cardboard stuff? Do the McFlurry spoons contain PDBE's? What about instant ramen?

There is a ton of plastic in our bodies now (US has the highest percentage in the world.. I'm surprised it's not Japan. They are all robots). So what does that mean for the future? We will be mostly plastic.

Wait... that's actually pretty cool. I want a cyber-brain and synthetic organs that don't shutdown from overexposure to alcohol. I want a drunk-mode application so I don't have to pay for booze. Actually, being plastic isn't that bad.

Nevermind, the future won't suck.

Wheelchairs Will Still Have Wheels

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much I hate walking. It sucks and it's bad for you. Seriously, who invented walking? We should all find whoever said, “I'm gonna make the easiest mode of travel for people decay their hip bones, ankle bones, and cause shin-splints,” and punch him/her in the face. And if it was a group of people we'll attach explosive collars to their necks and make them go Battle Royal on each other.

I'm really excited to get into a wheelchair. Yeah, yeah, I know you have to redesign your kitchen to have low-access cabinets, you can't have epic training montages running up and down stairs, and you can't do parkour. But people, this is the past, remember? In the future they'll have wheelchair's with insect legs. Like invaders have in Zim ... wait a second. If these legs that can move in any direction, balance, extend vertically up by three times their height, climb stairs, grab things, and double as paper-weights have been invented in the crazy mind of Jhonen Vasquez.. what are we waiting for?

OH NO!

In the future, wheelchairs will still have wheels!

QUICKLY! Someone with money get to work! Make a wheelchair that has legs, instead of wheels, or both even! Just don't restrict them to wheels. I've already worked out the schematics:



Okay? Make sense? Pretty simple, right? You can even use sticks.. I mean, I know it will be the future but come on! I'm desparate here! I really think my legs are going to be useless.. they might be useless right now.. but that's just because I've been drinking.. hrm.. You should probably also add a catheter and plug-in dialysis attachments.

Air Conditioning Will Be Extinct

Apparently using air conditioning in your car uses tons of energy. Also breaking news: Eating makes you poop.

So a bunch of guys with too much time are spending tons of money making thermo-aware-noncrashable-crashdummies (aka lobster. Black=not ready, red=ready, don't throw it against the wall because your school will suspend you for five days). They're coming up with crazy ideas like pulling electricity out of sound.

      “Investigating ways to turn waste heat and ambient noise, generated by an engine, into usable energy. Thermal acoustics, for instance, uses sound waves to transform heat into usable electricity.”

WHAT? You can convert engine hum into electricity. Does that mean that in the future all our energy will come from preschools?

In the end, they'll realize the best way to keep people cool and reduce emissions is to not have AC at all. The roll-down-window-button still works so we're going to have to get used to using it. Or ride the bus/train.

Also, why the hell do journalists love making plot twists in articles? Seriously, leave twisty turny narrative to Frieza and his transformations, get to the point with your article. If people need a hook to give your article a chance, it must be too long. Wake up and smell the future! We've been in it for nine years!

1) Nanoterror in the Skies

Flying sucks already. If it's snowing, you're flight's going to be late. If it's raining, you're flight's going to be late. If there's a bunch of babies, you're flight's going to be late. You can't bring food and drinks from out of the airport (how are we supposed to enjoy the in-flight movie without movie popcorn and whiskey?), and the airport food price is jacked up PLUS McDonald’s doesn't have the 2-for-1 Apple Pie deal. There are never enough electrical outlets. Don't even start with the seats. No more peanuts. Criminal. But it's only 2009! With enough time I could think of a Declaration of Independence style doctrine about how much suck will be tasted in airports within ten years, but I don't know where to print stuff on hemp paper so I'm just going to focus on one thing: nano-terrorism.

I don't know what people are waiting for. Maybe our government doesn't think terrorists will ever be able to buy nanotech (obviously haven't seen 24, Season 14). Maybe someone's waiting for a scifi movie about it. Or maybe the people who make decisions don't want to pay to set up safety precautions until it's too late. Whatever it is, public air travel is not at all ready for nanobot attacks.

Once somebody figures out how to fill their body with flesh eating nanobots, or exploding ones, or mess-with-your-controls ones, the perfect form of plane sabotage will be achieved. Metal detectors won't pickup on silicon (or whatever material the bots will be made of) and there aren't any X-Rays, motion sensors, heat sensors . . . any kind of sensor that will pick up nanobots floating around in someone's blood stream, womb, or spleen.

So I've come up with a list that hopefully someone with important decision making clearance will read:
   1) This one will be pretty uncomfortable but it might work: Force everyone to drink some kind of nanobot sensor liquid before flying. Something like that goop you have to drink before you go into that machine so that your organs light up.. whatever it's called.. but it will work to either outline nanobots by not lighting them up, or light only the bots up. I actually have no idea how this stuff works, I'm just holding a “What would Phillip K. Dick do?” ball and it's telling me to write these words down.
   2) Create a nanobot sensor that can be installed at every airport security check in the world and won't impede the already mega-slow speed it takes to go through security. Hahaha! Funny.
   3) Don't fly. Considering that lack of actually useful alternate fuels, the death of personal cars and rise of government funded, public transportation, and advances in superconducting bullet trains, the increasing cost of flight tickets, airplanes will be as outdated as 128MB flash drives.

That's this issue of How Much The Future Will Suck! Have fun living in the past!