Point Five

New Hybrid Vehicle Seats 0

a4g — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:03:20 +0000

At last, fuel-efficiency reaches its logical conclusion in the new Gaia.

Honda’s new ultra- efficient hybrid vehicle was unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Show on Thursday, posting the best- ever fuel mileage for a car in its class, an eye- popping 195 mpg (82 kpl). The car achieves the truly amazing number by a combination of unconventional materials, a powerplant that combines a hyper-efficient 1.2L 4-cyl engine with with a high-output barium-titanate ultracapacitor, and a cabin that seats zero.

The Honda Gaia is expected to be released sometime in mid-2009 and is being touted as the first car that is “a love letter to Mother Earth.”

“We tried to throw out every tired ‘conventional’ expectation of an automobile and really start fresh from the tires up,” said Larry Jacobs of Honda Motor Corporation. He said that this meant re-asking the most basic questions like:

Does a reverse gear really help you get where you want to be, or just where you’ve already been?
Don’t brakes just get in the way of what cars are for: going?

Aren’t cabbage leaves way lighter than steel plates?
Couldn’t we make our car more efficient by cutting out the 347lb weight of some corpulent, grease- sweating lardpump American who should probably be doing a little more bike riding and a little less midnight driving to Taco Bell for “Fourth Meal?

Sadly, outdated DOT regulations wouldn’t allow the designers to eliminate the reverse gear or the brakes or replace the body panels with coleslaw, but it turned out there was nothing stopping them from jettisoning the superfluous driver and passengers from their monument to environmental consciousness.

Designers also boasted that the 1/2 cubic foot storage compartment in back will be increased to a whopping 3/4 cuft in the production version.

“Never before has a car been designed that first and foremost serves the environment we live in,” said Jacobs. “You want to save the planet? You’re going to need a Gaia. You want to kill polar bears—- or actually go somewhere—-

then get some big gas- guzzling SUV.”

Although Toyota’s spokespeople wouldn’t admit it, the Honda unveiling proved a real embarrassment for Honda’s largest competitor. It was clear from hastily- made changes to Toyota’s lavish trade- show booth that they, too, had intended a high profile roll-out at the show. But clearly they had been let down by their designers. [Production delays in Toyota’s troublesome ultra- hybrid have been the subject of many previous reports on Point Five, where we were the first to reveal spy pictures of the sleek, efficient design, which consisted of two shoulder straps and a cardboard box with wheels Sharpied on the side.]

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Hmmm…

a4g — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:06:04 +0000

Best thing about starting up posting again?

It’s making my site traffic go down.

After all, that crazy Google Adsense revenue stream screwed my taxes all to hell last year.

TV Purchase From ‘Crazy Steve’ Proves More Crazy Than Expected

a4g — Tue, 06 May 2008 01:12:55 +0000

A portion of the sales contract signed by Mr. Brayden and retailer Steve Kerpinski

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Texas carpenter Joshua Brayden now admits he regrets accepting the “Insane, Rock-Bottom Deal” on a 50in plasma TV from well-known electronics discounter ‘Crazy Steve’ Kerpinski, who was arrested Monday after forcing his way into Brayden’s Pearland home wearing only underwear and a 6′ MonsterCable 1000hd Ultra-High Speed HDMI Cable with gold-plated connectors and high density triple-layer shielding, which normally retails for over $129 but was being offered at the unhinged blowout price of $47.95.

“He broke into my place and smeared crap all over my sofa,” said Brayden, who has filed a temporary restraining order against the big-box retailer.

Attorneys for Kerpinski vigorously defended their client. “Every one of our advertisements clearly notifies our customers in 48pt sans-serif that Steve is CRAAZZZZY about low prices,” said Merle Lincoln of Lincoln & Brockner. “60% off on Monster Cables certainly qualifies as a

‘price so low that he’s giving it away.’ And Steve– Mr. Kerpinski– was merely attempting to do so. In person.”

The original purchase of the 50in Pioneer Elite monitor– which has a retail price of $5000– was offered for just under $3200 on the condition that Kerpinski would be able to ‘lick Mr. Brayden’s armpits.”

“I thought it was just part of the act,” said Brayden, who has temporarily moved his 6- month- pregnant wife to her mother’s house pending the outcome of the situation.

Brayden began to have doubts when, just as he was signing the sales contract, Kerpinski dropped his pants and began masturbating.

Crazy Steve has been offering rock bottom deals on brand name electronics for the past six years, since

a voice warned him to slash prices– and sleeping homeless people– to prevent the takeover of the ninth ring of the exosphere by the Demonic Order of the Algatrex.

Kerpinski’s attorney’s have stated that they intend to counter sue Mr. Brayden for fraud.

“What kind of a man takes advantage of the reduced mental competency of a clearly unbalanced retailer? Does he think 35% off retail helps Steve get closer to recovery? And what about Steve’s accountant? Does Mr. Brayden know the stress all these low prices cause an otherwise fine CPA? Mr. Brayden got exactly what was promised. While most of the time this just means low, low prices, on occasion it will venture into coprophagia and torture killing. I believe the law calls that a promise kept.”

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Lost in America

a4g — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:47:19 +0000

I must admit I feel a bit dazed and disoriented myself after listening to Barack Obama for any length of time, so I can hardly blame the man for not quite knowing where he was, what month it was, and how much time he had until the general election.

One can only assume some of the vacuousness of a particularly rarefied stump speech breached the walls of his sphenoid sinus and leaked rarefied hope-phlegm into his braincase. That, or perhaps his soul-sucking opponent used that Lifeforce vampire alien trick to prematurely dodder him. I just hope to hell she wasn’t naked like in the movie.

Oh, and another good way…

a4g — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:08:12 +0000

to tell the difference between the right and the left: the right attacks its enemies by quoting, the left by paraphrasing.

Perhaps not the most novel of observations, but I’m really stunned how clockwork predictable and nearly universal this is. It’s why I need the extra punctuation marks in order to say that Reverend Wright said “God damn America,” but no such ornamentation is ever used when saying that John McCain said that he wants 100 years of war in Iraq. It’s why that annoying hyperbolic wingnut fanatic still manages to linkdump 10 citations that go to metrics, data, and graphs; while his lefty counterpart only ever seems to manage a link to an analysis pieces on Slate.com or Truthout.org

Oh, and noting this difference is also a good way to distinguish between fact, and “unvarnished ball-sucking twaddle,” but then I expect you have already figured that out.

An Open Question From Barack Obama

a4g — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:54:53 +0000

Hey– Anybody out there remember what it means when it flashes red?

The Evil Emperor Mindstation, U.S.M.C. Reports From The Field: Part 1 - Fort Sill, OK

The Evil Emperor Mindstation — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:01:30 +0000

It seems like such a short 6 months ago when civilian Mindstation stumbled into a USMC recruiting station, three sheets to the wind with a fourth sheet crammed in my pants as a makeshift diaper, drunk on what seemed like a bottomless weekend of Zima. A lot has happened since then, two NJPs, one court martial (which did not– as I will again remind some here– convict anyone of any wrongdoing) and countless toilets scrubbed again and again and again, Pfc Mindstation stands before you a different man.

He nows sits at the very tip of the spear in the war on terror,

Fort Sill Oklahoma.

Things sure are different here than at the Imperial Palace nestled in the hills of Santa Barbara. The massive Doric styled columns that adorn the imperial facades are replaced with evergreen shrubbery outside of the chowhall. The 300+ bedrooms that filled hallway after empty hallway are replaced by crowded barracks filled with Marines. My cozy personal bedroom, known worldwide as the largest and most superfluous in current existence, is replaced by a tiny 15′x10′ two man abode.

At first I was outraged by such horrid living conditions– after all, I joined the elite Marine Corps, not some underfunded, hardscrabble group of lunkhead rabble-rousers.

Of course, I soon kenned the wisdom of my circumstance, when I realized how close my roommate would be to me, and hence how quickly he could respond to my commands and needs. The crystal bell I always carry with me to signal I am in need of service has become a common sound through the slightly off-white hallways of Echo wing. On a completely unrelated note, I have noticed that my fellow Marines have been buying a unusual amount of towels and soap bars from the PX lately. Fascinating!

Lars has been adapting to military life well. The plane ride from LAX to Oklahoma International was a bit hard for him, stuffed inside my extra sea bag, but he has recovered on the special diet I prescribed to him of Cheese & Veggie Omelet MREs.

Luckily, I found that Lars’ babyface closely resembles my own. So, with a few impromptu plastic surgeries performed in the head of my barracks, I have successfully created a double of myself, or at least what I might look like after a horrifying industrial accident. This comes in handy when I am given assignments such as scrubbing every toilet, or removing every blade of grass from PT fields, as so often happens when I attempt to relieve my NCOs of their positions because of incompetence.

In the free time I have found, while Lars dutifully cleans and mops, I have set out to learn some of Oklahoma’s history. Interestingly enough, Oklahoma ranks first in America in featureless flatland, dead grass, and water towers. I must admit I’m a little surprised, as my Marine recruiter enthusiastically affirmed it’s rights to the nickname the ‘Garden State.’ And I have no reason to believe he would steer me wrong. Nevermind, I’m sure it will all sort itself out. Another interesting fact about Oklahoma is that all the electrical outlets are upside down. Don’t believe me? Look at this damning evidence!

The evidence is damning.

Like some futuristic Hue City, an urban battleground ripped from the kidneys of time and transplanted to the 21st century, Oklahoma is the wild west of the war on terror. Except here, the Man with No Name wears blue jeans and a hoodie with the word ‘Side-Out’ printed on them. You know, I was going somewhere with this… I’m sure I’ll remember the point later. In fact, make up your own damn point, I need to go to the bathroom. I don’t think that Super-Lucky Orange Chicken I ordered from the Panda Dragon King is sitting so ’super-lucky’ after all. General Tso, you lied!

Until next time (if there is a next time, as you never know when a IED attack may hit the chow hall formation) this is Pfc. Mindstaion, USMC signing out.

-The Evil Emperor Mindstation, U.S.M.C.

Study: Few Keyboards Actually Destroyed By Coffee

a4g — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 02:16:50 +0000

Where are the keyboards?
Landfills show fewer discarded keyboards than predicted.

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A ground- breaking study of internet humor has revealed startling facts about previously uncontested claims of side- splitting hilarity. According to Drs. Myron Mitchell & Sylvia Johnson of the Ouianuc Center for Social Sciences, most claims of keyboards being destroyed by the nexus of a cardboard venti cup of steaming hot Kopi Luwak and an unexpected comment- section bon mot are at best exaggerated, and most likely complete fabrications.

“We found tens of thousands of examples of comments such as ‘Thanks, I just spit Starbucks on my laptop,’ or ‘You owe me a new keyboard, buddy’,” said Dr. Johnson. But the authors found that cross- referencing such comments against the actual numbers of discarded keyboards from landfill samples showed no statistical deviation from industry- predicted failure rates.

“It’s almost as if the only thing being spewed was

hyperbole, despite the claims of these anonymous commenters.”

But veteran internet presence “Larry-O” criticized the findings. Known for his acerbic wit, truculent commentary, and near- ubiquity on blogs, forums, and message boards due to his currently “between- careers” status, he claims credit for the destruction of nearly 10,000 keyboards. He noted a long list of methodology errors that he believed explained the discrepancies. “The study made absolutely no effort to test keyboards with other common liquids—- such as beer, soda, or water; there’s the possibility that many of these keyboards recovered functionality after a short drying period; and further, the configuration of most computer setups means that liquids will typically destroy useless function keys, not requiring replacement of the keyboard.”

Tort attorney Barry Long, who has spent two years preparing a class- action lawsuit on behalf of keyboard owners to recover

damages from “egregiously pithy online badinage”, fears that his case may crumble based on the recent findings.

Dr. Mitchell believed that the findings indicated that most of what was on the internet was “merely mildly amusing”– even second party claims such as “read this: it is hilarious” or “funniest post of the year” could not be trusted. Instead, he believed that a combination of boredom, anonymity and peer- group interactions fueled wild statements that could not be substantiated in the real world.

A Google search for Drs. Mitchell and Johnson and the Ouianuc Center for Social Sciences returned zero results.

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Pollsters To Release Polls Without Candidate Names To Improve Accuracy

a4g — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:30:58 +0000

While difficult to learn to interpret, new graphical forms of polling provide richer, deeper content for analysis by the political punditocracy. They can also bring up long repressed memories.

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In what has quickly become a muddy, unpredictable slog toward Decision ‘08, with candidates’ fortunes in the polls whipsawing daily, sometimes hourly, several major pollsters have unleashed new statistical weapons guaranteed to vastly improve their efforts at accurately ascertaining the whims of the American public. Chief among them, said pollster Steve Lunsford of Gallup, is the “Kleghelm Model”, which omits candidates names, party affiliations, and numerical totals in survey results, instead offering a data rich canvas of bulging possibilities which is so statistically dense that it can sometimes take until after the votes are counted to unpack the results.

“The first thing you notice with a Kleghelm graph is that instead of a standard set of bars for data points, it almost looks like a butterfly, or a bat, or maybe even your mother holding your face to your sheets, with her greasy hands reeking of raw chicken casserole and her morning bourbon, because you’ve wet the bed again.”

David Vinnson of Strategic Vision described Kleghelm results as

signaling a “new era” in political prognostication, promising to prevent polling disasters like the surprise victory of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, which ran contrary to almost all late predictions. Providing results without clear signifiers will “stop contamination of public opinion by the polls themselves, which we fear is causing feedback loops on the part of savvy voters.”

He also noted that the charts were much more like “the rolls of fat cascading down the matted hairy chest of an uncle who is insisting the only way you’re going to get really clean is if he gets into the bathtub with you.”

Barry Leary of the Voters Rights Council is skeptical on the emphasis placed on opinion polling, and the forces that those polls add to the race. “They encourage voters to apply game-theory strategies of perceived electability to what should ideally be a personal decision based on issues.”

But Gallup’s Lunsford brushes aside such criticism. “Do we stop thoroughbreds in the middle of the Kentucky Derby and ask them what their

opinions are on the Alternative Minimum Tax? Of course not. That would be stupid. Horses are dumb animals. Why would you want their opinion on politics? We just want to see who wins.”

Scott Rasmussen, considered by many to be the finest pollster currently on the scene, has released his latest Michigan numbers in the form of a multiplication table. “You can really see just how this race is shaping up from these numbers,” he said. He fully expects the final tallies in the Wolverine State to come within .5% of at least some of the numbers he’s printed.

“The answers are all right here,” he said, pointing to a card dense with numbers. “Wait… O15… Bingo!”

Yeah, I’m still alive. The Emperor is at Camp Pendleton, slogging his way through MCT at the SOI, before he ships off to Ft. Sill, OK for his MOS school later this month. (You know, it doesn’t take long for this whole USMC acronym thing to really punctuate your daily conversation.)

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I HAVE RETURNED!!!

The Evil Emperor Mindstation — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 05:15:05 +0000

“And so the boy, given up for dead, returns to his people, to the sacred Imperial Palace, an Emperor. Our Emperor: The Evil Emperor Mindstation!”

The spectacle of the Imperial Opera House illuminated by fireworks reminded me of the festive celebrations after I made my first doody in the big boy toilet. There I am on the left side next to the fourth window. Don’t I look magnificent?

Thus began the Imperial Pomp and Pageantry that followed my graduation from MCRD San Diego, as I returned in Triumph to the Imperial Palace. My breast swelled with pride as I saw Lars weep with joy upon seeing me for the first time in two months (I had managed to conceal him inside of my footlocker for the first 25 days of boot camp, but sadly he was thrown out after my Drill Instructors observed the unusually large amounts of food my gear was consuming and discovered him when he refused to become invisible as I had ordered him).

Even the Imperial Potential Pretenders to the Imperial Throne (otherwise known as extended family) attended. So drunk were they with admiration, that they had forgotten my vow to have them killed on sight to cement my position as Supreme Ruler. Amusingly enough, even I was in a mood so joyous that I forgot to give the orders to assassinate them. Oh well, the tracking devices installed on their cars are enough.

I must admit, it took me a full 2 weeks after graduation to put this post up; it seems some of a4g’s nasty civilian laziness has rubbed off onto me. At least the night terrors have stopped, and I’m wetting the bed with less frequency. Nothing that hours of morning PT cannot fix. I’m sure that there is no chance of me falling back into my regular civilian habits, no chance at all!

-The Evil Emperor Mindstation, P.Z.I.C.