During a week littered with stories of tragedy, we’ve had to admit the hassle of drop/add period doesn’t warrant all our usual complaining.
In the spirit of unity, we present you with the Let’s-Take-A-Moment-To-Remember-How-Good-We’ve-Got-It edition of... Darts & Laurels
By now, nearly everyone has soaked up the news about the Arizona shooting. We’ve had many opportunities to throw darts at everyone from politicians and a certain church which needed convincing to not protest at a nine-year-old’s funeral to people sending Sarah Palin death threats because of her perceived association with the slayings.
But we took the high road here and dug deep for an it-shouldn’t-take-a-tragedy-for-someone-to-do-this LAUREL to give to Colorado’s Sen. Mark Udall. Instead of using the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as an excuse for political bickering, Sen. Udall wants Republicans and Democrats to show solidarity and break tradition by sitting together during the State of the Union address.
We can only hope the proposal garners sweeping bipartisan support.
While we’re feeling warm and fuzzy inside, we’re handing out a kidnappers-had-better-think-twice LAUREL to Facebook for giving us the option to receive Amber Alerts via our Newsfeeds.
If our obsessive updating and photo tagging can be put to a good use, then we’re ready to help. We’re behind any technology that can turn our need to check messages into help for missing children.
Some technological advances, however, we have to question.
On Thursday, IBM gave the first public demonstration of Watson, a computer engineered to answer complex questions — even if they involved puns.
Was the company trying to create a menacingly smart robot along the lines of HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey”?
Nope. They were just trying to win a game of “Jeopardy!”
For stomping Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two of the best-known champs in the trivia show’s history, and for making us afraid of computerized voices again, we’re throwing a DART at Watson.
It’s elementary, IBMers. We’re scared of what this could mean for the future.
And our idea of the days to come has been turned upside down since last week.
We can’t even look at our horoscopes anymore for vague phrases masquerading as advice.
Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, outed astrologers this week when he explained that their traditionally accepted zodiac signs are all off.
As we’re scratching our heads to adjust to our new designations (really? An Aries?) we’ve got time to throw a how-about-updating-your-star-map-once-every-thousand-years-so-we-can-enjoy-a-stupid-diversion DART at astrologers.
At least it’ll get people to rethink their pick-up lines.
That’s all for this week, Gators. Enjoy your three-day weekend and remember to celebrate the Dream on Monday.
