So I was watching a Martin Short comedy special (Let Freedom Hum) on TBS with my mom - who is deaf, and I noticed something in the closed captioning: TBS was cleaning up the language of their performers. At first, I thought the person typing the captioning was just a slow, bad typist (and they were) - but I did notice that, consistently, the captions would replace "unclean" words.

Although I wouldn't be ok with it in any case - it's especially dumb to do so in a comedy special, as sometimes the pun or story doesn't make sense without the right words in place. Here are some examples of the replacements I caught:

"What a jackass" = "What a weirdo"
"He would be drinking" = "He would be bringing"
"I got hair above my ass" = "I got hair above my butt"
"What the hell kind of trade off is that?" = "What kind of strayed off is that?"
"Good thing I have the hair above my ass" = -omitted-
"My ass looked good in those pants" = "My butt looked good in those pants"
"He comes waddling out" = "He came out"
"Men and women, how did we get together" = "How did we get together?"
"You could not handle testicles" = "You could not handle Tess"
"Are you with a whore?" - "Are you with a --"
"I could fart in that store" = "I could fall in that store"

Just plain funny:
"Our next comic" = "Our next economic"
"Tufts of hair" = "Toughs of hair"
"Everyone dreams of being a successful stand up" = "Everyone dreams of being a suck es"
"I thank god every day for the gluten in my life" = "I thank god every day for the flu gluten in my life"
"Warranty" = "Warrentee"

First off... is it that hard to find a typist that can type captions without falling behind (and just skips material to catch up) or who doesn't type so fast that the captions go off screen before any normal human being has time to read it? I noticed about halfway through that the first typist must have gone off duty, because the second typist was much faster.

Second... what is TBS trying to do by censoring the captions? Not only does it exclude the deaf community from what is actually being said - the entire purpose of captions, but it doesn't protect anyone. Anyone who needs to be shielded from the offensive remarks (which were few and far between) would have been under the television rating (TV14) anyway - and even then, hearing children watching the program would have heard the remarks.

So, then, why is TBS censoring the captions? It makes no sense to me, but perhaps the higher ups at TBS would care to explain it to me (and my mom) sometime.

Minor Announcement

ActualBlizzard was in danger of expiring this Saturday and I've been unsure as to whether I should go through paying for a new lease or letting it expire. Obviously, as evidenced by the title, I chose to extend AB's life by a year. It's anyone's guess as to whether this was a good decision or not. Let's hope it was for the better!

So I'm not a physicist... that doesn't mean I don't think about Physics - it's my favorite branch of Science. Regardless, as I'm watching this Science channel program I came up with this idea. This idea could be completely bogus... have already been presented... or dismissed... or, worse yet, be completely illogical and show my complete lack of understanding of Physics (which is a vast gap, I'll admit).

Black holes are mysterious objects in our universe. An infinitesimally small mass with infinite density and infinite gravity. Nothing can escape it, not even light. Even time has difficulty when it approaches the black hole, breaking down and eventually, possibly stopping. The black hole is a mass of extreme phenomena, even Hawking's formula that describes the black hole draws from nearly every branch of Physics.

Here's my take on things. At the center of a black hole is a point which I have already described. This mass, in the state we know black holes to be, has infinite gravity; however, we know that black holes have the potential to warp, and even break, certain laws of physics - but is it possible for the mass within the black hole to begin to stop following more fundamental laws?

Based on the theory of supersymmetry (yes - going back to the big bang), of the four fundamental forces, gravity was the first to break off. It is conceivable that the first to disappear, then, in this universe will be gravity itself. Why not through a black hole?

Consider this.

Black holes all over the universe form and absorb mass. According to current theory, black holes "evaporate"; however, it could be that this point of infinite mass and density no longer follows gravity - thus, an infinitely small, dense mass (as far as I know) lies where the black hole was - a black core, if you will. All the information of the particles that went within the hole continues to exist within this mass.

Eventually, even this black core will enter another black hole, and so on until there remains a single infinitely small, dense, mass whose temperature continues to approach absolute zero. Visible matter is reduced to practically nothingness; however, this only accounts for 4% of the universe. What happens next?

As the remaining universe begins to cool to 0 K, Dark Energy and Dark Matter contract so as to maintain a critical temperature; however, dark energy and dark matter are not immune to their own gravity. Once a limit is reached, a runaway process begins, collapsing the dark energy and matter in on itself, creating the last "black hole" of the universe - literally.

This Dark Hole, however, is different, compared to conventional black holes - it is infinitely hot. In this microverse for these microseconds, there now remain two infinitely massive, dense points. The Dark Hole's gravity is too much to overcome and the two particles crash. This massive thermal shock (infinitely hot object + mass near absolute zero) causes both materials to shatter and produce.... a big bang.

What's that? When do the other fundamental forces deteriorate? Technically... never: Dark Matter and Dark Energy (the final remaining particles in the universe) still have gravity, thus, it never disappeared - other than for matter itself.

Compression of these forces occur, and it is not inconceivable that the forces all deteriorate a fraction of a yoctosecond during the crash; however, I don't have the mental capacity to describe why this would occur.

So that's it... my big lamebrain theory on the universe. It may already exist, it may spark a revolution, or it'll be dismissed like every other uneducated person's theories... hopefully my explanation at least rings that I have some education in the realm of Physics... even if it is completely wrong.

Hey everyone...

Sorry for the huge delay in posts. Truth is, I haven't found anything of interest to write about! (Yes, I realize a lot of things have happened this month. That doesn't, however, mean that I feel like writing about them )

These past few weeks I've been subbing at Lowell Middle School, getting some middle school experience (and pay!) before summer starts - unfortunately, there's only a few days left. (Speaking of subbing - apparently high fives are out, fist bumps are in, keep that in mind when you're interacting with GenConnected) Subbing is cool, though not knowing whether I'm going to work until 6 AM the morning of kind of sucks.

ACEN 2009 (AnimeCENTRAL, www.acen.org) was awesome - I actually own two manga (Scrapped Princess, sadly, is not among the two I bought). I bought Zyword and Threads of Time... Zyword was.... a little jumpy in my opinion. I'd give it a 2.5/5. I haven't started the other yet.

Majora's Mask was finally released for Virtual Console. Had some trouble getting my SD card to work on the Wii, but finally got it downloaded. Of course, something else had to go wrong afterward: my Nintendo 64 to GameCube controller adapter stopped working in the middle of the game. (I paused to get lunch, came back, and the controller wouldn't respond).

Spore still hasn't come back from EA. It got damaged while I was at school (because I'm stupid and don't put my CDs back in their cases)... so yeah. I sent it to EA to be replaced ($16 vs $60... you make the call) and then contacted EA to see how long it would take to be returned... they never replied. I'll just have to wait another week or two and see what happens.

Lawmakers this week have finally settled down and are getting to the important things in life: college football. Yes, lawmakers in the House this week introduced legislation that would prevent the NCAA from calling a game a national championship unless it’s the outcome of a playoff. Whoo-hoo.

Should this really be what congress focuses on? I mean... it's not like we're in a shaky economy with a widening federal deficit, a need for updated health care, social security, and education systems, and many other important things, right? Oh wait, yeah we are.

I understand lawmakers do have personal lives and yes, may even get time to watch some college football... but to be completely honest, congress shouldn't be trying to make every little idea in their head into a law. Congressional leaders should be level-headed and responsible... as well as intelligent. As far as I know, the constitution doesn't provide for adding rules to sporting organizations... even when applying the Necessary and Proper clause and the Commerce clause.

Sometimes representatives go too far, sometimes they're stupid, and other times, they're just plain ignorant. Rep. Joe Barton of Texas: you, sir, are all three. (Maybe your governor had the right idea. Perhaps Texas would be better off without the rest of the states. Don't let Oklahoma hit you on the way out.)