Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

Q: Dear 100 HRB,

Can one be geeky AND cool?

Regards,

Looking for Balance

A: Dear Inquisitor,

This is a difficult juxtaposition you inquire about. We know plenty of just geeky people, generally the pejorative term for intelligent people. They are intellectually enlightened scientists, mathematicians, and yes even geeky car mechanics (like those who can put an engine together in 2 hours with a blindfold on). I suppose any dedication to the indepth knowledge of some topic inspires geekiness, be it physics or comics.

What exactly defines coolness then? Call it what you like; flave, cool, hipness (is that still a term?). I think it revolves mostly around being interesting. Interesting enough that you want to hang out with them, learn from them and just be in their very company. That is cool. It inspires imitation - what defines trends. And you can't manufacture it, you either have it or you don't. It's in your blood, or not. (Side note: The 100 Hour Board sees such a shortage of flave in the world that it regularly goes and donates extra at the local hospital.)

Geeky chief example: Stephen Hawking (yes he's geeky, would you awknowledge him at a party if he called out to you?)

Cool chief example: MC Hammer. (you wanted those pants, but would you let him trim your bushes?), or Sean Connery for the older group.

But can you have both?

Maybe, just maybe. How about those rare gems that are interesting AND you learn something from. Like Alton Brown, the cool king of geeky chefs. That defines geeky and cool. (He even has his own emoticon #8-) ). or maybe the Professor Fink from the Simpsons.

Speaking of the Simpsons - they offer some advice on getting to be cool (even if you are geeky).

Homer: So, I realized that being with my family is more important than being cool.

Bart: Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.

Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square".

Lisa: That song is so lame.

Homer: So lame that it's... cool? Bart+Lisa: No.

Marge: Am I cool, kids?

Bart+Lisa: No.

Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool, not caring, right?

Bart+Lisa: No.

Marge: Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried everything here.

Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to be told you're cool.

Bart: Well, sure you do.

Lisa: How else would you know?

If you want a definitive answer, look no further than Potop on his blog. There is the beautiful mixture of cool AND geeky (if only slightly so). The inspiring prose is both interesting AND informative. His coolness can be seen from space. If he mails a letter without postage, it still gets through. If interesting were a gland, his would be bigger than most men's lower intenstines.

So, yes! You can have your cake and eat it too. It's a great life goal.

Sincerely,

100 Hour "Oozing Coolness" Board

PS - the picture is the timeline of coolness (or at least one example of it.)

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When Hell Freezes Over

Q: Dear Master 100 Hour Board:

If you were a masochist in life, wouldn't it be a reward to be sent to hell and punishment to be sent to heaven?

Signed,
Please hurt me

A: Dear Sadist of the Self

A sadist and a masochist meet at a bar. After several drinks the masochist suggests that the take off, go to his house and 'have fun'. The sadist replies, "no."

Three guys found themselves in Hell: we will call them Carl, Bob, and Brett, they were a little confused at their present situation, and they were startled to see a door in the wall open, and behind the door was perhaps the ugliest woman they had ever seen. She was 3'4", dirty, and you could smell her even over the Brimstone. The voice of the Devil was heard, "Brett, you have sinned! You are condemned to spend the rest of eternity in bed with this woman!" And Brett was whisked through the door by a group of lesser demons to his torment.
This understandably shook up the other two, and so they both jumped when a second door opened, and they saw an even more disgusting example of womanhood gone wrong. She was over 7' tall, monstrous, covered in thick black hair,and flies circled her. The voice of the Devil was heard, "Carl, you have sinned! You are condemned to spend the rest of eternity in bed with this woman!" And Carl, like Brett, was whisked off.
Bob, now alone, felt understandably anxious, and feared the worst when the third door opened. And as the door inched open, he strained to see the figure of ... Cindy Crawford. Delighted, Bob jumped up, taking in the sight of this beautiful woman, dressed in a skimpy bikini.
Then he heard the voice of the Devil saying:"Cindy, you have sinned."

I hope you see the wisdom in there somewhere.

Regards,
I'll visit you from heaven

PS
Picture it: rural area, Sunday morning, church is packed and the devil decides to pay a visit.The doors burst open, and a rolling black cloud rolls in with the devil in its midst. People jump out of the pews and run outdoors, screaming - all except for two. One is the Pastor, the other is an elderly farmer.
Satan is a bit perplexed. He points to the Pastor and says, "You! I can understand why you didn't run away, you are in your Lord's house, you preach against me everyday and you aren't afraid of me. But YOU (points to the farmer), why didn't you run out scared like everyone else?"The farmer crosses one leg over the other and drawls, "Why, I'm surprised you don't recognize me...I've been married to your sister for 36 years!"

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Time After Time

Q: Dear 100-hour board,
Is the concept which we know as "time" a fundamentally man-made concept, divine creation, or natural law? Hope you aren't 'late' to provide an answer, seeing as how this mysterious concept called time governs the all-powerful board it's self!
BBB

A: Dear Clock Confused:

The 100 Hour Board finally feels challenged by such a wide and deep topic as brought up in your question, and hopes there is sufficient…um…well time to address this issue. I will try to keep the conversation above the deep philosophical, religious and scientific trenches one can stumble into when wading this ocean of inquiry. But I can only try.

Time is Relative (Philosophy)
Interestingly to note, time is viewed to be one of two general concepts, championed by Newton and Leibniz. I say interestingly because these two physicist/scientist/philosophers were constantly at odds in their work – for example arguing on fundamental approaches to calculus (both were right – we use derivatives AND integrals – one stemming from each). Newton, and all realists, believe time is a fundamental, integral part of the universe. And all events occur in a sequence separated by this dimension of time. Leibniz however held that time was purely a human creation, to help the comprehension of interrelated events.
Many a philosopher have argued this, some holding time is unreal, others that it is fundamental to existence. And it isn’t a new argument – with records back to 5BC and also some from St. Augustine.

Tesseracts (Science)
Philosophy and science meld into one gray area, especially in older science, but modern physics holds that time is a fundamental unit of the universe. It has a direction (although Steven Hawking suggests that perhaps we are traveling backward in time and don’t realize it) generally forward. (“Lisa – in this household we obey the Laws of Entropy” Homer Simpson) Time is relative in motion and in relation to events, but was fixed in relation to the speed of light (300K km/second) by Einstein. This constant helps fix time (with space) as real. (Though we can now technically stop and freeze light – but that’s a different entry). And Einstein was a proponent of spacetime – that space (distance) and time are tied in one ‘substance’ like mass. So it bends, forms and has character.
This is all well and good – but remember that science is always a model of ‘reality’, a representation that fits mathematically. What is real is left to metaphysics (see above).

And the Sun Stood Still (Religion)
Most all main religions describe time as real and a part of God. (Thomas Acquinas uses this when he proves God’s existence by discussing God’s existing before us – Ontological proofs) Some believe it is cyclical, others linear. Though for Judeo-Christians there is relative time – think of God’s day and man’s. In the LDS Church, time is a fundamental part of God and life. God’s time is ‘slower’ relatively, Abraham shows that ‘one day’ for the Lord is a 1000 years. Events occur in succession (creation, 2nd Coming, etc.) although the Atonement is infinite. All things have a law that determines ‘times and seasons.’ Some stumble on statements like “all time being before the Lord,” but this is more a statement of omniscience than the non-existence of time.

So what is the truth? Depends on what is real. The 100 Hour Board firmly believes it is real and fundamental. And we’ve already taken up too much of yours.

Regards,
Father Time

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