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Signs of the Apocalypse 141

Posted by michael from the yield-to-oncoming-memes dept.
Recently we've had several sure signs that the Apocalypse is upon us. It's always a bit murky interpreting portents and omens, but I think these are clear indicators of impending doom. One, songs about instant messaging. Two, D'oh is now an official part of the English language. Three, square watermelon. I don't know how it could get any clearer than that: we're doomed.
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Signs of the Apocalypse

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  • Re:Square watermelons? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You sick fucking bastard. That better be a joke done with photoshop or I'm going to kill that motherfucker. Poor defenseless kittens. What's this damned world coming to.
  • No, I'd say the bigger problem is that they're pimping a 12 year old to sing "Falling in Love" and "Swept Away". What's next, nine year old's singing "I want your sex" by George Michael dressed in Osh-Kosh_B'Gosh(sp) selling hit CD's to the throngs of third-grade kids trying to get over their latest relationships? C'mon. 12 year old kids should be singing about things they know. Like recess and dodge ball.

  • Songs about instant messaging? Not news... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Has anyone ever heard of the band prozzak?

    They're a small (some would say annoying) band up here in canada, and their last big single was entitled "www.nevergetoveryou".

    If you actually go to that site [nevergetoveryou.com] you can hear it streamed, at least the last time I checked.

    BONUS: features the "uh-oh" sound from ICQ. That alone is worth listening...

  • Value of a Square Watermelon (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15, 2001 @11:38PM (#147543)
    Value of saved refrigerator space: .5 square feet.

    Expression on your wife's face when she learns you payed 82 fu**ing dollars on a watermelon: Priceless

  • I think this is worse:

    Q: What kind of music do you listen to and who is your favorite artist?

    A: I don't really have a favorite. I listen to everything, you know Country and Pop.

    For some reason, all I can think of when I read that is "We've got both kinds... country and western."

    --
  • Ya know, knee-jerk jingoism sounds just as stupid from you as it does when my-country-right-or-wrong folks utter it.

    FYI, a Soviet spy plane made an emergency landing (due to low fuel) in Alaska in 1974 (the middle of the Cold War, if you're old enough to remember).

    What happened? Threats? Accusations? Detention? Dismantling the spy plane?

    No - the crew was provided with space heaters and fuel, and slept overnight in their aircraft. The next morning their vehicle was refueled, and they took off.

    Next time, why not do a _little_ searching at Google before exposing your idiocy to all?

  • It is also the same way they get the pears inside bottles of Clear Creek brandy. People think it is some weird technological trick. Instead they just tie the bottle on the tree and the pear grows inside it.

    Now if they could just get the brandy to taste less like some sort of industrial waste contaminant...

  • The Japanese have a thing for labor-intensive produce (which is not surprising, considering the terrain of their country). Some US stores are now selling Japanese apples, so you should try one some time. What they do is let only one apple grow on each branch of a tree, nipping the rest in the bud, so that it grows large and sweet. (And of course, they pamper their trees.) So, I'm not all that surprised that they would think of square watermelons.

  • If you secede, all those federal water
    subsidies go poof! You'll lose
    water allocations from states due east,
    wither and die. Greetings from NM.
  • "12 year old kids should be singing about things they know. Like recess and dodge ball."

    Amen.

  • Never mind the song. Her whole act is a sign of the apocalypse. I'm only 26 years old. I should not be getting grumpy and curmudgeonly just yet. But now I can't help it. How can parents let a 12 year old dress like that in front of a camera? Never mind the Napster issue, or how the RIAA's manipulation of the intellectual property laws are cheating the artists. If the music industry lets Western culture decline to the point that 12 year olds are expected to dress like that to get stage time, it deserves to lose every penny to bootlegging.

    On the other hand, she hasn't been signed yet. Hillary Rosen: take note. If you have anything resembling integrity, you'll blacklist this kid for a few years, or make sure she gets a few pointers from Charlotte Church.

  • Didn't you forget the last predictions of doom, the Y2K bug was going to trigger the
    end of the world?
    There is big money for the people who can convince enough morons to give them their
    belongings or part of their paycheck in return for eternal life in heaven instead of in hell.
    Here to check if you're rapture ready on that fundy site [raptureme.com]
  • Does anyone remember the Simpsons episode where the family goes to Japan? Guess what's on the shelf at the fruit shop . . .

    Everyone! Download that mp3, reverse the audio and start looking for subliminal messages :)

    Go you big red fire engine!

  • Yep, september 23rd is marked in my calendar. Futurama is coming out on DVD as well. And Twin Peaks. =)

    ************************************************ ** *

  • They've had cases to shape watermelon and other plants on the consumer market for quite some time in novelty catalogs. The ones I saw (I think they were in Things You Never Knew Existed [johnsonsmith.com] were for pumpkins) allowed them to grow into strange faces.

    Actually coming up with a practical use for it seems pretty cool--rectangular objects do stack and store much more nicely. I do admit, though, it would be rather strange to see a pyramid of these things stacked up at the grocery store.

  • Does it matter what shape the kittens are, as long as they taste good? Mmmmm.....Chinese food.

    --
  • [Sorry to give the moderators a dilemma, I don't do this often, but don't you hate it when a more interesting story than the one you're reading gets rejected? :-) ]

    Sony are trying to squash Bleem for the Dreamcast by any means necessary. Bleem is a Playstation emulator which will allow the huge catalogue of Playstation games to run on a Sega Dreamcast; sony ship a similar product with their Playstation 2 in order to preserve backwards-compatibility, but evidently don't want there to be an alternative `upgrade' path for Playstation owners. The courts have overturned three injunctions from Sony, but the Bleem guys are owing $1m in legal fees, and there's an appeal on their web site [bleemcast.com] for Dreamcast owners who want Bleem to contact the major retailers to tell them that they want Bleem! Sony are currently telling its retailers that they will withhold lucractive Playstation 2 shipments from retailers that stock Bleem, and retailers have buckled. Let them know they don't need to stand for it.
  • That was supposed to be out LAST YEAR.
    I'll believe it when I see it at HMV in person.
  • That IM song sucks hard!!
  • The surest sign of the decline of western civilization is the fact that Sonic [sonicdrivein.com] has a drive-thru. People are too lazy to put their cars in reverse.

  • Fruity colors lawsuit? (Score:3)

    by Polo ( 30659 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @01:40AM (#147560) Homepage
    You know, I hope Apple [apple.com] doesn't sue these guys...

  • Revelation, chapter 13

    1: And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

    Microsoft, plain as day.

    2: And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

    Definately Microsoft.

    3: And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

    Justice department strikes a blow which proves less than effective.

    4: And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

    Bill, the Father of Lies and the naa-naa naa-naa-naa attitude towards the Justice department.

    16: And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

    The end result of too much Passport.

    17: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

    Definately Passport.

    18: Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

    And the teaser. I saw something to do with numerology and Bill's name. somewhere.... [pastornet.net.au]

  • Well, maybe not a whole lot.

    But ever hear of the Colorado river? Starts in (surprise) Colorado. Used to run out to the Pacific. Now, is used up pretty much in its entirety en route, both for fresh water & electricity. So, when you secede, better invade a few states, so as to avoid having them cut off your water....

    Then again, there HAVE been a large number of CA people moving to CO in the last couple of years. OMG!! The invasion has already started!!!
  • That's a lot of money for a (common enough) piece of fruit.

    They even admit it's at least 3 times the cost of a 'normal' watermelon (in Japan).

    BUT...

    I can see a use for it -- catering. All those swanky functions, with shaped fruit, and origami vegetables... and...

    • (cue the Visa commercial baby!)

    • and ice sculptures!



    Am I the only one wanting to get the rind off by running it through a food-grade bandsaw? I wonder if the skin is thicker at the corners, and the fruit inside is signifigantly rounder than the package...?

    Bah, the things look just wrong. There's gotta be a lot of labor in getting them to grow proper in their little tempered glass cages... and if you read the article, notice the attention to detail -- all the stems come out the exact middle of one side! Somebody has way too much time on their hands.

    They'll be sunk when next year's fridge comes out and the manufacturers change the shelf dimensions, though...

  • when RAGNAROK, the last battle of the coders is closing in, there will follow three broken kernel CVS trees in a row. The warm sun will reach even the darkest of dens, not even the script-kiddies will go safe.

    Coders will come to fight against eachothers creations resulting in terrible flamewars.

    The destructive forces will be gathered, Steve Ballmer(The midgaar serpent) will raise from the depths of Redmond to engulf the net, spreading FUD everywhere.

    Richard Stallman(Fenriswolf) will break free from his chains and devour all coders that has refused to share their source-code in the past.

    The mighty IBM ship (Nailfather) will set sail for the battle ground armed with organic LED's, Wrist-watches featuring Linux, and chess playing computers.

    Illiad (Heimdal?) will blow his horn summoning all geeks (that could be geek-found) to join the fierce battle.

    ....

    42 will cease to be.
  • What's wrong with her outfit?

    When she starts dressing like Jennifer Lopez, then I'll say there's a problem. :)

    --RJ
  • My parents also had a little device for making square hard-boiled eggs. Not quite sure about the usefullness of that, but it exists. :)

    Of course we got the most use out of it for entertainment purposes...it was an odd looking contraption and ppl would spend hours trying to figure out what the hell it was.

    Ender

  • News? (Score:1)

    by _ECC_ ( 43365 )
    Since when are square watermelons news... They had them in the Simpsons a couple years ago! (The Japanese vacation episode).

  • ROFL Are theses watermelons patented? im serious, if they dont do something now, there'll be law-suits to hell when other companies start making square watermelons. And what about other shapes? how would it stand in court if someone made cuboid watermelons? (ie. 1 x 1 x 1.1 -not a cube). Or maybe pyramids, cylinders or _even_ spherical watermelons!!! (god forbid). Im sure there will be government controls on fruit shapes pretty soon, as well as anger from anti-plant deformation groups :) With a complex process like this, who knows what could happen...

    As for Brittney, didn't anyone mistake her for Spears? we don't need _another_ dumb blonde. The apocalypse is certainly upon us :)

    -tfga
  • I hear ya. The motherfuck put a phone number on the page too.
  • Sorry, I dont find it funny. Actually I find it kind of scary. Even if it is false someone will try to do it after reading this page and a kitten will suffer (well, that's a theological debate).
  • I think I saw the very same thing on the Simpsons. I think it was this episode. [tvtome.com]

  • huh? (Score:1)

    by sometwo ( 53041 )
    I will never know how the songs of a girl named "Brittney" ever became featured on slashdot.

    Oh wait, on second thought (or look), yeah I do.

    on a third look, um she's 12
  • Right under the definition for "doh" is the definition of a new word "cyberphobia" [oed.com]

    Here's the definition (in case it's not immediately obvious):

    "Fear of or anxiety about computing or technology; reluctance to engage with computers, esp, (in later use) the Internet"

  • Besides, adding it embiggens the english language.
  • Hmm, all I can think of is the episode of the simpsons where they were in japan and Homer buys a square watermellon. He starts walking down the street where the mellon popped back to its round shape, and Homer drops it and says "D'oh!"
  • Hmmm... Apocalypse, eh?!

    Internet + Apocalypse = $$

    "How you can profit from the coming Apocalypse"

    Well, we all know it is coming. Some of us are even getting prepared. Most of us are wondering what to do. I'm still looking for my towel.

    So far, though, everyone refers to it as "the" apocalypse. Shouldn't we have a choice? That's where this explosive market opportunity starts. We are now offering partnership equity positions in a new user-friendly, broadband, multimedia, object-oriented, fully scalable, fault-tolerant, interactive, Internet-enabled, web-based, and open source PERSONALIZED APOCALPYSE.

    Create your own personalized apocalypse experience at www.myapocalypse.com

    Offer may vary by country, state, and religion. Actual apocalpyse may vary. Prerequisites may include IE released for Linux.
  • Since you say "we", I can only assume you haven't been reading the papers? I was referring to the proposals to schedule blackouts days and weeks in advance on the theory that this would be somehow less disruptive than only doing them as actually "needed" (Which is starting to be defined as not only when the distribution infrastructure is overloaded, but also when the price of electricity goes higher than the state wants to pay for it). In other words, less reliable power than, say, Malaysia.

    If anyone thinks this wouldn't result in both those prescheduled blackouts plus about as many additional ones as would have occurred anyway, I have a slightly stale CA "deregulation" plan to sell you.

    Granted, there has been less talk of those plans, in recent weeks due to mild weather so far - and there is always the chance that the weather will continue to cooperate by being unusually mild - but clearly state officials are notably depending on virtually nothing unexpected happening - it is being assumed climate is going to occur instead of weather, and that citizens will heed frankly moronic pleas to only use air conditioning when the weather isn't hot enough to require it.

    Meanwhile, our state governor is doing his best to prevent enough energy being available by trying to force the federal government to put price controls on electricity, ala President Jimmy Carter's debacle that nearly forced gas rationing, and the state's powerful environmental wacko lobby is gearing up to enforce their BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) ideas to prevent as much new generating capacity from being built as they can manage.

    As for your "seceding" troll - it could be nothing else - you seem to be forgetting the large quantity of energy CA is leeching off the rest of the United States. Sure, the Peoples Republic of California might be able to build some tanks - but they aren't going to get very far trying to take over the energy supplies in Mexico and the states to the north they'll need with the Sierra Club telling the tank engines to run on "conservation". Expect everyone in the new "country" will pull together and share resources? Maybe you should rent and watch the movie "Chinatown". While your TV still works.

  • How long until the first house is built out of these things?

    Note: in place of mortar, the joints should be filled with Velveeta.
  • <grin>Sometimes it's more fun to go along with it.</grin>

  • Apocalypse signs in california (Score:3)

    by Velox_SwiftFox ( 57902 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @12:05AM (#147580)
    Isn't the anticipated switch to an "electricity for part of the day" third-world infrastructure (and the contention by the idea's promoters that this would be a good thing!), and the discovery of the populace there that they can vote themselves subsidized electricity out of the state budget, evidence enough?

  • Re:Square watermelons? (Score:4)

    by Velox_SwiftFox ( 57902 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @03:09AM (#147581)
    Well, my neighbor's cat approached spherical, with no more apparent manipulation than overfeeding and its own laziness.

    More of an oblate spheroid, of course, due to gravitational distortion.

  • Help the watermelons (Score:3)

    by khiitola ( 61674 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @01:23AM (#147582)
    To help the fruit.

    Hi, friends:

    To anyone that feel some love or respect for any kind (form) of life...

    There is a japanese man living in New York that sell "BONSAI WATERMELONS". Look beautifull, isn't it???? But it is anything, less beautifull!

    The guy put the watermelons in glass bottle, put a probe in their anus, that get out through a gap in the bottle to depense pee e faeces.

    For the watermelons to take the bottle shape, they are feed with chemistry to melt the seeds, then he keeps the watermelons for the time that they can survive. They can't move, walk or clean up. This cruelty is the last fashion in NYC, China, Indonesia, New Zeland, because it is a "decoration fruit". If you want more information take a look in this site :

    http://www.bonsaiwatermelon.com/bkmethod.html [bonsaiwatermelon.com]

    and how the babies are put into a glass bottle in

    http://www.bonsaiwatermelon.com/gray.html [bonsaiwatermelon.com]

    and

    http://www.bonsaiwatermelon.com/bnw.html [bonsaiwatermelon.com]

    We are making a list to send to Fruit Protection Association in USA and Mexico, and to TV news, to stop this. We are very thankfull for your help and we ask you to send this e-mail to everybody that love water melons and respect the LIFE, so put your name in the end of this list, and copy this e-mail and send.

  • I really want to move to Japan now. Venture Capitalists over there must really be loaded to let the square watermelon company slip this one by them. I mean, come on! If refrigerator space is at that kind of premium, couldn't they just cut their existing watermelon into squares (or whatever) before they load these suckers in?

    I want to find the genius that let this go so I can finally market my idea for dehydrated water. Now, you wanna see something get really space-efficient...?
  • Well, here is my first post. (I think) I totally agree. While I can (somewhat) see the singing part, though the songs are WAY yo mature, the beauty pagents make me sick.

    It is obvious that the parents, and though not trying to come off as sexist, the mother is living her dredams through her daughter. The father allowing this is incouragable (sp?). He should be checked out by a shrink.

    I know I would not let my daughter go to their house is she were friends with the girl. I would be worried, REALLY worried, esp of the father.
  • Yeah, the song is kinda cheesy, but for 12 years old, she has a good voice!
  • But are the Watermelons Air Droppable ?

    From Buckaroo Banzai Faq Part 16 [slip.net]

    Director W.D. Richter

    Team Banzai botanical agronomists have been for years hard at work on the problem of hunger in Third World countries under constant revolutionary turmoil. A non-political, humanitarian effort, their goal has been to find ways to feed starving peoples in remote areas where traditional food delivery systems prove woefully inadequate. Often the only way to get the nourishment into the bellies of the needy is to hit and run, avoiding all petty ideological side-taking.

    What you see in the Critical Stress Lab is a revolutionary watermelon capable of withstanding impact pressures of 300,000 pounds per square inch! Sweet, juicy and vitamin-packed, this remarkable fruit can be dropped from the bomb bays of low-flying aircraft into the backyards of disenfranchised villagers in the remotest backwaters of this angry planet. Just another Team Banzai effort to cut through all the unnecessary crap around us and help people help themselves. Look for high-impact, low cholesterol eggs next... and sooner than you think, shatter-proof whole-wheat taco shells.
  • "browser", "cybersex", "internet relay chat", "MP3", "webzine", and more [oed.com]. (By the way, the OED story was on plastic [plastic.com] yesterday [plastic.com].)
  • When did all these moms start misspelling the name "Brittany," and why? I guess it doesn't sound as illiterate as "Anfernee," but isn't there someone at the birth-certificate place who should be pointing out spelling errors?
  • Yes.. have you seen it too? The new Magic release isn't all that bad.

    (NB: Magic the Gathering.. CCG http://www.wizards.com/magic [wizards.com])
    --
    Azrael - The Angel of Death
    posted with: Mozilla (0.9+)

  • Square? (Score:5)

    by potifar ( 87326 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @12:08AM (#147590)
    Those watermelons looked more like cubical to me. There wouldn't be much point in buying a square watermelon...
  • I believe there was a quote from Homer himself: "I'm tired of dealing with this round fruit"
  • We used to do something in a similar vein with cucumbers, just for fun. When the cucumber is teeny, stick it through the neck of a bottle. The cucumber then grows in the bottle, and gets too big to pull back through. We'd cut them off the stem and put pickling brine in the bottle. It ends up a little like the "ship in a bottle" idea; here's this pickle that clearly didn't fit through the neck of the bottle, but there it is!


    ---

  • Try reading the article and you won't have to wonder anymore.

    -Legion

  • off topic, I know...but I can't resist: "Tom Waits, Randy Newman, and Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have filed a $40 million copyright-infringement lawsuit against MP3.com....." from the newest rolling stone. argh, people piss me off.

  • Bansai Kitty technology? (Score:3)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @05:53AM (#147595) Homepage Journal
    These cubic watermelons look rather like they use Illegal Bansai Kitty Technology...
  • Several days ago, in the "Securing Win2K, NSA Style" story, one of the crapflooders posted this comment [slashdot.org]. I was interested by it and did a search on Google and found a site [tom-waits.spb.ru] with MP3s of Tom Waits.

    So, if you want to learn about good and interesting music, don't read the stories, just browse at -1 ;).


    kickin' science like no one else can,
    my dick is twice as long as my attention span.
  • Not neccesarily. It's just that the interesting stuff isn't just that which is moderated up. Not that the moderation system is COMPLETELY broken. If you just want to filter out the crapflooders and nonsense postings (like these) and read stuff more like the story, then browse at +2. But sometimes the crapflooders mess up and their crap isn't so bad. I just wish we could have another drop-down menu similar to http://www.waxy.org/hot/ where you can choose Higher/Lower than and Exactly. You could read all posts that are lower than 1 and get the 0's and -1's or just the 3's. That'd be awesome!


    kickin' science like no one else can,
    my dick is twice as long as my attention span.
  • Wait, what does this have to do with Perl 6?
  • my vote is for the mullet, of course its not really a day event, its a lifestyle.
  • Somewhere around a year or so ago, Todd Rundgren came to town. Having listened to his music for a long time, I had to go see/hear the show. I got a seat at the back, which was just as well, because it was quite loud. Todd came on stage, and started to play guitar and sing...and a puzzled look crept over my face. "Surely," I thought, "he's not really singing 'I hate my frickin' ISP.' I'll find out later what the song was."

    Todd was also pushing PatroNet [patronet.com], which I still think is a spiffy idea, and which I'm surprised isn't discussed more here on /. in view of the MP3 brouhaha, so the next day I headed for the web page. There, big as life, was "Click here to hear Todd's latest song, 'I Hate My ISP'!"

    So, friends, the apocalypse started a while back.

  • If Brittney Cleary isn't a joke, I'm going to go out and kill myself.

    Uh oh....
    http://www.valeriedelacruz.com/Brittney%20Cleary.h tm [valeriedelacruz.com]
    http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Tidepool/3223/ 4corners/music/promotion.html [geocities.com]
    http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/7329 [metafilter.com]

    And the worst:
    http://www.cyberteens.com/ne/mg/html/cleary.html [cyberteens.com]

    • "Q: How are things going in the studio?

    • A: Good.

      Q: Do you like your songs?

      A: Yeah, they are cool.

      Q: What is it like being in a recording studio and singing your own songs?

      A: It's cool. It's better than singing cover songs because they are my own.

      Q: What kind of cover songs did you used to sing?

      A: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and songs like that [on karaoke]."

    Excuse me? "Do you like your songs?"????????

    /kill

  • Go to www.globeandmail.com to see the real, true way our world is going-- doom is on the horizon, for we are the fifth element. Sorry for the offtopic post. I am in the process of getting the series of articles up on freenet-- an indication of their importance! Check it out, under the headline "Death Wish".
  • As for your "seceding" troll - it could be nothing else

    I dunno, how about a joke? We're still petitioning W3C for the <sarcasm> tag, but so far we've been out of luck. I would have to be a really brazen troll to think people would believe that.

    I mean, come on, you're even debating how many out of state power plants California could grab. It's silly, we all know it, and you're taking it way too seriously.

    --
  • Contrary to popular belief and the buzzword "rolling blackouts", California has avoided blackouts for some time now (save for accidental/unplanned ones). IIRC, there were only two in my area, and the power wasn't out for long.

    California is far from third-world status. In fact, we recently passed France to become the world's fifth largest economy, despite the power crisis and the market slump. Frankly we're thinking about seceding so we can get all those leecher states off our backs. (What has Idaho ever done for us?)

    --
  • Y'know, I was gonna post some witty rejoinder about modification of nature to man's fitting ... but I really have just one thing to say about this:

    Dude, the fucking watermelon is squsre!

    Rather cubic, but square watermelons sounds better. Thankfully not entirely off topic, anybody remember the Simpsons episode where Lisa genetically modified a tomato with Olympic-grade steroids to grow the thing to twice the size of a beachball?

    And finally, with these parting words, I would like to proclaim my happiness that at last Agriscience has brought us modifications to food that are actually, in my opinion, just really damn cool. Who cares that the watermelon's seedless, or is resistant to bugs, or whatever marvel of agri-engineering that has until now been the norm ... it's now cubic!

  • Mmmm square water mellon. These would be great and sell so well. I can finally stop worrying about wasted space in my enviro-friendly refridgerator. I would hate to buy a bigger one to fit my water mellons in them, because I would be wasting electricity and that's bad for the enviroment. Plus at $82 a pop, I am sure they will help spark our economy. Now excuse me I'm heading out in my Ford Excursion to buy watermellon. : )
  • EVery time something weird or improbable happens, people will eventually call it a Sign of the Apocalypse. Pauly Shore marries a supermodel? Sign of the Apocalypse! Someone you don't like gets elected? Sign of the Apocalypse! They start selling Pepsi in recycled colostomy bags. Sign of the Apocalypse! Cartman says the S-word on cable TV. You get the idea.
  • I heard a story today about air tight underwear made of a nylon material that has a coal filter on the butt that is supposed to keep your fart smells from offending other people...gee...what will they come up with next?
  • This is not the first song about the internet. There has been a song about the web [musiclub.cern.ch] for years.

  • This has nothing to do with the D'oh part of the comment, actually. Does anyone else remember the episode of the Simpson's where the family went to Tokyo? Homer buys a $200 Square Watermelon... could this be prior art?

  • ...silly words from a cartoon are not in the dictionary. I bet that link is totally bogus. I'm going to click it now and... D'oh!

  • Why Not Put "D'oh!" In The Dictionary? (Score:5)

    by istartedi ( 132515 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @04:06AM (#147612) Journal

    It's a perfectly cromulent word.

  • George W. Bush-head shaped watermelons. As decoys.

    as targets???

  • A teeny-boper country-western song. *shudder*
  • but also when the price of electricity goes higher than the state wants to pay for it

    That's not exactly a limiting factor. A few days ago they ran an article in the local paper that California is $16 million in debt to TEP (Tucson Electric Power, which is providing electricity to those silly people out west), and the debt isn't likely to be repaid. I don't know what the total numbers are like, but I betcha it's a lot of money.

    It's not exactly that big a deal -- as they pointed out, you want to use all your electricity, no matter how much you're going to get out of it -- but California's not going to stop using their neighbors' power until they can't get any more. In the middle of the summer, we already use up all our power. (There's been talk of rolling blackouts here, but it doesn't look like it'll happen.) Then, suddenly, they use more power and there's less surplus to give them ... and they'll be in trouble again.

  • Other Simpsons news: DVDs! (Score:4)

    by IvyMike ( 178408 ) on Friday June 15, 2001 @11:35PM (#147617)

    This isn't going to be the standard "I submitted the Doh is in the OED story two days ago and it got rejected" whine. I mean, I did submit it two days ago, but when I did it, I also included this story about the new Simpsons DVD box sets [aint-it-cool-news.com]. So this whine also educates and informs.

  • In the case of M:TG actually having an edition that's half-way decent that semi-resembles the days of Revised and Fourth Edition <sighs and remembers the days of good M:TG cards where his permission deck whooped *everyone*> just happens to be a cold snap in hell -- I'm sure it's just a fluke... we'll have to wait for the Cubs to win the World Series next, and M$ makes quality software, *then* we can say the apocolypse has come!
  • same kind of idiot who buys $10000 sex dolls(I forget the link).

    http://www.realdoll.com [realdoll.com]

    We were going to get one, specially made as a lookalike of my friends ex, using his credit card number, sent to him with a tag round its neck saying "Go Fuck Yourself".
    Never did though...

  • Does that mean that if you put a watermelon in a round container, it would come out round?
    Um, hang on a second... D'OH!

  • I suspect that people who would try this for real would probably find something equally unpleasant to do if they'd never seen the site.

    But other than that, yeah, go and beat up yokels all you want...

  • Re:Square watermelons? (Score:4)

    by Gordonjcp ( 186804 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @12:50AM (#147622) Homepage
    Ok, I know I've been trolled, but *COME ON*!!!
    Isn't it obviously impossible?
    The photos are mostly real (hold a kitten up against a piece of glass, take its picture, let it go). But does it even make sense? "Malleable bone structure"?
    Why do so many people fail to see the joke?
    Tell you what, we'll give Dubya a sense of humour to bring back with him and share...
  • The person who believes refrigerator space is measured in square feet has more problems than the one who paid 82 dollars for a watermelon.
  • Shit, I saw them being individualy exercised and the handlers spitting wine on the damn things. Last I heard, beef costs $15 a pound in Japan.
  • If you put a kitten in a non-transparent square jar, is the state of the kitten square or normal, before you open it to find out?

  • C'mon. Even CNN can't be so stupid as to think this is a new thing, was this a link off a childrens page?. They've been doing this in Japan for at least 20 years, if not longer. I've also seen square tomatoes (Yup, so you could stack them, too.)

    More than Doh! made it into the Oxford online dictionary, (bad hair day, lifestyle drugs), easy enough to screw with that, but wait and see if it makes it into the printed version, or even the Illustrated version (a Picture of Homer? A picture of Bad Hair?)

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

  • Same here.

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

  • (It's just coincidence that I'm reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, atm)

    But consider this: US Spy plane lands on Hainan Island (China) at a chinese air base and the Chinese are letting the US get it back (Honestly, raise your hand if you ever thought the US would extend such a courtesy, then go back to wondering if a bear shits in the woods), now to get the EP-3E spy plane home [yahoo.com], the US is using a russian Antonov 124 [yahoo.com] cargo jet. Gee, maybe North Korea could pitch in some cutting torches or something. This sure is weird.

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

  • Apple does it's part to ward off Satan (Score:3)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Saturday June 16, 2001 @09:22AM (#147629) Homepage Journal
    Yahoo new sez: [yahoo.com] Apple tells Satanist Church to 'Think Diffrerent', differently!

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

  • CowboyNeal is left out of consecutive polls.
  • This is probably a little too late to reply, but I hope ya catch this...

    A guy I work with, his daughter is an MIT student who was involved in this student prank. The goal was to prove what can be done with photoshop. The cat was lured into the jar with a treat, as soon as the cat went into the jar, it's picture was taken... in photoshop it was then made to appear that the cat was crunched up inside of the glass. There was absolutely no harm done to an animal, except for maybe the unhealthy treat.
  • There was a Dilbert epsiode (when the series was airing on UPN) about this. Dilbet had engineered a high-protein plant, and, as a bonus, the "meat" which came off a vine was cubic and thus was able to be stacked and saved space. Dilbert reasoned this would be a cure for world hunger, as the plant could grow in not so good conditions.

    This just serves to remind me that we actually live in an as-crazy world where fiction and reality have no contrasts.
  • They don't roll around in the shopping cart and crush my square eggs.

  • Square watermelons? (Score:5)

    by gabriel_aristos ( 265988 ) on Friday June 15, 2001 @11:51PM (#147647)
    Next thing you know, we'll also have square cats.. oh, wait.. [bonsaikitten.com]
  • The question of whether an american will pay $82 for a square watermelon is plain silly. The main reason why they cost $82 in Japan is not because they are square, but because everything is freaking expensive in Japan. By the same token, will an american pay $25 for a regular watermelon?

    The correct question to ask is whether square watermelons would be popular in the States if they were sold for $15 a piece (4 times the price of regular watermelon). And then the answer is a definite "maybe".

  • I have a better idea! (Score:3)

    by 10Ghz ( 453478 ) on Friday June 15, 2001 @11:31PM (#147665)

    Instead of making watermelons refrigerator-friendly, why don't we make refrigerators watermelon-friendly? This way we could still buy those cheap watermelosn, instead of those expensive square ones!

    I can picture it now.... Big round refrigerators filled with watermelons...

  • I think you just need the proper sort of glass mold to make any sort of custom creation.
    1. Toroidal watermelons, so you can hang them on your shower curtain rod, thus saving even more space in your fridge.
    2. Helical watermelons whose spin leads to increased projectile accuracy.
    3. Fractal watermelons which look the same after you hurl them at the wall.
    4. George W. Bush-head shaped watermelons. As decoys.
    That's four ideas right there to help hasten the Day of Destruction, and I don't even like watermelon.

  • Re: Square watermelons and the Third World (Score:5)

    by avtr ( 457172 ) on Friday June 15, 2001 @11:56PM (#147670)
    I was watching the news tonight, and for some reason the BBC picked up on this square watermelon drivel - guess it was on Reuters or something. Anyway, they show it on the preview, and during the break my dad tells me how they do it - I'd guessed genetic engineering, when it is in fact just allowing the fruit to grow into a square enclosure. So how did he know? He'd done it when he was a kid... in Iran... in 1960. He proceeded to show me photos. Apparently this was a regular practice at the time - what's the deal with us First Worlders catching on so late?

  • Re:Actually... (Score:3)

    by CyberPhunk ( 457518 ) on Friday June 15, 2001 @11:54PM (#147674)
    I can't believe there's a news article about these watermelons... First off, no, their not genetically engineered. If the method is the same as the one I know (developed by a guy I know), after the plant flowers and grows into a tiny little melon-wannabe, a clear acrylic case is fitted over it. As the fruit grows, it's forced into the shape of the case. I believe part of the reason the suckers cost $82 is due to the fact that the failure rate is rather high, resulting in deformed looking, very esthetically unpleasant melons. ;-) The article says "Japanese farmers", but I wonder if it was based on the works of a guy I know. Although I won't mention the name here, he's a self proclaimed agriculture researcher (Japanese), that has been working on these square melons for atleast 22 years now. (That's when I first heard of them, in '79.) He has also worked on things like square eggplants, but I don't know if those ever took off. The tomatoes did, but were not economically viable... go figure. (Actually, I remember we all laughed at the idea back then too, since even in Japan an $82 square melon is more of a joke than a fruit product!)

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