volume 6, issue 8
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Ramdiculous PageTRANSCRIPT
SXEPhil There is a storm rising on the interweb. Well, not really rising, more like it is gaining in vitality and horror. This storm, for those who are unaware, is sxeph i l , a v ideo bloggernaut who has been on the wonders of YouTube for a little over two years now. This suave and smarmy young gentleman takes whatever bits of news and worldly minutia he deems worthy and pieces together commentaries for his avid fan base. He's basically the east coast equivalent of your beloved Ramdiculous Page, although slightly less cool cause he's from New York. Sxephil, real name
unknown because we didn't want to do the research, has a boisterous demeanor and horrible stage presence (although he is very well dressed). He is loud, obscene in some instances, and quite possibly homosexual (though he has publicly denied this so we believe him...). Quite honestly, he is just a dude doing his thing (watching him do "that" costs extra though). One thing I have noticed in watching his video rants is that he reminds me a lot, because of his voice, mannerisms, and speech pattern, of the guys who
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By: craig T. Nelson
page
Volume 6, Issue 8 National Hairball Awareness Day April 24, 2009
Ang
elo State’s Fine
st Pap
er Since Fall 200
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They’ll ta
ke you
too...
Picture of the week
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I’ve got an electric field passing through my area.
Quote of the Week
Knowing Knature By: D’ino I’talles
I had just finished watching a movie with a friend of mine when I changed the channel to find The Matrix Reloaded was already in progress. Although I was pleased by this find, she groaned at the sight of it and began to complain. “Change the channel. I can’t watch this. It makes no sense.” I hear this quite often and I still feel like I have to defend this movie. This is a movie that disguises several philosophical studies behind bullets, trench coats, and fights. Even more appealing to me is that the premise of the movie follows the debate between the classical and quantum understandings of our world. The prime example is Neo’s refusal to accept fate. The Oracle tells him that he is only doing what he is destined to. Smith talks about inevitability and Morpheus talks about prophesy. The Merovingian tells Neo that he has no choices and is bound by causality. And the Architect, perhaps the least understood character, describes Neo as a “systemic anomaly.”
Our ideas about the future are deeply rooted in physics. Classical physics worked for centuries and it’s easy enough that it dominates our philosophical understanding of nature. If I push on an object, it will move in a predictable path. Under identical circumstances, the exact same outcome will always result. Every effect has a cause, and one cause always leads to the same effect. This is known as causality or determinism. But this becomes a problem when you consider that the present and future are set and determined by the past. This suggests that the future is already written and we have no free will. So why are you here? As the Merovingian noted, “choice is an illusion.” But before you get depressed on me, I will provide you with a quote from my quantum physics book. “Determinism is a dehumanizing philosophy. It describes a universe that is infinitely predictable, holding few surprises. All can be known; nothing is unexpected. Determinism
is boring. It is also wrong.” Quantum shows us that the only predictable part of the world is the most likely event. The statistical nature of the world provides “choice” to the most fundamental building blocks of the universe. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is really saying that we can’t have all the information about a system, so we can’t know the outcome with 100% certainty. Classical physics still works because we hardly ever notice quantum effects on the scale that we live in. Although we can’t predict what a single atom can do, we can predict what a large number of atoms will do with great confidence. This is rooted in the idea of entropy introduced by thermodynamics. Everyone describes it as “disorder” and “disorder always increases,” but it just means that the system tends to simplify itself to a more uniform and predictable state, or what we would call “ideal” when we should say “easier to study.” Just as people with a choice, most particles tend to conform to the
same outcome, but a few will deviate from the norm. Science still works, so I will breathe a sigh of relief. Most characters in the Matrix thought with the tired deterministic dogma of a computer. No one quite knew what to make of Neo because he was the result of an anomaly, which shouldn’t be possible within the programming of a computer. But he made his own fate and defied reason with his notion of choice.
And because many people cite determinism as a conflict between religion and science, I will pose two questions to you. If everything is already decided and we’re just here to understand it, what is God doing? And if you believe that you have morals and ethics, how different are you from everyone else?
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o p e r a t e askaninja.com. I would speculate
that he is that guy also, but that would be giving undue credit. We here at the Ramdicu lous Page, and on ramdiculous.com, salute this young guy for his humor, rantabilities, and snappy sweater vests. Check him out on the interweb, you shan’t be disappointed. ‐‐Craig T Nelson, internet junkie
Continued from cover
January 28, 2001 Japan
A man attempting to commit suicide brought a tank of propane into his apartment, opened its stopcock, and waited to die. Instead he merely lost consciousness. Four hours later he revived and, forgetting the suicide attempt, lit a cigarette. The explosion blew out an apartment wall, and burned the face of the suicidal smoker.
Note from Darwin: The man may have thought the tank contained carbon monoxide (CO) despite the label. Even if it contained CO, however, the suicide attempt would fail unless he had shut himself into a small space w i t h t h e t a n k . A p a r t m e n t s a r e ventilated and the carbon monoxide would dissipate fairly rapidly. Outside air exchange also explains why the explosion was not more severe.
Darwin Awards
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WTF!?!?!?!?! By: Krazy Kendra
Hey friends, it’s me again, yours truly, Krazy Kendra. Hope every‐one had a good Easter break. My WTF moment belongs to the airport today. I was searching flights online and I came across something really stupid. A flight from DFW to here at 4:30pm was nearly 600 dollars. All the other flights were only $130. I don’t know why it’s like that but I probably don’t care either. That’s whole encounter was downright ramdiculous. No one is seriously going to pay that much to fly here. I swear that some airlines are just freaking crazy. I had things to do that day but I’m not going to sit here and pay nearly 600 dollars for an hour flight. Have these people lost their ever lovin’ minds? This is exactly why I don’t fly anywhere anymore. Crazy airline companies want to charge crazy prices at some crazy rates. There
should be a college kid discount for college kids who don’t have any money like me. What if they made food stamp‐like coupons for airplanes and all the other fun stuff in the world. That would be so awesome!!!! Besides, planes can have crazy people on them too. When I got to the gate I could recognize people going to San Angelo from everyone else in the entire airport. Airplanes should really consider college discounts, for real.
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Pragmatic Patsy Pragmatic Patsy, despite the slough of letters received from ASU students over spring break, would like to discuss other issues. As a senior graduating this spring, I would like to let you know that here at ASU, you have been lacking a key ingredient in a college experience. Something you always expected you would get out of your years at such a fine institute of higher learning as this—and something that would benefit you throughout the rest of your life—whether it bears directly on your occupation or not. That key item, ladies and gentlemen, is an education. Per‐haps everything else you imag‐ined—rampant promiscuity, keg parties, drunken shenanigans, and intramural softball are pre‐sent. But I am telling you that you are paying good money to NOT receive an education. And not only are you paying good money, your parents and perhaps other family members, not to mention the taxpayers in the state of Texas are subsidizing a system in which students do not learn a damn thing. Case in point (not to be confused with point in case… which means nothing…): A required class for all business majors, one that I will not name, requires that students pay *extra* because it is an “independent study” course. In other words, we pay extra to teach ourselves in a subject area that does not lend itself to independent study. Questions are “welcome,” but as so many of us find out, when we do go ask an instructor a question, that instruc‐tor does nothing but make us feel like morons. The class grade is based on group projects, individual homework assignments and tests—all related to material that you are expected to read and
understand on your own. I would also like to publicize the fact that the MFT is now factored into some student’s course grades. This is so that students will have an incentive to study and perform well on this exam. This exam will prove useless to most students but serves as a key performance indicator for the department to use to get more funding. Teachers are now more con‐cerned with the advancement of their own department than the quality of their students’ education. Bickering and rivalries between departments produce not more productivity and better quality, but ineffectiveness and preoccupation. Running ASU as if it is a business or company, rather than an institute of higher learning, will prove to be ineffective in the long run. A reputation for academic excellence, or at least a better one than it has now, is being replaced with fancy televisions, benches, awnings, a 99% acceptance rate, new dorms and buildings, and entrance signs with five figure price tags. The costs of this new policy have already manifested: the faculty who are committed to quality education are moving on, and the value of an ASU degree is declining. You get to look forward to being less competitive in the marketplace because of consumerism applied to education. These policies are damaging to students and the lack of foresight on the part of the administration will prove to eventually decrease enrollment and work against all the lofty goals of this administration. E‐mail advice questions and other c o m m e n t s t o [email protected]. Tenderly, Pragmatic Patsy
Top Ten
10. tennis shoes 9. stilettos 8. moccasins 7. Crocs 6. boots 5. wingtip 4. wedges 3. Chuck Taylors 2. flip flops 1. NO shoes
Types of shoes
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The Incredible Question If you got a check for a
million dollars in the mail, how would you spend it?
I would buy a million Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers
from Wendy’s ‐Brian Carroll
I would invent a time machine and keep it in my closet just in case I
ever needed it. ‐Karina Rios
4 words... homeless shelter demolition
derby ‐Brian Wingert
I would invest, pay off my debt, and tell my
Dad to retire. ‐Jenn Prichard
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Foghorn Leghorn
If I EVER got a check for a million dollars, I would know it was a mistake and have to return it. ‐Sarah Ruth
R A M D I C U L O U S P A G E P O L I C Y Published every Friday and available to students on campus. This newspaper does not express the opinions of any writer, editor, or anyone affiliated with Angelo State University or the Texas Tech University System or this newspaper. We welcome all letters. Please include your name, position, and an email address. All submissions are considered property of the Ramdiculous Page and will not be returned. Submit your letters via our email, [email protected] or website www.ramdiculous.com. Opinions in any letter or writing are not necessarily those of the staff, nor should any opinion expressed in a public forum be construed as the opinion or policy of the administration or the Ramdiculous Page. By submitting anything to the Ramdiculous Page, you are giving the Ramdiculous Page permission to use your Facebook and/or Myspace profile in any way the Ramdiculous Page deems usable, unless expressed in writing. If you are an professor you need not worry, we will not use your profiles.
Sudoku
Ramdiculous Observances Saturday–
Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day
Sunday- Hug An Australian Day
Monday-
Morse Code Day
Tuesday- Worker’s Memorial Day
Wednesday-
National Dance Day
Thursday- National Honesty Day
FIGHTING
12:0pm 2:35pm 5:10pm 7:45pm 10:20pm
STATE OF PLAY
1:05pm 4:05pm 7:10pm 10:10pm
CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE 12:20am 2:25pm 5:25pm
7:50pm 10:15pm
OBSESSED
11:15am 1:55pm 4:35pm 7:15pm 9:55pm
17 AGAIN
11:20am 12:40am 2:00pm 3:20pm 4:40pm 6:00pm 7:20pm 8:40pm 10:00pm
THE SOLOIST
1:20pm 4:10pm 7:00pm 9:50pm
Movie Times
Movie Review
Hello ASU Campus. It is I, your beloved Movie Reviewer Guy. This week I bring to you an action film that I am glad a sequel was made for. I the story of the first was amazing and I was totally looking forward to seeing the new when I first heard about last November. Also, Jason Statham is very good actor. Now, let us adjust this review to max, it is time for Crank: High Voltage. The sequel to the first action packed movie is not a let down in anyway. The second one picks up as soon
as the first one left off, with Chev Chelios lying on the street in LA after falling out of a helicopter. Chelios has
his heart, and I do mean his actual heart and not a metaphor for love, stolen from him by a gang. As Chelios runs around LA searching for his organ, he is constantly having to keep charged
his artifical heart so his body will keep on living. Building get blown up and people are killed. Typical action film but hey it is worth seeing. I give it 5 bangs on a gong. See you next week! DUESES! ^_^
Crank: High Voltage