Breeding M&M Candies

This is pretty funny and exactly the thing that will get you free stuff from some companies.

M&M DuelsWhenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.

I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.

Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.

When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to:

M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc.
Hackettstown, NJ
17840-1503 U.S.A.

Along with a 3×5 card reading, “Please use this M&M for breeding purposes.”

This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this “grant money.” I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion. “There can be only one.”

I have no clue who wrote the above, so I’ll link back to where it was found.

April Fools

ShenanigansHappy April Fool’s Day!

There are many well known April Fool’s Day hoaxes and jokes and you can even search for anything related to April Fool’s Day. Here are a few that Google has run in this and past years.

(all links pop in new window)
Gmail Paper
Google TiSP
Google Romance
Google Gulp
Google Copernicus Center is hiring
Google’s PigeonRankâ„¢ Technology
Google’s MentalPlex

Reactable: Basic Demo

The reactable, is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share … all complete control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

This instrument is being developed by a team of digital luthiers (Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), at the Music Technology Group within the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.

More information: http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable (pops)