Yes Man- The Joys and Dangers of Living Weird

Here at No Spoiler Tags we fully support the concept of living weird. We believe "normal" is an insult and we crave new adventures. Yes, this site is primarily devoted to shining the cold, calculating eye of logic and science onto other people's imaginations and I've written a completely non-satirical piece on why you should give up on your dreams, but that is because we also believe that peculiarity must be tempered with practicality. Yes Man is a surprisingly not terrible movie about a man who cannot find the proper balance between the two.

Carl begins the film with a stick firmly implanted up his rectum. His friends, fed up with his constant dodging, are ready to dump him. He has closed his mind to the possibilities.

Then, he goes the other way. He becomes the embodiment of spontaneity and finds it exhilarating, especially as it involves fucking Zooey Deschanel. However, he is also repeatedly robbed, scammed, raped by an old lady, and generally taken advantage of by friends and strangers alike. Everything works out in the end for Carl, but in reality he would be broke in under a day (as he must buy everything an ad tells him to), fired in under a month (a lot of those loans look terrible and somebody's bound to use the opportunity to rob the bank), and probably dead in under a year (some combination of alcohol, drugs, and exhaustion, if nothing else). So, there is a serious downside to this lifestyle. (On the other hand, fucking Zooey Deschanel.)

Zooey Deschanel is actually the role model to follow in this movie. She embraces living weird, but maintains touch with reality. She knows no one wants to buy her crappy photographs or listen to her shitty band, but she contributes(?) to the local art scene because she loves it. This is what I meant in my give up on your dreams piece. You can be a rock star in your own mind, but know deep down in your soul that you truly suck. (For the record, my only readers are Russian spambots and I like it that way.)

The No Spoiler Tags Guide to Weirdness:

1. Weird is a choice.- You will never be bizarre if you don't put in the effort.

2. Remind yourself to be strange.- I watch one of these get out and do something movies, like Yes Man, about once every six months to shame myself into trying something new. (I signed up for golf lessons as soon as the film ended. Not that strange, but it is new.) Some better movies with a similar theme include The Dead Poets Society, Garden State and Stranger Than Fiction. I also happen to own the watch from Stranger Than Fiction (I had it before the film came out.) and I live in fear everyday that it will throw me under a bus if I disappoint it. You may find it useful to attach a death threat to a totem of your own.

3. Don't think, Just do.- If I give myself a chance to find a reason to back out, I usually will. So, I find a way to commit myself before I get a chance to think about the consequences. Buy your plane ticket and figure out how you're getting to the airport later. Yes, this is a contradiction to the first half of this piece when I encouraged insanity based on sanity, but you will usually know when something is bound to end poorly right away and can avoid the bad decision.

4. You will get hurt.- Last night, a pocket of air was begging to receive a double flying kick. (The air knows what it did.) The air, being a compressible fluid, was unharmed by my powerful blow. My leg, on the other hand, received a sizable gash as it caught on a sharp edge on a counter-top. I won't tell you to not perform impractical martial arts on fantasy opponents or even to check for sharp corners before moving spastically, that would defeat the purpose of such an action, but just know at some point you will get hurt. Physically, emotionally, financially. At some point, being weird will hurt. In the long run, I firmly believe weirdness will always pay off, but you'll get some scars along the way.

5. Don't listen to me.- This is your ride, baby. Don't be content to follow my rules or anyone else's. Find out just how far you can push the envelope. (Philosophical question: If you follow this rule, are you breaking this rule?)

Back to the Future: Part 3- No, You're Not Thinking Fourth Dimensionally

One of the basic tenants of the Back to the Future series is that the DeLorean does not travel through space as it travels through time. This is a major plot point in Back to the Future: Part 3 as Doc Brown must pick places to travel through time which he knows will be safe to travel to in the destination time. But, an effective time machine must also be capable of moving instantaneously through space as well. (And as space and time are actually different ways of perceiving the same thing known as space-time, a device capable of instantaneously moving any direction and amount through time should be capable of doing the same in space.)

The general problem is clearly illustrated in this comic.

It's easy to forget, but that thing you're standing on is always moving. The Earth orbits the sun at about 66,600 mph. It rotates at about 1,040 mph. There is also the matter of eccentricities in the Earth's orbit and rotation. And plate tectonics are not a trivial consideration, if you want to see some dinosaurs.

If you want to safely return to the Earth after a journey though time, you must hit a target that is a thin roughly spherical shell between the surface of the planet and about 20 feet above it. (Too low- materialize within the planet and get crushed; Too high- fall and then get crushed) And as you probably wish to land over a solid surface in one of the habitable zones of the planet, your target is even smaller. The idea that you could simply return to the same point relative to the surface of the planet without moving through space, as suggested in the movie is ridiculous, no matter how short the jump. To safely travel though time on the surface of the Earth, you must move relative to the surface of the planet based on a fixed reference at the center of the Universe. And if you can do that, you don't have to worry if a bridge will be finished by 1985 because there's no reason you can't just land on the other side of the canyon. The calculations for changing the destination a few feet would be very simple in comparison.

At this point, you are probably redesigning your time machine to function of part of a spacecraft, but that only solves part of the problem. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way at 486,000 mph and the Milky Way is moving way from the center of the Universe at 1,234,789 mph. In other words, unless you move relative to a fixed reference frame, you will be lost in space and be in danger, Will Robinson.

One final thing to consider: momentum. We are unaware of all this motion, but if we carry any momentum into the journey, as the DeLorean clearly does, any accelerations (exiting one time or entering another) would likely be fatal, or more accurately, liquifying. And it's unclear how time behaves during the trip, which would have a significant effect on the safety of time travel.

For further reading on the subject, consult the works of Professor Eric Idle.