Month: May 2024

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Until last week, I had never heard of Harrison Butker

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Parents, People, Politics, Social MediaLeave a comment

I’m a sports fan, but even I find it difficult to follow every sport. I mean, it’s impossible. Well, maybe not for Chuck Norris, but for mere mortals like us, it is. Because of this obvious fact, I’m not an expert on North American sports, so a lot of NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL information can easily slip by me.

It could be that some team has a new manager, another team has won 13 games in a row, another team has a new stadium, or a player has a new $200 million contract, and I wouldn’t know. My interests in these sports annually peak around the Superbowl, the World Series, the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the NBA finals, then they die down.

I do know enough, however, to understand that the New York Mets and New York Jets are terrible. At least, according to late-night hosts.

As a New Zealander, I’m just pleased I can roughly match the name of an American team to its sport. If it’s not rugby union, rugby league, cricket or football, I shamefully filter things out. However, despite all of this, I had never heard of Harrison Butker, until last week.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

I was on my lunch break, resting my weary feet and enjoying my Vegemite sandwiches when I read an article about Harrison Butker. This led me to discover that I didn’t know who he was, but I knew about the Kansas City Chiefs because they won Super Bowl LVIII. That news even reached New Zealand.

I’m getting off-topic as usual, but after reading the short article regarding Butker’s commencement speech at Benedictine College; which I thought was a prank, I discovered videos about him from various news sources.

It was about that time when I realised that this news story was about a real event, it wasn’t a prank. After discovering the real existence of this speech, I made the decision not to mention it to my wife. The reason was I knew it would piss her off, so I wanted to avoid mentioning it to her. The joke was on me, though.

When I got home from work, my wife asked if I had heard about some guy in America who gave a speech. With a deep and regretful sigh, I said I had. I’m not going to repeat what my wife said, but she used a lot of adjectives about Butker’s speech.

In his speech, Butker seemed to throw a lot of shade at various things, including, men, women, Joe Biden, COVID lockdowns, IVF, abortion, LGBTQ+ and others, which have brought praise and criticism across the United States, but also around the world.

Am I going to add my opinion on this topic?

No, I’m not.

Why not? Everybody has an opinion, what’s yours?

My answer is in two parts. Firstly, any person who reads, follows, and subscribes to my daily/weekly posts, will already realise my views and opinions on these topics. If not, please read three years’ worth of nonsense.

Secondly, why would I want to add my voice to the thousands of comments about the speech, when other people have already done so, with far more articulated and wittier results? 

So, sit back, relax and enjoy social media and its amazing responses to Butker’s speech. I’ve removed people’s names on the posts because I hope that’s the correct thing to do.

From X

From Mastodon

From Facebook

Free speech is a double-edged sword; no one can physically stop you from speaking your mind and giving your opinion. However, it doesn’t mean you are free from consequences or repercussions, because of your words.

I’m a not smart man, but I’m wondering how long those consequences and repercussions will catch up to Harrison Butker. Maybe it won’t, I mean, we do live in reality and things don’t always go the way we want or need them to go. 

Anyway, thanks again for reading, following, and subscribing to Some Geek Told Me. 

Please don’t forget to walk your dog, read a banned book, go and divide by zero, and I’ll see you next week.

Tour of the Solar System: Titan

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn ScienceLeave a comment

You know the feeling when you receive your monthly electricity bill, or when you discover a speeding fine you didn’t know about? When reading this blog, you will experience the opposite of those feelings, because it’s back again! Some Geek Told Me’s Tour of the Solar System returns for another month, and a collective sigh of relief can be heard across neighbourhoods around the world!

There are 13 previous stops on our magical Tour of the Solar System, which are:

1.) Meet the Family

2.) The Sun

3.) Planets vs. Dwarf planets

4.) Mercury

5.) Venus

6.) Earth

7.) The Moon

8.) Mars

9.) The Asteroid Belt

10.) Ceres

11.) Jupiter

12.) The Galilean moons

13.) Saturn

As much as possible, I try to fact-check all the information I write here, as well as on X and Mastodon; especially about pizzas and ice cream. The problem is that there’s a community that doesn’t believe me; or dare I say, even like me for some strange reason.

The Hastings chapter of The New Zealand Sour Cream and Chives Preservation Society was recently quoted in The New Zealand Herald about New Zealand’s 5th least favourite website by saying:

“Do you see last month’s blog from that Geek Told Me Twit’s Solar System Tour? That man is making stuff up, he’s a fraud! He claims that Saturn has 146 moons and as any reality-based person would know, that’s a lie. Saturn can’t have 146 moons, because Saturn isn’t real! That guy is a disgrace to this beautiful country, and we fully recommend the Serious Fraud Office investigate him.”

I have three official responses for them:

1.) Firstly, I make no money from my accounts. It costs me to run them, so the Serious Fraud Office would be wasting their time, like Sun Tzu writing a book on marriage counselling.

2.) I’m not sure if this is a general trend with The New Zealand Sour Cream and Chives Preservation Society, but I feel some Flat Earthers, or at least Space Deniers are filling their ranks. 

3.) Just because The New Zealand Sour Cream and Chives Preservation Society mentioned Saturn’s moons, I’m going to talk about them. In all honestly, I was going to mention a few of them, but since they have annoyed me, I’m just going to discuss one of them; arguably the most famous of them, Titan.

A composite image of Saturn’s moon Titan taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA

So, why have I selected Titan to discuss? Apart from being the homeworld of Thanos, Spock would agree that Titan is a fascinating place. To start our tour off, you’re probably thinking, “Damn, Salt and Vinegar chips are the best!” And you would be correct!

You’re also thinking, “But Scott, there are no planets in our Solar System named Titan.” And once again, I have to agree with you. Yes, it’s the name of Matt Damon’s spaceship, but it’s also not a planet, because Titan is a moon. 

Titan is the second moon to feature on our Tour of the Solar System, after, you know, the Moon. Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and was discovered by Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch astronomer on 25th March 1655. 

Because Titan is one of Saturn’s moons, it won’t come as a surprise to you that it orbits Saturn. Imagine that. Titan is 5,149.46 km in diameter, which makes it larger than Mercury, and the Moon; but also the ninth-largest object in the solar system, after the Sun of course.

Titan is about 1.2 million km from Saturn, which if you remember from last month, is about 1.4 billion km from the Sun. Because of this distance, it takes 80 minutes for light from the Sun to reach Titan. By comparison, it only takes eight minutes for the Sun’s light to reach Earth. Sunlight is about 100 times fainter on Titan than on Earth.

Two more awkward points about Titan’s rotation and orbit, are that Titan’s seasons last more than seven Earth years and a Titan year lasts 29 Earth years.

Titan orbits Saturn around every 15 days and 22 hours. And similar to how Titan has a kick-arse name, just like the Moon, Titan is also tidally locked. This means that its rotational period (the time it takes to turn on its axis) is the same as its orbital period (the time it takes to orbit Saturn), so one side of Titan is permanently facing Saturn since it is in a synchronous rotation with Saturn.

These facts about Titan are cool, don’t get me wrong, but the real things to talk about Titan are its atmosphere and surface. There are only two known places in the Solar System where liquid forms on the surface. One is Earth, the birthplace of rugby and dogs, with the other being Titan.

On Earth, the liquid on the surface is David Dunn’s and Elphaba Thropp’s weakness; water. While on Titan, the liquid is not water because of Titan’s vast distance from the Sun, which creates temperatures around −179 °C. It’s not a retreat for a Summer holiday.

The liquid on the surface is methane and ethane, which have carved out river channels and filled lakes. Because of the low temperatures, which create the process of condensation, these natural gases have changed their state of matter from gas to liquids.

Titan’s atmosphere consists of about 95% nitrogen and 5% methane, which makes it quite thick. Titan’s atmospheric pressure is about 60% greater than Earth’s, which is like the equivalent of swimming below the surface of a lake or ocean at a depth of 15 m. 

Since Titan is smaller and less massive than Earth, its atmosphere extends to an altitude 10 times higher than Earth’s, nearly 600 km because of the weaker gravity. This is why Titan looks like it’s covered in smog or haze. Cool. 

Another rad thing about Titan is the possibility of life. On 15th October 1997, a space probe was launched by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. Its mission was to study Saturn, its rings and moons. The space probe was called Cassini–Huygens, named after Giovanni Domenico Cassini, an Italian astronomer who made some discoveries about Saturn’s rings and moons; as well as our old friend, Christiaan Huygens.

The probe reached the Saturn System in 2004, with Cassini being part of the probe that did mapping and research. Cassini spent 13 years working and orbiting Saturn and was decommissioned in 2017, where it was de-orbited so it could burn up in Saturn’s upper atmosphere.

Huygens on the other hand had a different mission, because it was designed to detach from Cassini, and land on Titan to conduct measurements. On 14th January 2005, Huygens landed on Titan and recorded measurements of the wind and temperature, but also took images of the landscape. 90 minutes after Huygens landed, the probe stopped transmitting. 

Data from Cassini and Huygens revealed that Titan has an underground ocean of liquid water, which could harbour life. Years later, researchers conducted many experiments to test the viability of life on Titan, because of complex molecules being found. Whether life exists on Titan or not, let’s hope it’s not in the form of Thanos.

And with that, another chapter of the worst Tour in the Solar System is brought to a close. What is your favourite fact about Titan? As always, please let me know. Thanks for supporting this tour, even though the tour guide is a bit dodgy.

Thanks once again for reading, following, and subscribing to Some Geek Told Me. I’m also on Twitter/X and Mastodon, where I usually fail at sounding humorous. 

Please don’t forget to walk your dog, read a banned book, keep pushing for a ceasefire in Palestine, and watch the Mighty Wellington Phoenix in the second leg of the A-League semi-final. Look after yourself and I’ll see you next week.

What is it like being married for 10 years?

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Parents, People

I hope everybody enjoyed Star Wars Day and Free Comic Book Day over the weekend! We did and we also enjoyed something else too. The main person to blame about anything concerning New Zealand’s 5th least favourite website just celebrated his 10th wedding anniversary. And for those of you not keeping up, that’s me, by the way.

I’ll be honest with you about something. Celebrating 10 years of married life wasn’t something I ever thought I was capable of doing, let alone getting married in the first place! Seriously.

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

So what is it like being married for 10 years? Is it good, bad or somewhere in between? Before I begin, I’m talking about this from a male’s perspective, but some of these observations can easily be transferred to females as well.

  • You listen to the same stories your spouse tells new people and pretend you’ve never heard them before. And vice versa.
  • You can’t remember what you gave to your spouse for their birthday and anniversary, for the last four years. 
  • Your spouse has an instant recall of a conversation you had with them five years ago, but you can’t remember what you had for dinner last night.
  • You can trust your spouse to order takeaways on your behalf and get the order 95% correct. 
  • Your house is littered with half-finished projects that you or your spouse have started and then abandoned for different reasons.
  • Your spouse knows your sleeping habits better than you. 
  • Because you’re a one-income family, you save money by having your spouse give you and your children the same haircut. 
  • You and your spouse have an unofficial rule of swapping the “good parent, bad parent” routine around when dealing with your children. 
  • When you or your spouse mention an ex’s name that has not been discussed before, the mood in the room changes.
  • Any form of competition between you and your spouse must be handled with respect and fairly. No Monopoly!
  • Your spouse seems to know where everything is in the house, except their belongings.
  • You and your spouse have different chores that you do around your home, so when your spouse does one of yours, your brain wants to shut down because it can’t compute what’s just happened. 
  • When you’ve made your signature dinner meal, and your spouse politely mentions that it’s the 18th time that month, that you have made that exact meal.
  • The amazing music you played at your wedding, is now mall/supermarket background music. 
  • You both have different ways to fold the washing; which you argue over, but you never want to fold the washing alone. 
  • If someone other than your spouse flirts with you, you don’t even register it.
  • Gaslighting your spouse is either extremely funny, brave or dangerous. 
  • Looking back at photos of your wedding, makes you rage because you and your spouse look so refreshed and young. 
  • You still make rookie mistakes with your children, after your spouse has pointed it out. 
  • You and your spouse can be each other’s translators in new social situations. 
  • If you or your spouse have taken the wedding ring off for whatever reason, you’re reminded in a semi-friendly way to put it back on. 

Occasionally my wife reads these posts, so I need to tread carefully. So in case she does read this, I think being married for 10 years is wonderful!

Have you been married for 10 years or more? Have I missed any observations? As always, please let me know.

That’s another post for another week. Thanks again for reading, following, and subscribing to Some Geek Told Me. Don’t forget to walk your dog, read a banned book, go Phoenix FC, and I’ll see you next week because the Tour of the Solar System is crawling back again!

Happy Star Wars and Free Comic Book Day!

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Books, Comics, Movies, Television

As you can tell, today is not a Monday; so why is there a short blog post from me? That’s a simple answer, because not only is today Star Wars Day, but it’s also Free Comic Book Day!

Star Wars Day is always held on the 4th of May, regardless of what day it is, just so people can say, May The 4th Be With You. Free Comic Book Day (FCBD), however, is traditionally held on the first Saturday in May. 

I feel they are two of the largest pop culture dates on the geek calendar, so it’s not often that Star Wars Day coincides with FCBD, but I think it just gives people twice the reason to celebrate the day.

I have mentioned it before, but Star Wars has a special place in my family. We enjoy it through movies, books, toys, board games, TV shows1 and cosplay. This also includes comics. Throughout the years, I have gathered a collection of Star Wars comics, so FCBD holds significant importance for me.

Credit: Disney/Lucasfilm & DC/Marvel/FCBD

So, what’s the point of this post? Easy, if you’re a fan of the adventures of characters from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, then today is your day to watch the movies or TV shows, read that book, play that computer game, or simply wear that Darth Vader t-shirt to the supermarket. Own this day, own it!

If you’re a fan of comic books, you need to get yourself down to your local comic book store; if possible, so you can support them by picking up some free comic books, cosplaying as your favourite characters, and buying some items. These stores are the lifeblood of the industry, so please support them.

And if you’re a fan of both Star Wars and Comics, well…today’s the day you can live your best life! My family recently made their own fantastic Stormtrooper helmets, which UMC1 and UMC2 will be wearing somewhere today.

How are you celebrating Star Wars Day and Free Comic Book Day? Please let me know. Ok, that’s it for me. Enjoy this amazing day and I’ll see you on Monday.

1.) One day I’m going to get Disney +. It’s not today, but one day.