The Friday Fillip
There’s a bit of irony making its way around Twitter lately, which goes something like this:
Your mobile phone has more computing power than NASA in 1969. NASA launched a man to the moon. We launch birds into pigs.
To which I say, what’s your point?
Perhaps you don’t know about Angry Birds. It’s the #1 paid app in Canada for iPad, iPhone, and available for other smart phones as well. The aim is to launch birds with a slingshot apparatus such that they land on forts built by the egg-stealing green pigs and collapse them, exploding the pigs. It is addictive in a way that going to the moon is not.
I can’t offer you a chance to try it out here, alas. But I can put the egg before the chicken, so to speak, and give you the opportunity to slingshot one of the ovoids into the air, with or without anger. Because Easter is a month away, the merchants are hard at work already flacking their pieces of the bunny, ham, lamb — and egg — side of the festival; and Cadbury at least does it with humour.
They have an online “game” in which you get to use a catapult (knowledgeable readers can tell us whether it’s a trebuchet, onager, mangonel, or something yet again) to hurl a Cadbury Creme Egg into the air at a destination of your choosing, sound effects included. You simply insert an address into the text box, crank back on the lever, and let fly. Remarkably satisfying.
You might find yourself stumped for a target. (I eventually found a good one.) In which case, start with your own address … and work up from there.
The Monty Python gang has created a similar game, but themed from their “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. Players catapult farm animals at a castle. (Yes, I know it’s backwards, but what are you going to do?)
1. There are a million versions of “Angry Birds”-like games, most of which came before “Angry Birds” existed, and most of which are free. Drives me nuts how people rave about “Angry Birds” like it’s the best thing since sliced bread when it’s exactly like sliced bread is now: common place! lol
2. Of course mobile phones have more computing power than NASA did in 1969. It was 1969! lol Your phone may also give the computing power in present spacecraft a run for its money. You don’t want cutting edge technology in space since a bug can mean death and billions of dollars lost. You only want thoroughly tried and tested tools up there.