Will it work?

October 26, 2001 8:49 PM

Will it work? No, but don't let that stop you... ...And you thought air guitar was silly or maybe you didn't, but this is a bit much... ...There's been a lot of well-intentioned people in the world who came up with some pretty stupid ideas. What are your favorite, fun, stupid ideas?
posted by ZachsMind (21 comments total)

Today we played soccer in my office with ice cubes. That was stupid.
posted by inkognito at 8:55 PM on October 26, 2001

Here's a list of sites linking to paintthemoon.org from google. To tell you the truth, in general, swaying millions of people to do a certain thing is next to impossible, and if it was as easy as putting up a webpage then...
posted by HoldenCaulfield at 9:17 PM on October 26, 2001

So let's say a laster pointer circumference is... 2 centimeters (just guessing on that one, probably about right). I'm not going to do areas of circles, so say for a 1m patch on the moon you'd need 50 lasers pointed exactly adjacent. That's a lot.... for a really small patch. That's if every laser reached the moon too. This is impossible. Also, anyone think of the ramifications of aiming millions of lasers into our atmosphere? Why don't we just have national "Empty out our hair spray into the atmosphere" day. Maybe my math is wrong. Someone check it. I apologize for using the evil communist metric system, but nice 10-base numbers are easy to work with.
posted by geoff. at 9:34 PM on October 26, 2001

I apologize for using the evil communist metric system,...

geoff, from that remark I'm assuming your IQ is below 100, which means your mental age divided by your chronological age is less than one.
posted by HoldenCaulfield at 9:39 PM on October 26, 2001

Um. The big question now is did it work???

I think the hardest part would really be properly aiming.
posted by QrysDonnell at 9:39 PM on October 26, 2001

Nevermind. It's tomorrow. Duh.
posted by QrysDonnell at 9:42 PM on October 26, 2001

...er...unless you were being sarcastic please disregard *this* post.
posted by HoldenCaulfield at 9:43 PM on October 26, 2001

inkognito: "Today we played soccer in my office with ice cubes. That was stupid."

Yeah but that sounds like fun, too! =)

geoff: "This is impossible."

Of course it's impossible. That's why it's so fun and stupid. I love stuff like this. It's dumb but it's poetic. It'll never work but the intent is sincere. And who knows? People used to think we couldn't put a man up there on the moon. Maybe someone'll figure out how to do it.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:43 PM on October 26, 2001

I know, I just like proving it's impossible before saying that it is impossible. It makes me feel better to back my statement up.
posted by geoff. at 9:52 PM on October 26, 2001

one time i was playing soccer in the kitchen, screaming "GOOOOOOOOOOOAL" and a glass pan exploded.

it was scary.
posted by sugarfish at 9:57 PM on October 26, 2001

Would trying to raise & sell squirrels as trained domestic pets count as stupid? I think they would be perfect pets -- small, cute, (relatively) smart. Great for apartment-dwellers. Would you buy one?

It's been a long day. My brain hurts.
posted by davidmsc at 10:31 PM on October 26, 2001

one time i screamed "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL" on a crowded bus -- i got a lot of stares from that.
posted by moz at 10:46 PM on October 26, 2001

Well, it seems stupid ideas aren't limited to fring websites:

Company officials had wanted to use lasers to shine a giant logo on to the surface of the moon, but they started looking for an alternative promotional idea when they learnt that the image would have to be as big as Texas to be seen by earthlings more than 380,000 kilometers (238,000 miles) away.
posted by harrycaul at 11:14 PM on October 26, 2001

Quickie back-of-the-envelope calculation shows it would require roughly 15,415,772 laser pointers per person if everybody on Earth participates.
posted by JParker at 12:02 AM on October 27, 2001

JParker: Sorry, I don't have that many hands.
posted by davidmsc at 12:35 AM on October 27, 2001

I'm not certain if this quite what you meant, but once when I lived in an apartment in Boston, I set up one of those little boxes which are like bird houses, only for bats. In two months, I had roughly twenty bats living in there.

My neighbors hated me.
posted by Hima Otsubusu at 2:14 AM on October 27, 2001

Actually, putting up a bat house isn't a stupid idea - fun though.
posted by ferris at 6:37 AM on October 27, 2001

maybe a giant heat ray would would better.
posted by lotsofno at 7:03 AM on October 27, 2001

What are your favorite, fun, stupid ideas?

10. Voting along straight party lines.
9. Living in NYC.
8. Blogging about nothing.
7. Going through an ex-gay deprogramming... er, program.
6. Drinking 'til I puke.
5. Watching too much TV.
4. Using a high-powered PC to surf the web and do word processing.
3. Talking to dogs as if they actually understand me.
2. Falling in love with straight guys.
1. Dancing for no apparent reason whatsoever.
posted by verdezza at 9:17 AM on October 27, 2001

Fuck this "painting the moon" noise. I say NUKE THE MOON!!
posted by Danelope at 7:05 PM on October 27, 2001

Nuking the moon could perhaps be the most fun, stupid idea ever conceived. Kudos, Danelope! You Win! =)
posted by ZachsMind at 7:52 AM on October 28, 2001