W00t! It's time for another contest collaboration with the excellent What Is It? blog. Can you guess what this odd item is? This week, we are looking for funny and clever answers, not the correct one, but if you guess correctly, you'll win our undying respect. If you have one of the two funniest answers, you'll win a T-Shirt from the NeatoShop!
Place your guess in the comment section. One guess per comment, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like. You have until the answer is revealed on the What Is It? Blog tomorrow.
Please write your prize selection alongside your guess, so visit the NeatoShop and take a look around. If you don't write your prize selection, then you don't get the prize. I think you'll like the selection of funny t-shirts and science t-shirts -or even t-shirts of your favorite blogs and websites.
There's another image of this thing, along with other mystery items, at the What Is It? blog. Good luck!
Update: This thing is a Sadlak M1A, M14 USGI Combination tool for use on military rifles. See it’s many uses at the What Is It? blog. We were looking for wrong but funny answers, and jasennesaj had one: an S&M bicycle seat with a built in fart muzzle compensator. Ha! That wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! ColShorts had a great answer, too, “The Exhaust Piper.” Replace your car's exhaust with this and sound like Scotland as you drive! Congratulations to both. There are a lot of other funny answers; you should read them all. See the identifications of all this week’s mystery items at the What Is It? blog.
Comments (32)
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Going to Mars would be a dream come true, for me, and for a lot of other people. While I want to go for the chance to experience and discover things that no one else has before, there certainly would be others who would get a thrill from the danger and the instant fame.
I mean, being one of the first people to set foot on Mars would ensure that you're remembered for all time (more or less).
And with the way the world's going, I'm sure there are plenty of people who wouldn't mind saying goodbye to the wars, diseases, crime, etc. of the Earth. You know, so they can bring all that stuff to Mars. ;)
I'm sure I can accomplish more on Mars in a few years than I am likely to in an entire lifetime on this planet. There are probably other people who feel the same way.
Either way, sign me up!
I say go for it. I'm not one of those people. The thought of not being able to come back home, not being able to go outside and breath in a lung-full of fresh air.. just no...
but if other people are up for it. More power to them! I'll sit at home and watch them on tv religiously! That would be SO damn interesting to watch.
Still. Even knowing that you will find people like that, I'm ill at ease to think of public policy built on the one-way-ticket idea, entrenched in the concept of the disposable human. And don't counter with "that what war's all about": it's one thing to say you might not come home, or even probably not, another to say you WILL not, even to a volunteer. So instead of a suicide bomber's lure of a virgin-laden paradise, you offer academic glory and screen-time? Because it's going to take a few missions at least until things are sorted out enough to the point that life expectancy is "shortened by a little bit" as in this gentleman's softening statement. And they won't be pretty.
Heck most main scientists anyhow only get famous only after they died and without them knowing it. So why not die on Mars and be sure about that place in History?
I'll put aside my opinions on the morality of your suggestion for a moment and concentrate on logistics.
This would conflict with the general idea that once they arrive, the people/explorers/colonists should do useful work- and by that, they mean useful both to themselves and to those of us back on Earth. For that we need scientists, doctors, engineers, and other highly skilled people who are motivated to work hard for little tangible reward.