My beef with a certain purveyor of beef, or how pedantic am I
Thursday I put my oldest child's health at terrible risk and took her to *gasp!* McD's. Please send me my worst mother in the world certificate by mail.
They've got one of those human habitrails in the play area. I turned her loose for about an hour, during which time I lamented not having the foresight to bring a newspaper. So I read the "Happy Meal" bag. (As an aside, when did they get rid of the nifty boxes with the arch shaped handles? I liked those better.)
The general theme seemed to be physical activity (work off that burger and fries so you can eat more burgers and fries!) and outer space. One of the facts on the bag said, "In space you can jump six times higher!"
Um, no. No you can't.
In space, you can't jump at all. Absent a surface to push off on, you would mostly flail. With something stationary to push off of, you would jump infinitely "higher", Newton's first law and all. But then, higher is sort of meaningless without a reference point.
On the moon, you would be capable of jumping about 6 times higher, since gravitation acceleration is a mere 1.6m/s^2. On the moon is not in space, and I take issue with Happy Meals spouting off incorrect "fun facts."
Also, I've really got to get a life.
They've got one of those human habitrails in the play area. I turned her loose for about an hour, during which time I lamented not having the foresight to bring a newspaper. So I read the "Happy Meal" bag. (As an aside, when did they get rid of the nifty boxes with the arch shaped handles? I liked those better.)
The general theme seemed to be physical activity (work off that burger and fries so you can eat more burgers and fries!) and outer space. One of the facts on the bag said, "In space you can jump six times higher!"
Um, no. No you can't.
In space, you can't jump at all. Absent a surface to push off on, you would mostly flail. With something stationary to push off of, you would jump infinitely "higher", Newton's first law and all. But then, higher is sort of meaningless without a reference point.
On the moon, you would be capable of jumping about 6 times higher, since gravitation acceleration is a mere 1.6m/s^2. On the moon is not in space, and I take issue with Happy Meals spouting off incorrect "fun facts."
Also, I've really got to get a life.
Maybe you should always carry some knitting with you so that you don't have to resort to reading McD bags.
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:42 AM
You reminded me of the moment I realized I had to stop working as a copy editor. It was in a supermarket, where for some reason I felt compelled to tell the checkout guy that the sign should read: "12 Items or Fewer."
Posted by
sierra |
9:42 PM
I came across this same silliness on a McD's bag a couple of weeks back when I was there with my son. I used it (as I often do with such things - see below) as a teaching moment to discuss why the statement was wrong. Such things are useful in that sense.
Quite some time ago I had a minor fit regarding a toy they distributed promoting the movie Robots. It was a little "action figure" of one of the characters, along with a metal plate that he could be displayed on. According to the instructions that came with the toy, when the character was positioned on the plate, a light on his head would "magically" light up. I found a delightful irony in the fact that they would have a toy robot - an icon of high technology - and still refer to a simple electrical circuit as "magic." That was another teaching moment.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who gets irate about nonsense like this.
Posted by
JAM |
9:20 AM
JAM: Remember Clarke's law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. At McDonald's, even electrical conductivity is sufficiently advanced, I guess.
Posted by
Gary McGath |
10:27 AM