I let loose a small cheer today when I heard that Elbert Fert and Peter Gruenberg won a Nobel prize for some slick science that led to the development of really little hard drives, which in turn led to iPods, which in turn led to a revolution in music and media consumption.
I mean, mp3 players are a big deal. I have friends who rediscovered music because they shelled out a couple of hundred bucks on one of these devices and spent the next year bopping to their own personal soundtrack. How often is it that you can point to a nobel prize winner and say, “Cooooooool.”
In the spirit of rewarding groovy science, I hereby propose to the Nobel Committee that the following category be added to next year’s list:
The Nobel Prize for Coooooool
Obvious contenders would be:
1. Google. Because how cool is a search engine that finds everything from pornography to…well, all that other stuff on the internet. Like funny pictures and Dilbert and stuff.
2. Facebook. Because I experience indecent amounts of schadenfroid I whenever I read the latest status update of that big kid who used to beat me up in school (“Johnny is verry proud because he is teh employee of the months at macdonnalds”).
3. Twitter. I want to know every inane thing you are doing, all the time. Because I am a stalker.
4. ____sucks.com. Because revenge is sweet, and finally, the little guys can use the internet to protest injustice like it’s the world’s biggest megaphone.
5. Spore. Because it’s a game that lets you start with a little bacteria and evolve it to a super-race space-faring conquistadors. That’s cool. It should also annoy creationists. That’s cooler.
6. Buffy. I know, it’s passe now, but c’mon, you secretly worship Buffy. She kung fu’s vampires, for Chirst’s sake. Kung Fu’s. Vampires.
7. Pirate vs Ninja Batteries. Because they’re Pirate vs Ninja batteries.
Nobel prize organisers, note well.
