The Matt Lisac Thing.

The Microphone originally started out as someone’s idea to make a tiny phone. That’s true. Here’s what else: In 2007, the smallest phone (or, CELL PHONE, because they’re small like living skin cells) was actually smaller than the smallest microphone. So that’s interesting, because the language is all backwards now.  The microphone takes in noise, through the meshy end, and makes it small enough to fit through a wire. That part is pretty easy, it’s like a funnel. Think of how a funnel works, and that’s what’s going on in a microphone. Here’s where it gets interesting though. For a microphone to work, there needs to be something at the other end to make the sound big again. This is called a macrophone, although nobody calls it by its scientific name any more, they just call them amplifiers now, because it “amps” up the sound. The first microphone was surprisingly large, as if nobody knew how to use Latin very well. It was invented so people could announce things like wrestling matches, which were the first large gatherings of people in the 17th century of Britain. Microphones come in “condenser” and “dynamic” and “hidden”, each of which have their advantages. A condenser microphone makes things “dense” when they get small, whereas a “dynamic” microphone, or “dynamicrophone” makes things really flamboyant. Hidden microphones are what you’d expect, so that’s a no-brainer.  Some microphones use “phantom power”, but eeesh, that’s scary stuff.

One thing that there’s a whole lot of confusion about these days is bird traps. A bird trap is a plastic silhouette of a bird you put on a window, to make sure real birds fly into that window a lot. Some people think that’s not what they’re for, but yeah, it is. These silhouettes of birds successfully flying through a window sends a clear message to all the other birds, saying, “please, fly through this shiny opening.” Of course, if a person wanted to dissuade a bird from flying into their windows, they would put up a silhouette of things that kill birds, like cats, or bigger birds, or Michael Jordan.

As far as vans go, the minivan has to be one of the smallest.  You can chalk this up to technological smallening, or nanotechnology.  The minivan has many of the features of a regular car or van, except it’s not!  First of all, the standard 4 and a half seat arrangement has been drastically altered in the interest of people who can’t stop having babies.  Secondly, a roof that normally slopes back down to the butt-end is adjusted to make head-room where there is usually trunk room.  Eat your heart out, Professor Albert Einstein!  Unfortunately, there is some nasty folklore that says only the mothers of child-aged soccer players drive minivans.  This kind of demented thinking is the only thing holding the minivan back from being the most celebrated vehicle sub-type in the civilised world.  Nevertheless, car scientists and small-van enthusiasts will flock to minivan museums for years, to marvel in the wonder of these fantastic machines.  Plus, lots of them have DVD players and little TV screens inside them.  Holy smokes!  With all these incredible features in the minivan, it’s a wonder that it can still fly, just like the bumblebee.  But at least now you know how it works.

If there’s one thing that makes the world a gross place, it’s definitely pollution. Pollution can be defined as something that makes the world a gross place. Some examples of pollution include chocolate bar wrappers, car exhaust, and anything made of lead, pretty much. Unfortunately, people really like buying pollution. The tricky thing is that pollution is always disguised as something really cool, like a chocolate bar, or a sweet new car, or anything made of lead. But something happens after someone buys those things, it magically turns bad. How does it work?  Well, when we don’t have something, that thing seems great, but once we have something and use it, it’s not so great, and voila! Pollution! Thankfully we invented recycling, which is a process of turning things we don’t want anymore into things we feel guilty if we don’t buy. This process of guilt induction is the magic ingredient to solving the problem of pollution. Another solution would be to disobey the laws of physics, but the Police of Physics are pretty tough, and I don’t want to even get into it.

Microwave ovens have been a mystery for over 6,000 years. It was only recently that we even invented them, before that it was an even bigger mystery. The unique thing about microwaves is the way their doors open from side to side, instead of the standard upsy-downsy manner. This actually has to do with the physics. Microwaves are named after the primary food they cook, microwave popcorn, which was next to impossible to cook before microwaves. Microwaves emit beams of microtrons (a smaller version of the macrotron) at precisely the right levels to imitate human fire. The beams are so active, that metal will just go crazy if it’s inside, because metal is the antithesis of microwave popcorn, so the anti-matter involved is at exactly the wrong frequency wavelength. If you open the door to a microwave while it’s cooking, some of these microtrons will absorb into your skin, and make you feel like your chicken is rubbery. That’s one of the remaining mysteries of the microwave oven.  The other is inside-out butter melting, but really, who knows, right?