Scott Lattimer

Daylight Savings Time

Over the past weekend, Daylight Savings Time just began causing the clock to jump ahead one hour making me lose my precious sleep time. This got me thinking, who decided to have Daylight Savings Time? I went to my parents to see if they had known but they couldn’t come up with any helpful information. I decided to take matters into my own hands. I started searching around the web to see if there was any information on this puzzling topic but unfortunately I wasn’t able to find anything. I was about to just give up the search when I was talking to my friend and he said to search BBC for a news article that was supposedly on this topic. I went to their website and searched for Daylight Savings Time only to a whole article that answered all my questions. The article interviewed Dr. John Cannon, a professor at the University of Oxford in England, and talked about the real reason how it all started. Turns out, Daylight Savings Time started off originally as a prank. In London where the world’s times are officially kept, Sueliman Akbar, one of the employees in the late night shift, thought it would be funny to change the clock’s to be one hour ahead to mess with people all over the world. It turned out his prank failed since everyone loved having the sun rise an hour earlier than usual so the International Committee of Time (ICT) decided to declare Daylight Savings Time a yearly event.

Kelsea Shanley

Redefined

Gay – (adj) having or showing a merry, lively mood
Nowadays, most people do not use the word gay to describe a lively, happy mood. It is mostly used to describe homosexual men, or as a slang term meaning “lame” or something that someone doesn’t like. For example, if a paper is due sooner than the syllabus says, a student could say “that’s so gay”. It is so sad how this word has changed into the meaning it is now. It describes homosexuals and something unpleasant at the same time, which is wrong.

Love – (noun) a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person
The meaning of love has taken on many more meanings than this particular meaning. The word “love” is so versatile in today’s society, and a lot of the time it does not mean “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for someone”. The phrase, “love you” can either be a very special thing to hear, or it can be thrown around between two friends or a couple that has just started going out. It’s not that the feeling isn’t there, it’s that it has a wider meaning than it used to.

War – (noun) a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air.
The meaning of this word hasn’t changed in present times, but the interpretation of it by different generations has. Today, when someone says “war”, my generation thinks of the war we are in now, the Iraq War. However, if you were to say “war” to the generation before us, they might think of the Cold War. As you keep on going back, people will start thinking of Vietnam, Korea, and even World War II when they hear the word “war”.

High – (noun) having a great or considerable extent or reach upward or vertically; lofty; tall
The word “high” still means a tall height, but now it can also mean someone who is under the influence of drugs. In present day culture, if someone says “I was soooo high last night”, it doesn’t mean that they were up in an airplane, they were doing drugs.

Retarded – (adj) to make slow; delay the development or progress of (an action, process, etc.); hinder or impede
In today’s culture, retarded is used to describe a stupid person, or a stupid action. It is now politically incorrect to call mentally challenged people retarded, but it still happens. Retarded is a very derogatory term and the fact that it is used to describe someone or something as stupid and worthless if very unfortunate.

-Kelsea Shanley

Trays

When you get done eating in the commons, you put your tray on the conveyor belt and it slowly creeps through the little opening. When you come the next day to grab a tray, it is magically cleaned, but how? To figure this out, I hired a private investigator that cleverly disguised himself as a lunch tray and jumped on the conveyor belt. What he described to me was beyond belief. Each tray would continue down the belt until it got to what he described as a giant French fries cutter. Every used tray was chopped into hundreds of small little pieces called “seed trays.” Then workers packed theses little chunks into small boxes with dry ice to preserve them. They then get shipped to an undisclosed location via a cargo freighter that has a much colder climate, where they are planted by workers into fields miles long. After five years of growing an constant de-watering (which is another story in itself), the seeds grow into plants similar to potatoes where a new tray is underground with a stem sticking up. The trays are then picked, cleaned and shipped back to Penn state where people grab them and use them, never to wonder how this simple piece of plastic is even made.

Traffic Fairies

On the corner of College Ave. and Allen Street, there hangs a traffic light. Observing the light rotate between cycles of green, yellow, and red I wonder: how does the light 'know' when to change? Intrigued and puzzled I went back to my room, logged onto Google, and looked up 'How a Traffic Light Works'. I came across a very reliable source: Dr. Kelsie Walsh of the Hawaiian Traffic Institution. Dr. Walsh's thesis describes exactly how traffic lights work, how they 'know' when to change colors and the secrets behind the three colored hanging light. "Fairies", Dr. Walsh explains, "Fairies are the magic behind the source of light. In each circle, there lives traffic fairies. Each fairy sprinkles red, yellow, and green dust on the lights. The dust reflects off the light and points at the oncoming traffic. There is a fairy leader that tells each fairy when to sprinkle their dust on the bulb. The green fairy is the highest ranked fairy and gets to sprinkle the light for 30 seconds. Then, following behind him is the red fairy for 25 seconds and the yellow fairy's shift is only 7 seconds". So, Dr. Walsh answered my question; however, now I want to know: where do the fairies come from?

A Million Little Pieces

Ever wonder how the signal travels through your television remote to your TV or how your computer can connect to the Internet so fast without even plugging a cord in? Well, we heard about it when we were younger, but many of us didn't believe it. The movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory showed us exactly how it works. Remember the little boy who was obsessed with TV and wanted to take the place of the chocolate bars being transported into the TV? Well that's exactly how it works. When you flip the channel or connect to the Internet, a million little pieces travel above your head and across the room then sink into the TV or the modem your trying to connect to. I've always found this fascinating and I think you all should finally accept this and realize that that's how were able to use a lot of electrical devices today. Maybe we really will be transporting ourselves into a million little pieces; I mean if Wanka can do it why can't we?

Danger

The Penn State University environmental health and safety committee should be aware of university students’ insensitivity toward environmental safety, and need to remind students of common dangers in our university such as garbage cans. On the recent conference, the College of Engineering revealed the secret design in the garbage can which enables the tiny garbage to store limitless amount of trash in its capacity. It was one of the five great mysteries in the Penn State University that how the garbage cans are always empty. According to this surprising announcement, the garbage cans in the university contain mini black holes that literally suck in everything thrown into the garbage cans. Due to the black hole’s super massive region of space, no nearby objects can escape from its relentless gravitational pull. If something goes wrong with university garbage cans, PSU scientists argue that the black hole in single garbage can will to annihilate half of the United State. Thus, it is extremely advisable not to kick or throw the PSU garbage cans. Thanks to this conference, now students finally understand the reason beyond Stephen Hawking’s frequent appearance around college garbage cans.

Random Clocks

If one is to walk on the path below the Hub or outside the Forum one may notice that at each location there is a free standing clock. These clocks are not connected to buildings, they are just there. What first caught my attention is how random these clocks are. Who exactly needs to know the time at these specific locations that these clocks had to be erected? What struck me as even more interesting is how these clocks are able to work. Without being connected to any building, what made these clocks tick? Then it hit me; How does any clock work? There are only two options: by battery or by electrical outlet. The first option, would imply that there is a battery constantly make the clock's hands work 24/7. I could not see this actually working because batteries are unreliable and die. So the electrical outlet had to be the solution to my pondering. I needed to know for sure so I found the number for the man who runs these clocks on campus. He told me the extensive process that goes into making these clocks function.

First there is an extensive tunnel making process for the clock wires to run through. These tunnels provide a way for the wires to safely extend to the nearest building. The electrical plug at the end of the wire is then connected to the nearest outlet. The outlet is kept in a closet specifically designated for this purpose. The door is unmarked as to not draw attention so no one will unplug it. For extra precautions there is a sign above the outlet that reads, "Please do NOT unplug. For outside clock. Thank you"- clock management. Who would ever thought that such efforts went into these somewhat pointless clocks. Next time one sees these free standing clocks on campus, one should not take for granted the work that goes into them.