Finally, the mystery of shoelaces is solved
The list of grievances that any human on this planet must face on a day-to-day basis is disheartening: poverty, war, inequality, disease, environmental decay, shoe laces coming untied. I mean, how horrible is that feeling of walking around, living your best life, and then with one glance down you see that epic bunny ears knot you tied this morning has come undone. It’s chaos, utter chaos.
But thankfully, mechanical engineers at the University of California, Berkeley have decided to take on that most pressing issue — the failure of the shoelace knot — and study it ad nauseam. (Who needs to solve world hunger anyway?)
Obviously, hours of scientific science stuff went into studying this phenomenon. And as journalists, sometimes it’s hard to convey these science-y findings because of all the jargon, math, charts, tests tubes and Pythagorean theorems involved in these reports. But we’ve slaved over just the right way to explain these findings to you, our loyal readers. Listen carefully: Shoelaces come undone because when you walk the knot becomes loose, therefore untying the laces. Woah. Are you still with us? Or did we lose you around the knot becoming loose because of walking?
Now there’s no word of what innovation this groundbreaking scientific discovery will lead to. We’re sure someone has poured millions into further follow up experiments to forever end the untying of shoelaces.
Here at Boulder Weekly, we’d like to toss in our solutions: padlocks, silly putty, super glue, pipe cleaners, duct tape, double knots, rubber bands, rope, zip ties, or just wear sandals. The choice is up to you.
What could have been really friendly skies
About 48 hours after United Airlines “re-accommodated” a paying passenger on one of its flights to make room for some of its employees, one thing is clear: The company most definitely could have saved money and reputation and had no trouble getting passengers to give up their seat had it been a little more creative.
Think about it. United’s re-effing-accommodating of the poor guy who got his head slammed while being dragged from his seat has cost the company nearly $300 million in stock value. We won’t even count the millions in chump change that United will be paying out in attorney’s fees and an eventual settlement. Just imagine if the company, knowing what it knows now, could go back in time and reoffer incentives to get passengers to voluntarily give up their seats. Remember, anything less than $300 million is a good deal.
How about this offer: For the first four people who give up your seats, we’ll buy you a private island, a $5 million dollar yacht to commute from the closest airport and give you free flights back and forth to your island for life. Figuring takers would die within 60 years and searching the web for “private island’s for sale,” United would have saved itself 262.5 million with that offer. Or how about this: The first four off the plane get U2 to play live at their birthday party anywhere in the world and you can bring along 1,000 friends all expenses paid for a week. That would have saved $290 million. Or how about this one: Get off the damn plain and we’ll buy each of you your own private jet, fly you to your destination and let you sell the jet and keep the money. Again, hundreds of millions in savings and way more fun than dragging some poor guy down the isle of a plane. Oh, how friendly the skies could have been with the power of hindsight.
