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Micro Tetris
Jeroen writes "Students from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam used a so-called 'optical trap' to construct a version of Tetris that measures 25 x 20 micrometers. Blocks are constructed from tiny glass beads and all the action takes place in a waterdrop under a microscope. Considering the equipment needed, this must not only be the smallest, but also the most expensive Tetris clone around. A short description and a movie can be found here."
I'm sure this is one of those discoveries where someone said "Oh, neat!" and 6 months/1 year from now we'll have cured cancer based on it. But I can't help but think, right now, "Why?"
--trb
Well, this is cool, I'll give you that. Who would have thought that a video game could be built inside a water droplet, small enough to require an electron microscope just to play! Clearly, there is some interesting research happening over in Holland.
Nice opening, sounds pretty reasonable.
But I'm a little concerned about the "expensive" part. For those who aren't familiar with the Dutch language, I can tell you that "vrije" (as in "Amsterdam Vrije Universiteit") means "free." That is, it's a university without tuition, funded by socialist tax policies (this is very common in Europe).
Believable, possibly true. If it's actually false, you've made a fairly safe assumption that most people aren't going to look that up and verify it themselves.
My concern, then, is that taxpayer money (albeit that of Dutchmen) is being squandled on playing video games through binoculars.
Not bad at all. Leave it to the people who reply to your post to point out your failure to understand that the tetris game was just a proof of concept of some incredible miniaturization technology, as opposed to just a video game.
You might want to ignore this, thinking that it couldn't possible affect any of us, here in the USA. But remember that none of those countries have any kind of military power or weapons, so they have to rely on us to protect them.
Very good. By implying that American taxpayers are indirectly funding their highly expensive video games, you're smoothly transitioning into a ridiculous assertion, while maintaining the appearence of reason.
While we spend billions a year developing weapons that protect their easy lives of cheese and pornography, they waste their euros playing with the world's tiniest joystick.
Here's where you falter. The "cheese and pornography" bit is a rude stereotype, which tears down most of the work you've done toward building the belief that you're a thoughtful individual with an opinion worthy of consideration.
It's disgraceful to Science, and we should not tolerate it.
Not too bad, but a bit too strong in comparison to your intro.
Overall grade: B
You were doing pretty well up to the cheese and porno bit. The real trick is to be inflammatory while maintaining the appearance of courtesy, which you didn't quite pull off here. Keep at it!
I'm looking forward to the porting of DOOM to their microscope!