Message:111 by General Eerie

SOCCER: THE ORIGINS

The origin of the word "football" is clear to everyone: foot plus ball. But how did the term "soccer" come about? This is General Eerie with message 111 for his fellow earthians. 

The term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as an Oxford "-er" abbreviation of the word "association". Well, the sport was known as Association Football (distinguishing it from rugby football). British school kids commandeered part of the word "association" to form a pet name for the sport. Then the following evolution occurred:

AS-SOC-IATION -> "SOCCA" (1889) -> "SOCKER" (1891) -> "SOCCER" (1895).

Within the English-speaking world, association football is now usually called football in the United Kingdom, and mainly soccer in Canada and the United States. Other countries, such as Australia and New Zealand, may use either or both terms.

Message:110 by General Eerie

WASHING CLOTHES GETS EASY

Ancient Romans lived a life filled with luxuries and beautiful churches. Their tastes and lifestyles were lauded by the entire race. Their dressing senses, drinking choices and architectural acumen paved the way for the modern Italy. But some of their habits were bizarre too. This is General Eerie with message 110 for his fellow earthians.

The evolution of laundry superficially appears to be listless. Yesterday, we washed clothes in streams and lakes with soaps. Today, we have detergents and washing machines. But science was nascent when the ancient Romans lived. Leave machines, there were neither detergents nor soaps. But, the tendency to wear clean clothes was always present. Then, what did they use to wash the clothes?Ancient Romans used urine as toothpaste, mouthwash and laundry detergent.

This idea may not be as bizarre as you may think. It's exactly what people did in Ancient Rome. Most clothing was made from wool, which was light in color and needed to be cleaned often. Dirty clothes were taken to the fullonica (a laundry) where it was the job of the fuller, or launderer to clean the clothes as thoroughly as possible. Soap was not used as a detergent until several centuries later; however, fullers discovered urine contained a natural cleaning agent-ammonia.

The process for obtaining the urine was rather interesting in itself. The fuller would place urine vessels on street corners for people to publicly relieve themselves. When the vessels were full, they were then carried back to the fullonica. The urine was diluted with water and the clothes were soaked in the mixture. Part of the cleaning process also involved someone standing in the tub of urine and stomping on the clothes, similar to an agitator on modern washing machines. After the clothes were cleaned, they were rinsed again to get the urine stench out of them.The glamorous job of hauling the urine and washing the clothes usually fell to either a young boy or a slave. Ancient Rome was a slave society; however, it is important to realize slavery then did not resemble Western slavery as we know it.

It sounds gross, but we've all thought about using our own urine for mouth wash. No? Maybe it’s just me. Regardless, urine contains ammonia which is a natural teeth whitener and can actually be used to prevent you from getting cavities! So before you go to the dentist next, you know what to do.

Message:109 by General Eerie

THE TECHNO-SAVVY SHOES

GPS today is no big thing. The amazing and user-friendly technology has been extended to mobile phones, locomotives and many more.

After the invention of energy t-shirts (t-shirts that change their color according to body heat), many individuals began to develop something creative out of our own outfits. This is General Eerie with message 109 for his fellow earthians.

Dominic Wilcox, a British designer, has created a fully functional prototype pair of shoes that will guide the wearer to any destination, no matter where they are in the world. Hence, the concept of GPS shoes has been introduced.
And this is what he said about these shoes:

“I was commissioned by the Global Footprint project in Northamptonshire  a place famous for shoe making, to create some shoes. I decided to make a pair of shoes that can navigate you to anywhere you wish to travel to. I thought about the Wizard of Oz and how Dorothy could click her shoes together to go home. After uploading your required destination to the shoes via a piece of custom made mapping software and a USB cable, the GPS, which is embedded in the heel, is activated by a heel click. It then communicates to the wearer via a ring of LED lights to point in the required direction. The shoe with the GPS wirelessly communicates with the right shoe that has a progress bar of lights to show how close you are to the destination.” 

                                         

Message:108 by General Eerie

The Sun is Working out

E=mc² ,this famous Einsteinian equation has been the face of science for the past century. The equation, also known as the mass-energy equivalence, has been swimmingly applied into fields of nuclear, astronomical and medical sciences. 

Certain observations and experiments formulated on the basis of the equation suggests that the sun is losing its mass every second. But, what is the average mass it is losing per second? Is it 10g, 10kg, 1000kg or even higher? This is General Eerie with message 108 for his fellow earthians.

The mass of the Sun is indeed being reduced due to nuclear fusion processes in the Sun's core, which convert part of the mass into energy. (This energy is eventually radiated away in the form of light from the Sun's surface.)

Start with E = mc²

where E is the energy produced, M is the mass that gets converted and c is the speed of light (3 x 10⁸ meters/second). It is easy to extend this formula to find the rate at which energy is produced:

(rate at which E is produced) = (rate at which M disappears) x c²

The rate at which the Sun produces energy is equal to the rate at which it emits energy from its surface (its luminosity), which is around 3.8 x 10²⁶ Watts -- this number can be determined from measurements of how bright the Sun appears from Earth as well as its distance from us. Plugging this into the above formula tells us that the Sun loses around 4,200,000,000 kilograms every second!

This sounds like a lot, but compared to the total mass of the Sun (2 x 10³⁰ kilograms), it actually isn't that much. For example, let's say we want to measure the effect of this mass loss over 100 years. In that time, the Sun will have lost 1.3 x 10¹⁹ kilograms due to the fusion reactions, which is still a very tiny fraction of the Sun's total mass (6.6 x 10^-12, or about 6.6 parts in a trillion!).

 

Message:107 by General Eerie

BOLLYWOOD inspires HOLLYWOOD

No, I haven't mistakenly replaced the two. This time, our native Bollywood has really inspired Hollywood. This is General Eerie with message 107 for his fellow earthians.

There is a list of Indian movies that have been 'as it is copied' from foreign movies. Such movies and directors have given a pellucid opportunity to the critics and audience to mark Indian Cinema as bleak and unimaginative. But the trend to officially plagiarize other movies is shifting to Los Angeles as well.

Two of Hollywood's blockbusters, 'Just Go With It' and 'A Common Man' are remakes of Bollywood movies. Yeah, they are.

            

 A Common Man(2013) is the official remake of A Wednesday(2008) where Ben Kingsley successfully replaces Naseeruddin Shah. The Hollywood remake, directed by a Sri Lankan bagged the awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor at the Madrid International Film Festival and won a bronze medal in the Feature Films category at the New York Festival as well. Certainly, the original one couldn't make this big.

Another such movie is Just Go With It(2011), starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston which is a horrible remake of a disaster Bollywood movie titled Maine Pyaar Kyu Kia(2005) that castes Salman Khan and Sushmita Sen. But Bollywood has yet again proved to be devoid of any integrity as the Indian version is again a copy of the 1969 Hollywood comedy film, 'Cactus Flower'. Hence, the wings are cut again...    

 

    

Message:106 by General Eerie

Superman vs Muhammad Ali 

Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El has constantly given hopes to the fancies and expectations of millions for the last 75 years. Often, people through comics, movies and cartoons vividly picture many individuals as the fictitious superhero. One such individual is the American professional boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr./Muhammad Ali. With 56 wins out of the 61 fights he participated in, Ali is definitely a superhero. But is the boxer related to comic universe by any chance? This is General Eerie with message 106 for his fellow earthians. 

In the 1978 issue of the comic titled 'Superman vs Muhammad Ali',  Superman teams up with the heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali to defeat an alien invasion of Earth. Therefore, Muhammad did feature in DC Universe. 

Species of aliens called the Scrubb, demands that Earth's greatest champion fight the greatest Scrubb fighter. If Earth refuses, the Scrubb and their huge armada of spaceships will destroy it. Superman and Muhammad Ali each come forward to volunteer. However, Ali argues that Superman is not really of Earth, and has an unfair advantage in his many superpowers. To decide the worthy contestant, a fair fight takes place in which Ali emerges as the ultimate winner. In the end, Ali defeats the Scrubb's champion whereas Superman thwarts the alien community's other nefarious and nebulous plans.

And if you look at the picture attentively, you can see Batman and Lex Luthor in the crowd. In a bigger picture, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball,Tony Orlando, Johnny Carson and other DC stars like Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are evident as well.

Message:105 by General Eerie

MAN ON MOON: A ruse or a reality?

"This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind", the exact words from Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. This glory of the trio of Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Collins and the famous Apollo 11 was registered under the greatest achievements of humanity. But serious allegations suggest that the first landing on the moon was just a set up. This not all, another set of allegations strongly indicate that July 20 wasn't really the first time. This is General Eerie with message 105 for his fellow earthians.

This mystery hasn't ended up still.But certain doubts raised from the fact file has subsequently raised eye brows and insist to question “Did Man really landed on Moon?” Let us explore these:

And the explanations for the above facts have never been satisfactory...