What a nice week.
Now back to the bi-weekly grind. By which, I mean, wasting time at work writing a blog. America is a beautiful country.
Speaking of America, what's something that has plagued this country since its birth? Incompetence and corruption amongst the government? Sure. Complete insensitivity to the desires of the disenfranchised? Of course. An abandonment of cost-effective, compassionate policy that eliminates a problem completely over time in favor of a method that immediately, violently represses symptoms so that they can sprout up in other ways? Well, we ARE Americans.
But the problem I'm talking is more serious than any of these. Something that old men on porches have been waving their canes about for centuries. That's right.
Kids...HANGING OUT.
Luckily, in this modern world, there isn't a problem that can't be solved by an elaborate, expensive, technological doo-dad. I present to you, my invisible audience...
The Mosquito!
The Mosquito is a small device that emits a high-frequency sound (17.4 kHz at 85dB) that can only be heard clearly by younger people. This is because of a phenomenom known as Presbycusis, which basically refers to gradual hearing loss with age, especially with regard to higher frequencies.
Howard Stapleton, winner of the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize, is the genius behind this device. Did I say genius? I meant quack.
The Mosquito sounds something like this. If your young, this will probably be loud and obnoxious. If you're old, you'll probably revel in the bliss of clearing your office or home of children for a few minutes.
Now, while this device has been successful in achieving its purpose, it was banned in Newport, South Wales after three months of use. Additionally, the Children's Commissioner of England has organized the BUZZ OFF campaign, which is a hilarious play on the fact that the device is called the Mosquito and...Mosquitos...buzz.
And who says English humor isn't funny?
And now, unsurprisingly, it is being sold in America. But, also unsurprisingly, it hasn't aroused near as much concern. According to CNN, in South Carolina and Maryland devices have been installed with no complaint by white people over 18 years old, you know, the only people that matter.
Santell, one of the marketers of the device, has claimed that its has recieved requests from government agencies wanting a louder version to "protect" government property.
Honestly, I find this all fantastic. By the time I'm older, we will have the technology to herd kids into pens and only let them out for scheduled knowledge and nutrition insertion. When they are plump enough, we will send them off to factories based on their ability, which will be gauged by future SAT scores (or, as I like to call them...fSATs) so that they can live a controlled, safe life producing until they die and are recycled as food for the new crop of youths.
The device costs $1,500 dollars. It's a good thing that kind of money could never fund a program to entertain kids so that loitering in parking lots just seems like a waste of time. Cause otherwise, the entire concept would be idiotic.
P.S.: Howard Stapleton was once quoted as saying of the kids that had emptied from a parking lot, "Either someone has come along and wiped them off the face of the earth, or it's working". I'm glad this device was invented by an intelligent, considerate scientist and not a maniacal sociopath.
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