I've always dreamed of a world where Pokemon and humans coexist. Things would be peaceful, children and their Pokemon would play in the park all day long, and nobody would have to work. All society would have to do is catch Pokemon and trade them for food (or just eat them). But how would people do this on a daily basis without going crazy?

A Pokedex is only so useful...all it can really do is identify and remember which Pokemon you've caught. The major problem would be trying to find them all on your own. Well, what if a mega tech giant such as Google came along and decided to solve this problem and find them for you? What would be required of the company to achieve this?

Google would have to hire the best hunters in the world to seek out every Pokemon or at the very least, identify a specific number of Pokemon in a region. Pokemon would be pre-identified for the purpose of a brand new Google service which would display to a user the exact location of Pokemon. Essentially, Google would physically micro-ID Pokemon and allow only a specific number of customers to join their service. To even further break down this concept, let's just call this geo-caching for Pokemon. 

Why not use crowd sourcing? I suppose there would have to be some incentive to not capture Pokemon since, in this society, people must capture and trade Pokemon to stay alive! So I would say that crowd sourcing would not be ideal. Users of the service would not want to be the ones to get their hands dirty for free. All they would want to do is pick up their newfangled devices and point it in the direction of the nearest Pokemon to start capturing them all.

I don't see what's wrong with having a peaceful society in which Pokemon exist. I just wouldn't want to have to bother looking for them all day long. It would be incredibly boring. That's why a Google service such as the one I've described is incredibly smart on their part and innovative. It keeps the peace. But it makes me use my hands. What if Google gave away Google Glass? All we'd have to do is turn our heads to find Pokemon. Forget using your hands or minds – too difficult. Of course it would be ad supported, selling Pokemon litter or toys, potions and elixirs, auto-levelers and poke-pills that reduce your Pokemon to a previous evolution. But that's in an ideal world and I don't see that happening anytime soon. 

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

When I first started hearing rumors about Microsoft Office on the iPad, I was very excited. Now, this was way back when the iPad was first launched in 2010. I thought that putting productivity software onto a tablet could really change computing. But years passed with no Word (no pun intended) and the PC market shrank, tablets and smartphones started eating what little was left of that market, and I just didn't care how I wrote words onto a digital page. I think for some, Microsoft Office or Word to be exact, was synonymous with typing something on the computer. "Oh, do you have Word?" "Can you send me a .doc of that file?" "Hold on, let me open Word and see if I can find what we're looking for." Yeah... Word was the equivalent of the Kleenex. 

That was years ago which was a time before tablet computing (2009). Now I can write by swiping, tapping, touching, gesturing, dictating, and good old fashioned keyboard typing. But input is just one aspect of writing. Input is the "how." It's the "where" that seemed to fade away once new platforms were developed like Google Docs (now called Google Drive), which enabled these highly portable devices to have an anywhere-resume button on writing your latest chapter for that novel you've been writing...

Also, there was the HUGE fact that we didn't have the equivalent of a Microsoft Word for emerging platforms. We had and still have Simplenote, Evernote, Springpad, and a massive amount of tether-able apps which connect to cloud storage services such as Box and Dropbox.

So yeah, Microsoft today announced Microsoft Office for iOS and Android. But do we really care anymore? I sure as hell don't. I bought Pages a long time ago and to be honest, I've always preferred Pages (and *cough,* *cough* Open Office's Writer) over Word. I just couldn't justify spending piles of dough each time Word had a minor update for doing something so very, very basic. And now, you have to pay a subscription fee if you want to use Office on a tablet or PC. To be fair, my needs aren't your needs but I had to take some kind of angle here and if writing is your priority, you don't really need to waste your hard earned dollars on something that is available for free. Let the comments for why you need to have a powerful word processor commence!

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

The eastern wood thrush is my favorite songbird. The best time to hear one is just before sunset when it fills the woods with an ominous yet beautiful flowing whistle. Click to listen.

Catbirds can be identified by a very busy and some may say noisy call. Their tails usually flutter sporadically and they are quick on their feet. Click to listen.

Hang an orange in a tree and if you're lucky, a Baltimore Oriole will come to eat it. Click to listen.

These birds are strange and so is their name. They almost look as if they're hurt while in a resting position. Click to listen.

These large birds can be found by riversides, perched high up in trees. Their nests are generally messy looking so they aren't too hard to find. Click to listen.

Via: BirdJam.com, AllAboutBirds.org
By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

The tardigrade is one of my favorite microscopic organisms. They are the ultimate survivalists. They can withstand extreme cold and heat, live years without nourishment, and can even survive space. You need an electron microscope to see them but they are nearly everywhere.

Tardigrades are also known as water bears and resemble water weenies, only they have eight arms and a tiny sucker for a mouth. Their movements are that of something many, many times their size which makes them appear to be too perfect for something so microscopic. The crazy thing is that they've been studied for many years but not too long ago, they were said to be non-ubiquitous. In fact, they are probably in your back yard crawling around in the trees. Check out this video to learn more about them.

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

I first have to admit that I'm a huge fan of the show Mythbusters before I praise a podcast that's....very worthy of my praise. I had no idea who the Mythbusters were when I first started watching the show years ago, but I knew that between Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman they had over 30 years of experience in special effects and not much more than that. 

The two busters of myths are famous for saying that they make a great team but wouldn't make great friends because they are so very different from each other. The only reason that they've been blowing stuff up for the past ten years or so has to do with Adam being hired by Jamie's company to work on the set of A Nightmare Before Christmas. This is where the all the fun began. 

A few years later they were shooting a pilot for Discovery. Adam did what he does best and put his ability to embrace something new to work by learning how to edit video while in the process of editing their video pitch and the rest is still history in the making. But I'm not here to talk about the Mythbusters. My knowledge about them is a result of hours and hours of listening to a wonderful little gem called Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project. Yes, it's a podcast titled after the absence of a title and yes, you can download and listen to it whenever and wherever you please.

I've spent the last few weeks listening to old episodes not because I'm trying to catch up, but because I genuinely enjoy listening to Adam Savage talk about just about everything! He covers it all...parenting, marriage, working in a shop, being a geek, video games, special effects, film, Etsy shopping, hearing loss, stitches, whip making, holiday shopping, Indiana Jones, Quentin Tarantino, tech, shop safety, dumpster diving, building a toolkit, cooking, celebrity encounters, travel, science, comics, cosplay, myth busting... To sum up the real Adam Savage: He's a human sponge willing to absorb anything and just as willing to regurgitate that information back in the most passionate and gracious way possible. 

Of course, he's not alone while spouting out randomness, he's joined by Will Smith (not the Fresh Prince) and Norman Chan (Jamie too, but he's not on this particular podcast). Together they are part of Tested.com which is sort of like Mythbusters but online and on a much smaller, more focused level. Will and Norm are technology writers and built Tested as a place for "anything that's awesome." Somehow, they linked up with Adam and Jamie and now they have a place for mega awesomeness!

I've seriously learned a ton by listening to Still Unitiled: The Adam Savage Project and think that if you enjoy science, family life, cooking, and the long list mentioned above, you'll without a doubt love listening to these guys and their interesting lives as they pepper listeners with mega awesomeness and the occasional Jamie-looks-like-a-walrus joke.

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics