Just tell me a wizard did it, and we’re cool

I just watched Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) and it was awful for many reasons (especially that the so-called “geniuses” kept doing the most idiotically-stupid things 😒). But one thing that annoyed me was how they kept trying to pass it off as realistic with “science”. Look, if you tell me it’s “magic”, then I’m fine, I’ll accept magic as a catch-all explanation for the most fantastical things with no question. I don’t need or even want rules or consistency to magic, it’s a free-for-all. But when you try to pass off stuff as “science” and pretend it makes any sense, then we’ve got a problem. My suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far.

It’s ridiculous to say that they were exposed to some sort of radiation which mutated their DNA which somehow magically (but not actually magically 😒) gave them the abilities to turn invisible or stretch or EMIT A FORCE-FIELD as opposed to the infinitely more likely, oh, I don’t know, DYING, or at best, getting CANCER. 🙄 If anything, Ben’s “power” of being turned into a pile of rocks is the most realistic one since there have indeed been “tree people” who seemed to turn to stone because of a genetic mutation causing their skin to break out in hard warts.

HPV tree-man-syndrome
A patient with HPV related “Tree-man Syndrome”, Epidermodysplasia Verruciformis

Just tell me a wizard did it, and we’re cool.

Lucy Lawless’ answer’s flawless
She shut down all the nerds
They tried to ask her,
But she answered faster
And took away their words

America and Metric

It aggravates the hell out of me that America eschews the Metric system for several reasons:

  • The Metric system, while not perfect, is vastly superior to and much simpler than the Imperial system that America uses. It is consistent with equal intervals of 10 instead of random ones, which makes it easy to memorize. It uses decimal units (intervals of 10) which makes it easy to use by multiplying or dividing to make larger or smaller units.
  • America always makes such a big deal about how they revolted against the British and abjured their ways, and yet they keep using the Imperial system which, you guessed it, is British!
  • Every other country in the world has had the brains to switch to Metric except for the United States and a couple of third-world countries.