I was reading some Yahoo news today, complete with links to the New York Times, and I was surprised to see that "A new study says it's possible to boost the amount of mental ability you were born with."

I understand what they're going for, and I get their point.

BUT! The wording just sounds like you can do something in the here and now that would retroactively impact how smart you were at the moment of birth. If you could "boost the amount of mental ability you were born with" by 100%, you'd effectively double how smart you were however many years ago you were born. But that would cause ripples throughout the past 20-60 years…

Let's see if the article (from the Times) can shed some light on the matter. Surely it will be much clearer than the short Yahoo headline.

The first sentence of the article reads, "A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth."

Wow, this is serious. This is great! So long, SAT score of 200! I'm gonna change everything.

First I'll go back and double how smart I was at age 0. Then I'll live my life up to April 30, 2008, and go back and double my intelligence again! And again and again and again…

Remember a few years ago when computers used to shut down just to provoke us? I'm assuming your computer has gotten better. I know mine has.

I've seen clips of guys (from the '90's I assume) freaking out and trashing their monitors. It's like you're the king, and your messenger shows up during a crucial battle in World War -7, and he says, "We're losing!" And you say, "Execute the traitor!" It's not the messenger's fault… just like it's not the monitor's fault…

Anyway, I found a couple variations of a YTMND that seemed interesting, and they fit right in with this topic. The first one is the original. I think it's based on an old TV commercial. Make sure your volume isn't too high…

Mad Dad

Here's the second variant. I thought this version was outrageous:

Tech Support Is Not The Answer

You can see the father sulking over the computer on the right as the camera moves left to show the girl. So then when the father shows up from the left, it's like a completely different guy! Could he have called PC Express, and gotten the typically horrible service that many (most? [all?]) customers receive? Assuming the answer is yes, then he must have been so infuriated that he dedicated the rest of his life to inventing time travel.

Years later, at age 79, he's finally perfected his technology. He returns to the time after he got the run-around over the phone, and just after his younger self decided to invent time travel. Old version guy gives the technology to fed up young version guy.

Fed up young version guy then time jumps back to the moment just before his daughter originally suggested to her imaginary friend that her "Daddy needs to call PC Express." She goes ahead and delivers her suggestion. Fed up young version guy loses it and smacks his daughter with the keyboard. Her head falls off easily. …Too easily.

Fed up young version guy didn't manage to prevent the girl from sharing her idea, but he did uncover the sinister truth. That she is a robot infiltrator sent by PC Express! Fed up young version guy teams up with his slightly younger (and slightly less fed up) counterpart, and they use the power of time travel to erase PC Express from existence. (I've never heard of it, have you?)

The only evidence of these events are the two YTMNDs and a small handful of other web media…

Holy crap! 5 years until Armageddon!!!!!

But seriously folks… take my wife, please!

I read on Wikipedia and elsewhere that among the things that are predicted for December 21, 2012 are:

With so many possibilities for an earth-changing event, it looks like 12-21-2012 is a date that will live in infamy, at least until it happens and is highly unextraordinary.

But maybe something big really will take place… So just make sure you make as much money online as you can now, while there's still time!

For those of you seriously curious about December 21, 2012, here's a clip of the show "Sightings" that answers a few questions. I think it's a little old; they say there are only 2 future Popes left until "The End," but I think now we're down to one. The next Pope is supposed to be the last, according to the prophecy.