The reason why so many popular games die out is that it becomes boring over time. When each round in a game does not vary so much from the next, people become bored. 

Yet the game Minecraft has managed to stay king of the games for quite some time, earning much respect and renown. The reason for this is because, unlike most games, Minecraft is a sandbox the likes of which people have not dreamed of before. With an infinite amount of possibilities to do in Minecraft, there is always something in Minecraft you haven’t done before.

This includes building massive castles, making farms, slaying dragons, or doing Redstone, a type of mechanic which allows the user to “code” of sorts in the game. With mods, short for modifications, the possibilities increase exponentially, in where you can build a spaceship, fly with a jetpack, catch Pokemon, or sit down near a campfire and cook some noodles. However, just in Vanilla Minecraft, the resources required to do some of these things are sometimes hard to get, and tedious to acquire. So many players become bored after some time. 

Fortunately, Minecraft can be multiplayer, which elevates the game to another dimension. But as fun as this is, casual players might get bored with going through the same steps over and over, which is why updates are key. 

The reason why updates are so good in Minecraft is that it is a sandbox, people can explore how they want. Whenever they add something, it doesn’t have a set function, it’s up to how people interpret it. Also, everything can be used in so many ways that one thing yields so many different possibilities, like a trident being able to be thrown, or be used as a melee weapon or as transportation, or slime blocks being used as trampolines but also as important parts of Redstone, or even blocks being added with unique properties being put up on display because they look cool.

This shows why Minecraft is so successful. Because their updates are so successful, when they do re-update the game it makes up for the time in between the updates.

A term within the Star Wars Universe, the Tarkin Doctrine is a type of military and political strategy mainly developed and refined by the Galactic Empire, more specifically the man named Wilhuff Tarkin, who ordered the destruction of Alderaan and which this fictional doctrine is named of. 

This doctrine, however, has some real-world counterparts. The Tarkin Doctrine’s greatest weapon was through intimidation, with a heavy emphasis on stopping events before they happened, usually through intimidation. A passage from the Star Wars Wiki best summarizes this:

“The doctrine was rooted in Tarkin’s theory of “Rule by Fear”—the contention that overwhelming displays of force, rather than force itself, were the most effective means of maintaining internal security and the loyalty of vassal worlds. The Emperor’s adoption of the “rule by fear” concept indirectly led to the accelerated development of the Death Star”.

I’d say that many strategies in real life exist that mirror this idea, that fear is the only way to rule. This happened during the French Revolution, where Robespierre ruled with an iron guillotine and an unremorseful conscience. However, anything that uses fear as diplomacy always will be brought down.

This shows how even things in a sci-fi world can translate into the real world. It also shows how ineffective placation by intimidation is.

The myth that has been thoroughly debunked by now is that lightning cannot strike twice in one place.

The truth is, this can happen, indeed the Empire State Building was smitten multiple times by thunderbolts from the heavens, sometimes more than once per day.

As with most claims, and myths, and legends, the false statements are but a warped reality of the truth. The reasons why the Empire State Building and other tall buildings aren’t already a smoking mess due to the electrical discharge of lightning is because the buildings already possess a safety countermeasure: the lightning rod. The lightning rod ensures that if the said building is struck by lightning, the voltage is dissipated harmlessly, meaning that the building does not become a crater.

The reason why, however, taller buildings can be struck so often is because of their height. Lightning naturally strikes taller objects, but on a flat plane, in theory, the chances of a double strike in quick succession would be a lot lower.

This shows that even with a lot of evidence before them, people can still choose to directly bypass proven science and use what they believe as point A to point B logic, that the possibility is too low.

The story of how we got this little doggo is quite the wonderful one. Indeed, it was very strange. 

It all started one day when my older sister just had a dance competition as a ballerina. To encourage my sister, my dad congratulated her and said that at a nearby supermarket he could buy one item in the store. Naturally, my dad suspected that my sister would merely choose something like a doll, or a drink, but coming up to the store he was in for a surprise. Y’ see, I and my sister were at the “puppy years” where children go through the phase where they continually pester their parents for a puppy wherein they will either achieve their erstwhile goal or have their hopes crushed and be forced to live watching their friends talk about their dogs and the special bond they share. 

Side note: having a dog, more precisely a more manageable, less hyperactive one can teach a child how to have responsibility. We were at the phase, though, when a puppy was at the forefront of our thoughts, a recurring argument appearing everywhere. As such, walking into the supermarket, my sister immediately headed towards the recently set up dog shelter. Fortunately, it was within the supermarket as to fulfill the promise. My sister quickly strode over and contemplated if she should get a little pit bull. Just as she was about to choose the pit bull, a special dog with black fur and brown underbelly with brilliant yellow eyes began to bark quite loudly. Taken by this two-year-old doggo, instead, she chose this dog. And that dog became Jasper, our family pet, for twenty dollars, the best deal we ever had in life. My dad was, truly, astounded by this wrench in his plan to motivate my sister.

This shows that sometimes good things DO come in life Not everything in life is horrible in dreary. So no matter what, no matter what you’re going through, keep your chin up.

Jaguars are a semiaquatic, semiarboreal multiterrained big cat that dwells in the Amazon Rainforest.

So let’s take this apart slowly…

First up, semiaquatic….

Indeed, the jaguar feels about as home in the water as he is on land. Though other big cats enjoy swimming, none of them are truly a master of the river. This is the big reason why jaguars are very survivable-because they can always fall back on other hunting habits other than stalking prey on land. The jaguar, since it’s sphere of influence includes the rivers of the Amazon, naturally preys on the capybaras that dwell there. Not only do they prey upon the largest rodent, but they are also wonderful fishers, able to catch fish deftly. They also can catch caiman, which is just a smaller crocodile-esque creature. Not only that but due to their large fangs and powerful jaws, which give them the highest bite strength of all the cats, they can prey on turtles as well, puncturing the shells easily. 

Next, semiarboreal….

The jaguar is also an avid climber, much like its cousin the leopard. Because of this, birds resting in their nests are prey for the jaguar. Not only that, but they can also catch the occasional monkey, and sometimes use the treetops as ambush zones. Thus, this increases their prey options and allows them to ambush prey more effectively.

Being a big cat, they obviously do spend time on land. This is where they can catch a large variety of animals, such as the tapir, armadillos, or sloths that come to the forest floor to go to the bathroom. Jaguars, however, are opportunistic hunters. With their powerful bites and a large array of skills, anything unfortunate enough to end up in the jaguar’s crosshairs can be turned into a meal. This includes younger anacondas, which happen to be the largest snakes in the world, crab-eating foxes, and giant anteater. Only a few animals escape the king of the jungle’s wrath, mainly fully grown anacondas which wouldn’t hesitate to try to snack on this cat.

What does this mean? Well, the reason why the jaguar can survive easily is due to its large array of talents. What are the talents? Well, tree climbing, swimming, and muscle to name a few. The success of the jaguar on the hunt can be largely be attributed to these three, (though the large canines of the jaguar provide it even more power in society people would just make fun of you even if your teeth grew to such proportions that one bite could end them), therefore, if these skills are so good for the jaguar, why can’t they be good for humans? The ability to swim is a crucial one in a pinch, climbing scenarios may also come in handy, and muscle will always be needed. Thus, it can be concluded that maintaining such physical form along with these abilities will in fact be not counterproductive, as the time spent is well compensated by the reward.

No, no, not football, I mean football. You know, the less famous one. And in case you have been living in a bubble for the last couple of years, YES! Football (more commonly known as soccer in the US) IS more popular than American football.

In fact, around a billion people tuned in for the World Cup final, though over the entire course of the tournament around 3.5 billion people watched it. Compared to the laughable 99.9 million viewers of the Super Bowl, soccer/football is much more popular than American football, on par with the Olympics in terms of viewers, though the Olympics consists of multiple different sports, which do not include football, so the fact a singular tournament about one sport managed to match a multi-sport extremely hyped competition is impressive.

However, I’m not here to talk about soccer/football, but American football, because not very many people know about it, even though some of my dimmer classmates said outright that they believed American football was the most popular sport in the world.

(Disclaimer: I cannot describe the entirety of football)

Football, contrary to the name, should be called handball or armball, because the sport revolves around arm strength, taking a much more brute force approach than the sophisticated-ness of soccer or basketball. It’s like if you crossed basketball with WWE, except it isn’t staged.

One round-ish ball that looks like somebody was making a normal round ball but accidentally stretched the ends to the max is the centerpiece of this beloved American sport. Basically, I’ll oversimplify the game: Team. Team gets the ball. Team has four chances. Team can run the ball, or throw the ball. Players can get tackled. Has hardcore fans. Great way to get concussions. Other team gets the ball after inevitable failure. Annnd repeat. And the goal of it is to reach the ends of the fields.

This shows that even if you may disagree with Americans about everything, you can’t hate football for having the same name as football. Many people would like to believe American football is a crude sport with no sophistication, but that’s only partially true. So, just because you kinda hate the people who came up with the name of football and think of it as inferior and dislike Americans for pretending the world revolves around it when indeed basically nobody watches it and that you have your own version that you believe is better called rugby doesn’t mean you have to believe the sport sucks. Because it can be a pretty nice sport!