#89

Crier Quotes

“For the right price, I’ll look the other way.”- Jiminy Cricket

Feature

“When Will I Ever Use This” Be Damned! Hitman Credits Kill to Effective Calculation with Compass, Protractor, Pythagorean Theorem

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA — Taking a moment to reflect on all those times he defiantly told his teachers, "I'll never need to use this again anyway, so what's the point?" local hitman Sam Ellis couldn't help but admit that the American education system he once passionately loathed had surprisingly prepared him for his career after graduation. Staring down the sight of his scope, a complex problem presented itself, and he skillfully solved it to eliminate his intended target, using nothing but a compass, protractor, and the Pythagorean theorem.

"So, there I was, lying prone on the roof of a twenty-story building, peering down my scope at a window eight stories up in a building three-quarters of a mile away. As luck would have it, I had been cleaning out my old room since my parents sold the house, and I stumbled upon my old compass and protractor on my desk. I couldn't tell you why I put them in my pocket, but boy am I glad I did."

Ellis etched a circle on a piece of scrap paper using the compass, with the radius equal to the distance from himself to the target. Then, with the assistance of his protractor, Ellis calculated the precise angle he'd need to shoot, accounting for the difference in their heights off the ground, transforming the situation into a complex right scalene triangle.

"That's when it hit me—the Pythagorean theorem—A2 + B2 = C2! I found the distance of the longest side, which, coincidentally, was the trajectory for the shot I was about to take. With the distances all laid out, I only had to adjust for a light 5-mile-per-hour south-southwest wind. And bang! My .50 cal found its way right into that guy's chest," Ellis chuckled.

"I guess I owe Mr. K an apology. Funny how life works sometimes, huh?"

At the printing of this newsletter, Ellis was seen in a local coffee shop surrounded by crumpled pieces of scratch paper, crunching the numbers of a new problem: "If my target boards a train from Berlin traveling at 90 miles per hour, and I board a train two hours later from Amsterdam traveling at 205 miles per hour, will I have time to savor a croissant before I murder him in Paris?"

Miscellaneous

  • Two new trends spread on TikTok this week. First, users posted videos of themselves using Tupperware filled with gas to kill wasps — effectively creating a toxic chamber. Tracing the lifehack’s origins, we were unsurprised to find it was German. On the nutritional front, there’s cause for concern as female users share photos of bare bones meals they’ve prepared with the tag “girl dinner.” Critics say an alarming number of these meals do not have proper nutritional value and recommend every girl dinner include a handful of boy dinner’s fries. 

  • K-pop sensation NewJeans is quickly becoming a fan favorite of the genre. The group has just shy of two billion views on YouTube and is the fastest K-pop group to hit one billion streams on Spotify. But longevity is the name of the game and the group believes they’re set up perfectly to transition alongside their fans from NewJeans to MomJeans. 

  • According to the Wall Street Journal, there are currently more NBA players with $30 million/year salaries than S&P 500 CEOs guaranteed the same amount annually — But unlike greedy S&P 500 CEOs, NBA players on average put more of that money back into their communities by supporting local strip clubs. 

  • ABC will air a spinoff of their famed “Bachelor” franchise, called “The Golden Bachelor.” Unlike previous iterations, The Golden Bachelor will feature senior citizen contestants instead of the usual lineup of individuals in their 20s to 30s. Network executives say they decided to call it “The Golden Bachelor” because focus groups weren’t crazy about the name “Cialis: The Show”

  • An Australian man cast adrift in the Pacific Ocean was scooped up by a Mexican tuna trawler, bringing to an end three months at sea with only his dog for company, officials and rescuers told local media. The 51-year-old sailor and his dog had set sail from Mexico for French Polynesia when a storm incapacitated his catamaran. Crew members of the rescue trawler said they found the man by following cries for “WILSON!”

Shameless Plugs

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