Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis - a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust found in volcanoes.

Many may recognize this word as the longest existing English word, as I did when I searched Wikipedia for "word," and came across the article about it, but apparently those people would be incorrect. Partial credit can be given - at 45 letters in length, it is the longest English word officially recognized dictionary, appearing in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1936. However there are three words that Wikipedia considers words, that are longer than it:

In third place, 85 letters in length, is

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotameteaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenakitanatahu

This word (I don't want to write it again (and by write I mean paste)) is the longest officially recognized name of a place. It is the name of some hill, 305 meters in height, in New Zealand. I don't know how something becomes "officially" recognized as a place, but I don't really mind, either. The name means "The summit where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, the climber of mountains, the land-swallower who traveled about, played his flute to his loved one."

In second, with 183 characters, is

Lopado­temacho­selacho­galeo­kranio­leipsano­drim­hypotrimmato­sil-
phio­paraomelito­katakechymeno­kichl­epi­kossypho­phatto­perister­alek-
tryon­opte­kephallio­kinklo­peleio­lagoio­siraio­baphe­tragano­pterygon.

This one doesn't really deserve to be one of the longest words. It is "the longest word ever used by a major author." It comes from Aristophanes' comedy Assemblywomen, where he used it as the name of an invented dish. If someone can both remember the word, and use it in a sentence in a conversation, I would be exceptionally impressed.

And in first place, with 189819 (that's not a typo) letters,

This word!

This is the "longest full chemical name of a protein," more often referred to as titin. Makes sense. If someone could use this one in a conversation, I would be about 1037 and a quarter times more impressed than before.

Now, onto other things that aren't long words!

Rogers

is incredibly evil. I was peacefully finishing off an English assignment at 11:00 last night, when suddenly the internet, my source of secondary references to prove that I was not entirely making up what I was writing, ceased to function. I spent about 30 minutes trying to fix the problem (well, 20 fixing and 10 trying to connect to my neighbor's network), then my mom called Rogers to ask if it was a problem on their end. It was. They always give such useful information when called, those Rogers people. Yesterday they informed me that their cable services throughout the Greater Toronto Area were broken, and they were not sure why, and that they would be fixed within the next 48 hours, or else we would get free internet for the month. With such useful information, completing my English assignment was simple: I got my mom to write me a note!

Pikmin

should not be in SSBB. I have played Pikmin and Pikmin 2, and they were both pretty good games, so I am pretty sure that my opinion on the matter is not biased. I just think that playing as Olimar would be very limited. All he can do is pick Pikmin off of the ground, and throw Pikmin. Compared to the 10+ moves that all the other characters have (even sonic has a couple ways of turining into a ball and killing people), I think it'll be pretty dumb. Kind of like putting Akamaru, the dog, into Clash of Ninja 2. You can read more about this likely very stupid idea here. Hopefully Nintendo will take the extra month that they have delayed the game for (again) to make Olimar a decent character in the game.

jPod

I realize that I didn't really explain jPod at all (well, I was going to, but then realized that I was incredibly busy) (or maybe I just didn't feel like it), thus I'll actually talk about it now.

Basically, it's a book about a guy named Ethan, who's a video game programmer. Because of a glitch in the office distribution program at the company at which he works, he and all the people whose last names begin with a 'J' were moved to the lowest floor of the company's building, which is very very far underground (I believe there was a funny explanation of this, but I forget what it was...), and thus they called themselves the jPod. Interesting things then follow, like:

• Ethan's mom kills a biker who comes to her house to buy pot, by accident.
• Ethan's dad no longer likes his wife, and goes out with someone who Ethan went to high school with.
• Ethan's brother, who is smuggling people somewhere (I forget) leaves them in Ethan's apartment one day.
• Ethan's new boss makes him turn the skateboarding game that jPod is making into a game about a turtle.
• Ethan's boss gets forcefully brought to China.
• Much more...

Now you have an even more compelling reason to wither watch the tv show or read the book!

I'm working on another problem that hopefully Jon won't be able to solve with a program (I think I'll go for one that would take far too long to solve this time), and I'll probably be done by tomorrow. Plus, It's the first round of the Topcoder TCHS tournament tomorrow at 1! Hopefully I'll get a score > 0 so that I can advance. A bientot!