Proportion

A bucket of lava fired from the cannon causes fear of a mass volcanic eruption.

Proportion is a popular make of cannon developed and distributed by M3dia. Being the oldest family-owned cannon manufacturer, dating back to 1,000,000 BC. the company has been praised numerous times by the press and M3dia has been officially recognized as #1 in Forbes magazines list of 500 most influential companies on Earth. It has recently had a surge in sales shortly before the year 2000, and sales and usage of Proportion has been steadily climbing since then. Proportion is repeatedly heralded as one of the few weapons that can change the tide of any battle without causing actual harm to anyone.

Founding of M3dia

M3dia was founded in 1,000,000 B.C. by a European Verne Krug, who judging by the pictographs constructed a crude Proportion of him pointing a slingshot tool at a walking baby mammoth and yelling what could have been "UNGA-GWUNGA-UNGAWA" or "mammoth stampede". This was found in a small dense cave nearly 9 miles away from the cave that had the majority of caveman fossils, and is acknowledged that this was the original perpetrator of the company. Later on, Verne's descendants founded M3dia and started cannon production, with the then prototypical name, Insults.

Insults

Insults was the first and only design explored before Proportion became the standard. Although the company was run by brothers Harold and Eugene Kerne, Insults was designed by Yuri Nidaot, a Russian immigrant who came to Amerika looking for some recognition that eluded him in Russia. He planned out the basic design in 1574, which he admitted were stolen from Ivan the Terrible's secret piggy bank. He did however edit the blueprints before designing the cannon, citing that the blueprints themselves were "similar to something that John Calvin would find lazily put together". Calvin ignored these inflammatory comments, although Thomas Hobbes would from then on mention how that Russian had "Gotten his tongue" when on break from their show. The cannon was completed 4 years later on February 28, 1578.

Usage of Insults

"You can't spell four shit!" was the ammunition, but the soldier had made a careless error, causing his insult to backfire.

Fully functional and sporting a 20mm caliber barrel, it was an easy to mass-produce product and saw heavy usage in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Firing insults over wide distances was a landmark success for M3dia, and an early innovation for the company as a whole. Ammo was in generous supply, often requiring no more than a few simple letters and phrases to be effective. The French made especially good use of the cannon in its last legs, unfortunately by that time the company had long ceased production of Insults due to bad materials. The inner funnel was corroding and the primary material, misunderstanding, leaked in the tube and corrupted whatever message was fired. This and the unfortunate drawback of Insults backfiring was a major contributor during the French Revolution. To this day, the company remains deeply indifferent to the French Revolution, not because they were arrogant fools that wouldn't listen to Maurice Kerne, but because the French would routinely send messages berating the company while telling how wonderful the product was.

Proportion

Proportion is considered to be the ultimate improvement from Insults. Designed and Built by Kevin Kerne in 1801, it was from then on the standard in cannon warfare, especially with it being backwards compatible with Insults, meaning whatever ammo was usable with Insults is functional with Proportion. Proportion features a 40mm caliber barrel, wider range, a more durable and sturdier design, tires with a rugged grip, handles and a cross hair for greater accuracy. The ability of the machine to load and fire a wide variety of ammo also boosted sales and praise for M3dia, insuring that there will be plentiful amounts of money in the future for hardware revisions.

Blowing things out of Proportion

Accepting all sorts of different types of ammunition, Proportion was more deadly and harmful than simply firing insults. The ammunition ingeniously translates the original meaning of the ammunition into a far more deadly outcome when the powder is ignited with the flame-bait. For example, if one were to fire a shruiken through Proportion, instead of just hitting the target and confusing people, the meaning is changed to Ninja War. Accepted types of ammunition are (the / indicates the translation when fired, s indicates a spoken message):

• Spoken or Written insults/Declarations of battle
• A small rock/Meteorite shower
• Dead rat/Black plague

A group of Swedes have blown this dead rat out of Proportion, causing people to flee the countryside fearing the bubonic plague.

• Burnt matchstick/Wildfires
• Empty water bottle/Drought
• Stocks selling/Stock Market Crashes s
• Calculator/Robot uprising
• Minor concussion sustained/Head exploded s
• Mushroom/Nuclear Warfare
• Minor injuries/Brutal murder s
• Dry leaf/Widespread famine
• Moth/Worldwide computer failure
• Price of a product lowered/Inflation s
• Monkey opens cage door/Wild murderous gorilla on the loose s
• Car keys/Grand Theft Auto epidemic
• Pothole appears in road/Sinkhole swallows city s
• Lava/Volcanic eruptions
• Snowball/Nuclear Winter
• Anonymous IP vandalizes stub/Sysops delete Uncyclopedia

Critical Reaction

When the plans about Proportion were first made public, the press and various news outlets disowned the transition from Insults to Proportion, despite the obvious drawbacks that Insults had. The events leading up to it's release were of mockery and satire, with many public press figures poking fun of "M3dias imminent collapse". However, on it's release the press quietly announced that "it was the best weapon out on the market". Riding on the commercial success of Proportion, M3dia has announced no current plans to change the current model, and instead to do upgrades on the chassis every so often and focus on that.