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Archive | February, 2007

Professor Quippy: Hot Lap Prevention

By on February 20, 2007 in Odd Science

Professor QuippyIntel is patenting a way to prevent your naughty bits from overheating.

If you’ve ever sat for a while with a laptop perched upon your personal area, you know that things can get a little warm — and not in a nice way.

According to the New Scientist, Intel’s invention: “uses light to sense when a computer casing is getting too hot, and automatically “throttles back” the power.”

We wonder if other sources of genital heating can cause the computer to “throttle back” too — could be a successful way of preventing the use of laptop pr0n.

New Scientist story here.

Professor Quippy: Surviving the Apocalypse with MySpace

By on February 16, 2007 in Odd Science

Professor QuippyA couple of researchers at University of Maryland want us to log into MySpace the next time disaster strikes.

Ben Shneiderman and Jennifer Preece are applying for a grant to build a social network website similar to MySpace or Facebook to help people deal with the after-effects of an earthquake, flood, or a limited thermonuclear exchange. They’re working on the theory that emergency call centers will be flooded with calls, and that you’ll be able to get life-saving help from the “many-to-many” information exchange of social network websites instead.

I don’t know. If my face is sloughing off from radiation burns, I’m not sure I want to depend on treatment options from the collective wisdom of Gothgurl97 and Buffyluvr105.

You can find the New Scientist story here.

Important follow-up!

And just in time, the International Atomic Energy Authority has created a new sign to help us know when to run from radiation. We can only assume this is a joke. Nope. It’s serious.

The Carnival of Satire (#66)

By on February 15, 2007 in Carnival of Satire

Carnival of SatireYep, this is two great carnivals in a row, so we’ll just get straight to it:

If one can be cured of being an evangelical ass-bandit, then surely Archer can be healed as well.

And now, a short video from the help desk of a medieval Norwegian monastery. Thanks to John Sloan, Thuder Gott of Cyber Space for finding this one!

Ahistoricality has found 23 (worrying) signs thatYou’re Becoming a Design Geek.

The Epicurean Dealmaker has taken Swift’s original Modest Proposal, and updated it for the 21st century.

Perhaps the Epicurean Dealmaker had just read this news item: CEO Gets Severance After 45 Minute Stint, found at The Ominous Comma.

Madeleine Begun Kane has poetry on why she’s Qualified To Be Dick Cheney’s Top Aide Continue Reading →

Valentine’s Day Satire

By on February 14, 2007 in Monkeys!

Tired of sweat-stained fatties? Can’t take any more mullets? Then you shouldn’t be hanging around The Skwib and head over to the Darwin Dating site.

Ironically, Darwin himself would have never been able to join the superficial club. Damn you uni-brow!

Ask General Kang: OMG, the weather report says we’re getting 50 centimeters of snow! What do I do?

By on February 13, 2007 in Ask General Kang, Monkeys!

Ask General KangFirst of all, calm your hairless hominid ass down! It’s snow, not nuclear fallout.

If they were calling for 50 centimeters of nuclear fallout then you might need to get worried — perhaps get your best Orangu-techs working on some kind of fallout suit that you can wear to ride out the ensuing mass extinction on your planet.

But you’re forgetting Kang’s Corollary. Murphy’s Law states: “Anything that can go wrong, will.”

Kang’s Corollary states: “Anything that can go wrong, will, unless the we can get the media to talk about it incessantly, in which case, something else will go even more horribly wrong.”

So, my guess is that if the weather report is warning you about 50 centimeters of snow, your odds of actually seeing it are small.

But 50 centimeters! That will bury my apartment building! Won’t that start an ice age?

[Sigh.] Fifty centimeters is about a foot and a half.

Once my gorilloid armada arrives you humans are toast.

Next time: I have the sneaking suspicion that my cat is part of an interstellar plot to prevent me from dating — do you know what I should do?