Apocalypse Soon

Q: With a global meltdown imminent, I would like to know how you're preparing for it Harv. I plan on basing my own survival on your sage advice - so please. Share with us less fortunate than yourself the wisdom necessary to overcome this bleakest of futures and survive into the new age.

A: Sure, dear reader; I am writing this from my lead-coated, underground bomb shelter as we speak.

There are a few precautions that everyone should be considering, in order to prepare for the global apocalypse:

1) Trade in your cash. When the meltdown occurs, your cash money will be worth EXACTLY the paper it's printed on. People will tell you to store gold, but gold also has little practical value in a post-apocalyptic, low technology society, where most of the leprechauns have been disassembled at a sub-atomic level. Personally, I have opted for peanuts. Not only are they a good source of nutrition and will provide great collateral in a bartering society, they are damned delicious and go well with beer. It's lonely down here in the shelter.

2) Impregnate someone. It sounds silly, but if your face is melted off by excessive UV exposure, or your body is disintegrated to a pile of steaming custard by a nuclear blast-wave, your offspring is a way to survive beyond physically surviving. Obviously, this does not apply to women. I'd advise women to become more slutty and less choosy -- and then tell me what bars they are planning to hang out in.

3) Invent time travel or teleportation. It may sound like science fiction, but this is an area of research that the human race is really slacking off in. Sure, I've been dabbling myself, and have actually been able to transport my hand across the room 20 metres, only to get it stuck in a cement wall and spend hours with a hammer and chisel trying to free it so I could sew it back on. But, even though I can definitely do it alone, it would be slightly faster if we also had the world's greatest minds to support my efforts.

Eventually, I'm planning to make a clone of myself, implant my memories in it, cryogenically freeze it, and teleport it into the far reaches of space. That way, if we destroy the planet, at least our greatest natural resource -- me -- will be preserved. The aliens should know how to thaw me out and revive my massive intellect.

Please, though, whatever you do, don't shoot talentless hacks like Lindsay Lohan or David Hasselhoff out there after me, no matter how much money they throw at the problem.

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Mmm... M&Ms...

Q: Ever wonder when you eat these little chocolate pieces...who actually print's the M&M on these little dudes???

A: You may believe it's Santa's elves, highly intelligent ticks with tiny fountain-pens, or even aliens from the planet "Alpha Candori" that perform this intricate task! But, dear reader, unfortunately the truth is much less interesting: fairly simple machines, designed by man.

However, your question has relevance in the field of ultrafast laser micro-machining, as the text on M&Ms were a precursor to this interesting field of miniaturization research.

Recently, researchers from the manufacturing firm Micreon GmbH managed to create a pair of glasses fitted to the head of a fly. And the amazing thing is that, not only did they fit, they were stylish!

I have heard, through my contacts at Nasa, Harvard and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, that Micreon's next project will be lubricated, vibrating condoms for African Dung Beetles. Admittedly, male Dung Beetles do get a whole lot less sex than you might think, but, when they do manage to get laid, they have an notoriously immutable talent for two things:

• producing offspring with almost every pop
• providing very little pleasure for the poor female shit-bug

That latter is, in large part, due to their horrific stench (yes its abhorrent even to females of the species), but it's still a praise-worthy research-goal nevertheless.

Slightly less praise-worthy is their other high-priority project of the moment: M&Ms that are 1/1000th the size of regular candies. I have seen a proof-of-concept, and to me it looks just like a multi-coloured bag of sticky sand -- and to be quite honest, it melts in your hand a lot easier than the regular size.

In my assessment: EPIC FAIL!

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More Interesting Than Watching Paint Dry!

Q: Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

A: Yes! And what does one do with a painting of four billion stars?

Great question, dear reader! This syndrome is a well-known aspect of human thought processes (or lack thereof) called the "Ignorami Factor", first described by the brilliant philanthropic egomaniac Ignatious Ignorami.

Basically, what the principle infers is that humans are more susceptible to accepting unverifiable facts when they are larger and more elaborate.

In even simpler terms: the bigger the lie, the more likely people are to believe it.

This can be seen in many aspects of modern life, and many "facts" presented to us by popular culture and the media. Some examples:

• Money makes the world go round. But, yeah, isn't it also the root of all evil. So what then? Is the world evil?
  (note: I actually think this particular contradiction was due to a simple typo. I'll let you decide if it should have been "monkey makes the world go round" or "monkey is the root of all evil.")
• Michael Jackson is dead. Yah, er... ok, suuure he is. But first he made a DVD and a couple of new songs! In no way has that been convenient for him and his estate!
• The tragedy of 9-11 was perpetuated by terrorists. Oh really!? If you could see how much evidence I had to indicate it was an act of war by an alien species, your heart would probably stop.
• Veronica is not a whore. I assure you all, dear readers, she most certainly is.

I could go on. To be honest, following a childhood incident with a hot iron, some black duck feathers and an oversized novelty hammer, I have been fighting this syndrome myself for many years, but my nature is to verify every fact for myself.

So, yes, I have counted the stars and it's nowhere near four billion!

I also verified Michael Jackson's "death", and... well... I can't reveal too much of that because it might involve illegally exhuming his corpse, which I definitely DIDN'T do.

And I have those happy snaps to prove the Veronica thing. Who wants to see them?

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Close Encounters of the Wrong Kind

Q: Does extra terrestrial life exist ? Have you had any encounters ? is it possible for humans to breed with ET's ?


A: This is a bit of a sensitive question. I've been instructed not to talk about this issue by so many governemnts that I've completely lost count!

But let me just say this... Yes, humans can breed with aliens... and they like to spoon.

Screw you United Nations!

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In LAYman's terms...

Q: Professor Harv, what came first, the chicken or the egg ?

A: Firstly, let me just say you can drop the "professor"; we're all peers on AskHarv (albeit some of us are peers with an intelligence that surpasses his readers').

As for the age-old question regarding the chicken or the egg, the answer is simpler than you might think.

All life-forms on this planet were originally sent down from space in small egg-shaped capsules, from a distant planet called Galaxatron where they were constructed on one of the planet's many production lines. To the Galaxatronics, these "life-forms" are considered household appliances, with no more importance than a toaster has to us.

The factories on Galaxatron have a 0.000000062% rate of product failure, and anything that the QA team detects as faulty is ejected into space. Sometimes these faulty products end up crashing into Earth and the resulting product starts an entirely new species.

So it's the chicken.

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