SlashNOT

Matthew writes: In an effort to assess the power of Prayer, the John Templeton Foundation funded a 2.4 million dollar study into the effects of divine intervention.

By assigning prayer teams of 70 individuals to pray for 1800 heart bypass patients, the size and scope of the study is more than large enough to firmly assess whether intercession actually occurs. Four groups of patients were created: Those prayed for who did not know it, those prayed for who did know it, those not prayed for, and those cursed.

Interestingly, the study showed no benefit for either those prayed for or for those not prayed for, but did determine that 59% of those cursed showed significant post-surgical complications, including arrhythmias, subsequent heart attacks, and at least two instances of patients turning into newts (although both subsequently recovered).

“We know that high levels of adrenaline from the anxiety response can make fibrillation worse.” Says Charles Bethea, a physician at Integris Baptist Heart Hospital in Oklahoma City, “But we had no idea that it could turn you into a newt. That was an unanticipated patient outcome.”

Mearzuh writes: Shanghai movie pirates have taken an good look at the recently debuted summer blockbusters and they did not like what they saw. According to their professional opinion, they could have made an improved version thereof — and they promise to do just that.

Word is they will start with The DaVinci Code. Instead of the story being that of no God, they will now include Him. Also, they will superimpose James Caviezel over Tom Hanks, but will keep Audrey Tautou as the sidekick because of her attractiveness. She’ll play a prostitute instead of a police officer, as that spices up the movie. “In addition, the title will be changed to ‘Passion of the Christ’, because Jesus’s passion was cracking codes.” said an official spokesman.

What’s next for the entrepreneurs? Mission Impossible 3. The plan is to superimpose anyone not Tom Cruise over the likeness of Tom Cruise. The movie will be expected then to make millions more.

Mearzuh writes: We have all heard of the latest and greatest products by the major players in this field; Microsoft with its XBOX 360, Nintendo with it’s Wii, and of course Sony with its PS3. Now Apple, Inc wants a piece of the apple pie, and enters the gaming market with its gaming console called Shoe.

To this day, enthusiasts have been sitting in front of the TV when playing games. The only physical action they got to see was those of their thumbs working the controller. Nintendo was about to change that with it’s Wii console by engaging the players to move a little more. From thumbs we then went to wrists and arms. That, still, was not enough for Apple. What results is The Shoe.

The Shoe console is simple but brilliant. Debuting alongside it is only one game, called Runnin’. The goal of this game is to get off your lazy butt as much as you can, and run around wherever for a predetermined amount of time. The graphics are as close to real-life as you can get, and the rumble pack makes the pavement or gravel easily distinguishable when on the move. The added effects of being able to feel the light breeze or smell the BBQ of a park you may play Shoe in makes it irresistable.

But perhaps the most irresistable aspect of this console is its price. At $ 29, you too can be up and Runnin’ in no time.

P.S.: I would like to thank SlashNOT and the visitors that have honored me with the title of Contributor of the Year 2005. I did not find out about this until today. My stories were absent for a few months due to life, but now I’m back, and will try to provide you with laughs and giggles the best I can.

Yours Truly,
Mearzuh

matthew writes: Ever the innovator, Apple Computer has released an easy and inexpensive new cooling method to cope with the prodigious heat generated by their new series of aluminum Mac Book Pro computers.

Generating enough heat to keep laptop users comfy in the winter and sterile throughout the year, heat related issues have plagued Apple support. While the company insists that the laptops run within spec, they do advise that all users maintain a safe distance from the machines.

To cope with the problem, Apple support has developed a remedial method for cooling the computers during use. End users are now advised to simply pour water onto the laptops on a regular basis to cool them. The circuitry runs so hot internally that the water immediately superheats, making it non-conductive and therefore safe for electronics. As with any super-heating steam source, users should ensure that they are a safe distance from the laptop during steam cooling operations.

Matthew writes: The National Asperger’s Institute has released clinical diagnostic criteria for nuerotypical (normal) humans, placing the list of symptoms under the umbrella spectrum disorder “Pooflinger’s Syndrome.” Dr. Sarl Cagan explains the reason and meaning of the diagnosis.

“Recent research suggests that neurotypical individuals are, in fact, capable of relatively high functioning language abilities. This discovery, along with the fact that they exhibit at least some facility with computers, indicates that a clinical diagnosis can be helpful in getting these individuals the help that they so desperately need.”

Symptoms of Pooflinger’s Syndrome include:

• Sensitivity to nonverbal social cues such as facial expressions and body language
• Self-subordination into primate hierarchical groups.
• Late or incompletely developed mathematical development.
• Inability to develop even the simplest lexical parser.
• Inability to comprehend the preceding symptom.
• Inability to create satire.
• Inability to discern why anyone would write an article on Wikipedia.

matthew Strebe writes: After discovering that dolphins create a signature whistle for themselves similar to a human name , Scientists have diligently begun translating the names of groups of dolphins from both Australia and Florida.

“The most surprising thing we’ve discovered is that dolphins name themselves—they’re not named by their pod mates or parents. This has precedent in numerous human cultures, and we’ve focused on those cultures when selecting translations for dolphins.”

“For example, Flip-master D, the leader of the Miami South Beach pod, swims with most of the females in the pod, including Babynose, Li’l Swim, Lady Lobes, and Sleek-Eek-Eek, whereas other more reclusive males such as Hydrodynamic, LL Cold J, and Torpedo G prefer to swim alone.”

“We’ve also identified an Eastern Hemisphere/Western Hemisphere rivalry between the Foridian and Australian Bottlenose Dolphins, with the Australians giving themselves group names, such as “The Sea Beasties”, “The GBR Wrecking Krew”, and “Antipodean Shark Killaz”—a pod name that scientists described as being particularly difficult to translate. DJ Locker, leader of the ASK, issued a warning through scientists to Flip-master D: “That trained-ass hoop jumpin’ monkey lover best not flip to tha GBR, or we be servin’ his ass up to some Japanese research vessels, true dat.”

Erik Cornelius writes: After deciding that their Revolution console should be renamed to Wii, Nintendo has created quite a stir in the gamer community. In response to the renaming, some indie songwriters have created a theme song to ridicule the change. Based on “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by the Tokens, “A Wii to Play” chronicles the horrified reaction of many a hardcore gamer.

matthew writes: Zheng Cui, M.D., Ph.D., the director of research at Wake Forest University, has relinquished his position over his distress at the discovery of a mouse with natural resistance to even the most virulent forms of Cancer.

“You have to understand. I’ve spent forty years—four decades—studying cancer. I know even the most esoteric details about the propagation of cancer and the defensive mechanisms that the body normally supports. I’ve created and tested hundreds of theories and hypotheses and performed hundreds of thousands of experiments in search of a mechanism to defeat this most vicious of human diseases.”

“And then this damned mouse mutates, and voila! All my work is for naught. I could simply have been a rat breeder and made this discovery. Furthermore, because he’s a lab mouse, he’s a near exact clone of his parents, so isolating the genes that confer this protection against cancer were obvious.”

“So, my work is done. Stupid mouse.”

Eyes Only writes: AT&T Introduces Privacy+ Tier for Consumers and an NSA Turbo-Speed Tier for the government, at Market-Leading Prices

Wednesday April 26, 6:00 am ET

For 24.95 a month extra, the new Privacy+ Tier offers consumers the ability to feed all data to the NSA at the slowest speeds available. However, for an extra 24.95 per month, per customer, the NSA can override the Privacy+ Tier and spy on Americans at Speeds of up to 6.0 Megabits per Second

SAN ANTONIO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 26, 2006–AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T - News) today announced a new, higher-privacy tier for its AT&T Yahoo!� High Speed Internet service that meets consumers’ growing outrage for allowing the NSA full availability to its backbone. At the same time, it announced a new NSA Turbo-Speed Tier that, for a fee, allows the government to override the newly introduced Privacy+ Tier.

Matthew writes: Kaavya Viswanathan’s book, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life” has already been eviscerated for containing obviously plagiarized passages from Megan McAfferty’s two books “Sloppy Firsts” and “Second Helpings” , and from the novel “Can You Keep a Secret?” by Sophie Kinsella. Kaavya had worked with a “Book Packager” who used ghost writers and editors to rewrite her work and shopped it to various publishers.

It now appears that Miss Viswanathan’s book may have plagiarized even more content from the satire website “SlashNOT”. For example, the book uses the phrases:
“I don’t think he…” from the SlashNOT short “Man with robotic arms goes on Rampage”
“…your car. The…” taken from “10th Planet revealed to be Death Star”
“…looks a lot like…” taken from “Yahoo! does walk of shame”
Furthermore, the mysterious male object of desire in Kaavya’s book has dark eyes and a scar on his left hand, just like the protagonist of “Cheetah the chimpanzee turns 74, demands universal health care for apes”

Matthew, editor of SlashNOT, had this to say: “It’s baffling, and a little sad. I just hope she gets the help she needs. I guess kids these days don’t realize that all the words have been used up– especially the 2500 words that the average 14 year old understands. I just feel badly for her.”