• Meep (unregistered)

    First "f*** I don't want to go to work today" post.

  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered)

    So TRWTF was that he needed to re-spackle the heat sink on his CPU?

  • Crash (unregistered)

    My guess is that the last part implys that the DNA sequence they were working on was the presidents daughters. Perhaps the sequence will cure her or something?

  • Gizz (unregistered)

    "Andrew," Steinbrenner said, "remember what I said about the president’s sick daughter?"

    No, I don't get it...

  • mike5 (unregistered)

    What about the sick daughter??!!!! The suspense is killing me!!

  • Giles Roadnight (unregistered)

    Presumably the meeting was called off as the president wasn't going to be able to make it because of his daughter??

  • Caffeinated Cake (unregistered) in reply to Giles Roadnight

    That's probably the reason, yes.

  • Bad Human (unregistered)

    Maybe she died.

  • Tim (unregistered)

    maybe she had some nasty infectious fatal disease - that has the same symptoms as Andrew has!

  • Tim (unregistered) in reply to Bad Human
    Bad Human:
    Maybe she died.
    that was my best guess
  • Sockatume (unregistered)

    Good times. In 2004 I moved into a place with south-facing windows. To my chagrin I couldn't use my laptop in the day time, because at a temperate 22 celcius, thermal safety throttling would kick in and knock the CPU back into the stone age.

    (I later tore the thing open and subjected it to a good canned air treatment.)

    Only Andrew is a bad enough dude to etc. etc.

  • (cs) in reply to Bad Human
    Bad Human:
    Maybe she died.

    And that's why all the work he had done during the day was useless since they couldn't present it.

  • MrBester (unregistered) in reply to ubersoldat

    Doesn't matter. He's still got the rest of the week off.

  • (cs)

    Obviously, the President's daughter has run away to LA with a doomsday device. Now Andrew must don his eyepatch and go stop her.

  • toot (unregistered)

    Another vote for "best guess is she died".

  • Caffeine (unregistered)

    Ok... I don't get the WTF I must admit. PC overheating? Meh. PC overheating but dependent on which kitten he was processing? Huh?

    Daughter sick reference... unclear.

    I like to think that there is a correlation between the presidents daughter being sick and him being sick... ;-)

  • Caffeine (unregistered) in reply to Caffeine
    Caffeine:
    Ok... I don't get the WTF I must admit. PC overheating? Meh. PC overheating but dependent on which kitten he was processing? Huh?

    Daughter sick reference... unclear.

    I like to think that there is a correlation between the presidents daughter being sick and him being sick... ;-)

    Hmmm.... auto-correct or predictive text weirdness, but processing kittens rather than processing items actually sounds more interesting!

  • Ho Miscreant! (unregistered) in reply to Remy Porter
    Remy Porter:
    Obviously, the President's daughter has run away to LA with a doomsday device. Now Andrew must don his eyepatch and go stop her.

    Andrew? Snake Plissken, surely.

  • Rnd( (unregistered)

    No remote connect possible? Has to place desktop next to radiator?

    WTF is the WTF or is it the lack of WTF?

  • Nim (unregistered)

    So, did the computer with all the results fall out the window?

  • WC (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that they know the guy's in bed, feeling like dying, and they've just given him the rest of the week of. So they call him to tell him that his work was pointless? Great idea. Couldn't just tell him that next week or anything. Very important info.

  • A developer (unregistered)

    I'd have to say that this was an entertaining short fiction story. The author was feeling creative. I think the sick daughter thing was made up so that he would get the job done.

  • imgx64 (unregistered)

    I've done something similar. The heatsink fan on a server died, so it couldn't even boot up without overheating. There was some data on the server that wasn't backed up, and I couldn't just put the hard disks in another computer because they were configured with hardware RAID in the motherboard (funny how redundancy made it easier to lose data). So I ended up putting the server on a cabinet right under the air conditioner, and directing all the cool air towards it. It worked long enough to retrieve the data.

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    Worst punchline ever.

    So let me get this straight: a computer doing science had an overheating problem from being next to a heat source, so it was moved to a cold windowsill. All the while, the user was being nagged to get said science done. For all we know, it got done on time.

    Not a WTF.

  • Ross Patterson (unregistered)

    TRWTF is Andrew saying "It's almost done" at 5:00 when he knows it's failing horribly. Come on, people, cut the bullsh*t out.

  • (cs)

    Dr. Steinbrenner has been tasked with finding a cure for the president's daughter's illness. Steinbrenner hopes that the antigens in Andrew's blood are the answer, since Andrew's body was eventually able to fight off the "overheating issues." He needs Andrew to come into the lab to provide a blood sample and to begin sequencing his own antigens. "The cure must be in there somewhere, Andrew. Don't you see? Somehow, you're the key to all this!"

    Andrew agrees to come in, but first he asks the crucial question that ends up saving the girls life. "Are they, by any chance, keeping her next to a radiator?"

  • Rnd( (unregistered)

    Oh, TRWTF was that it took him 8 hours to solve simple overheating issue...

  • QJo (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that he is making such a fuss over a mere cold. Clearly not British.

  • QJo (unregistered)

    Am I the only one to have expected the story to end with:

    "While he was on the phone to Stickybugger, listening with half an ear to the sob story about the boss's daughter's chipped nail varnish, a gust of wind caught Andrew's laptop, spiralling it off the windowsill and down into the murky depths of the (whatever smelly puddle his apartment opened out above). The results of the research were gone forever."

    ?

  • Destman (unregistered)

    He probably got the cold from the president's daughter cause the were getting friendly and her dad figured it out. They wanted him to get the work done ASAP so they can fire him afterwards...

  • OldCoder (unregistered) in reply to Rnd(
    Rnd(:
    No remote connect possible? Has to place desktop next to radiator?

    WTF is the WTF or is it the lack of WTF?

    TRWTF is temperatures in Fahrenheit, am I right?

    Captcha: laoreet. I'm sure I visited there when I last played Elite...

  • emaNrouY-Here (unregistered)

    "So, like, I heard you were sick. And, like, I'm sick, too. Maybe call me?"

    (I hate myself for having thought that.)

  • (cs) in reply to Rnd(
    Rnd(:
    Oh, TRWTF was that it took him 8 hours to solve simple overheating issue...

    TRWTF is any OS/hardware combination that doesn't warn you about the overheating CPU.

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is trying to do science in Java. If he wanted code portability without overheating his processor, he should have used C.

  • (cs) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    Bad Human:
    Maybe she died.
    that was my best guess

    People, come on, have some decency here!

    This is the intertubes, the correct question is: "did she died?"

  • cleavland_steamer (unregistered)

    I'm pretty sure that the "WTF" is legitimate and would expressed verbally in exasperation after realizing he spent twice the time he needed all because he didn't think clearly enough to realize that his PC next to the radiator would get too hot...

    The daughter thing... no idea, I'll go with the consensus, she died while attempting some evil plot in LA and wearing an eye patch and a peg leg.

  • Robin (unregistered)

    What's a Fahrenheit?

  • Neil (unregistered) in reply to OldCoder
    OldCoder:
    TRWTF is temperatures in Fahrenheit, am I right?
    I was hoping you would have saved me the trouble of converting 230°F to 110°C.
  • Fake nagesh (unregistered) in reply to RonBeck62

    TRWTF is Java. Don't use it.

    RonBeck62:
    TRWTF is trying to do science in Java. If he wanted code portability without overheating his processor, he should have used C.
  • GvS (unregistered)

    Andrew is the president's daughter?

  • Jazz (unregistered) in reply to Caffeine
    Caffeine:
    Caffeine:
    PC overheating but dependent on which kitten he was processing?
    Hmmm.... auto-correct or predictive text weirdness, but processing kittens rather than processing items actually sounds more interesting!

    Agreed, I enjoy processing kittens... ;-)

  • (cs)

    More interesting, which President? As Java is mentioned, it must be >= 1995. I'm guessing not Bush as he believes that science is the work of Satan.

  • airdrik (unregistered) in reply to Fake nagesh
    Fake nagesh:
    TRWTF is Java. Don't use it.
    RonBeck62:
    TRWTF is trying to do science in Java. If he wanted code portability without overheating his processor, he should have used C.
    But The Oracle fixed all of the security problems, so it's ok now.
  • AverageJon (unregistered)

    ... and what's with the midnight deadline? Committees never meet until at least 9am.

  • C-Derb (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that we're supposed to believe that Andrew only thought of the overheating problem after opening the window to throw his phone out the window.

    I'm fine with the idea of him opening the window and realizing he was overheating the place. I'm fine with him having the thought that he should chuck his phone out the window to avoid further phone calls. But that he would entertain that thought far enough to open the window??

    I call shenanigans on the author.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to Giles Roadnight

    Or the boss was accusing the guy of getting sick because he was with the president's daughter? I got dibs on Chesela Clinton :)

  • Jano (unregistered) in reply to Roby McAndrew
    Roby McAndrew:
    More interesting, which President? As Java is mentioned, it must be >= 1995. I'm guessing not Bush as he believes that science is the work of Satan.
    Misrepresent much? In truth, he merely thinks the taxpayers should not be forced to pay for supporting the work of Satan.
  • Carl (unregistered)

    Yeah, the story was so buried in reminders that Andrew was sick, I kinda lost the flow of what was really going on.

    Plus, I too totally don't get how the daughter fits in.

  • Ironside (unregistered)

    "Andrew," Steinbrenner said, "remember what I said about the president’s sick daughter?"

    "She's mutated Andrew. What the hell did you do to those DNA sequences?", Steinbrenner stammered.

    "They're coming for you Andrew" finished Steinbrenner before hanging up the phone.

    Andrew leaned back and laughed. For he had been secretly working for the reptilians all along.

  • (cs)

    Andrew is really Andrea, the (former) daughter of the president who is suffering from amnesia (and the common cold) after a botched gender reassignment surgery. (S)he has to find the cure for his/her own disease, although (s)he doesn't know it. Even worse, the disease is caused by a foreign object accidentally implanted in his/her body during his surgery, and (s)he only has until midnight to fix it. Also, this story was written by M. Night Shamahimallamalayan.

Leave a comment on “Human Heat Sink”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #400584:

« Return to Article