BobHarris.com - Laptops: the new male birth control

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

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Laptops: the new male birth control

Tag it now -

Thursday, 09 December 2004

I'm sure you've already seen this:

Reproductive experts warn in a new study that heat generated by laptop computers can have an adverse effect on male fertility.

The study, reported today in the journal Human Reproduction, showed that testicular temperatures rose by between 4.6 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit in an hour among a group of healthy male volunteers...

Previous studies have shown that increases in testicular temperatures between 1.8 and 5.2 degrees have a sustained negative effect on sperm development and fertility.

I'm actually surprised anybody can still even use a laptop as a laptop. This old Mac Powerbook gives off enough themal energy that in winter it actually doubles as my office space heater. (Seriously.) I would no sooner rest this thing on my thighs than have marital relations with a branding iron.

Curious, I clicked over to the Human Reproduction website for the first time (although admittedly, I've seen a few other human reproduction websites now and again; this was just the first time I'd been to the Human Reproduction website.)

There we find an almost limitless supply of articles on "single nucleotide polymorphisms" and "anti-Mullerian hormone plasma levels" and "GnRH agonist stimulation of the pituitary-gonadal axis."

And I didn't even know I had a pituitary-gonadal axis. Much less that it can be stimulated.

Oh baby I am so hot right now.

Better go open a window.