In Which Hermitage Interviews Toaster

The Hermitage herself has demanded I answer her interview, or else she threatened to steal my cookies.

Little does she know that stealing Toaster's cookies will lead to an immediate mobilization of the Toaster War-Zeppelin and a declaration of war. This will involve me following her around in my zeppelin blasting polka (something really annoying like Atomic Harmonik) and the Numa Numa song until she returns all cookies in their original plus interest. If this strategy does not work, I will of course be forced to call in the FTA (Finnish Troll Army).

I did not answer her questions in order.

Favorite organ (any species is acceptable)?

The appendix. This is something I had actually never thought about before, but upon reflection it occurs to me that the appendix is my own little reservoir of all ~10^10 of my very best and closest little friends: my commensal microbiota!

What outfit would you wear if you won the Nobel prize tomorrow (pictures required!)?

See the Punk Music post below. Add a black top hat and that’s it. Maybe a lab coat, too.

Who is your greatest Academic Role Model?

Nicolai Tesla. He was the penultimate tinkerer and mad scientist. And he was batshit eccentric. In many ways, this is exactly what I aspire to.

Zombies vs Vampires vs Werewolves vs Cylons, who would win and why?

This depends on how you quantify the win. I submit 2 scenarios: 1) zombies vs. vampires vs. werewolves vs. cylons fighting each other or 2) zombies vs. vampires vs. werewolves vs. cylons competing to eat/kill/damage the greatest numbers of humans.

Scenario 1:

This is also dependent on who has which technology. If the zombies, vampires, or werewolves have the technology for an EMP, then the cylons are screwed. Since vampires typically have huge lifetimes and structured social groups, let’s assume that they have the capability to develop EMPs, therefore effectively taking the cylons out of the picture in the long term. Then if we turn to fighting prowess, the zombies would fall next because they don’t have any superhuman strength, special longevity, and, because neither vampires nor werewolves are human, they can’t convert fallen enemies to their own ranks. So it’d wind up being vampires vs. werewolves. If we assume the myths to be true, then vampires have the advantage of having their super-abilities every night of the week while werewolves are only in lycanthrope form once a month. However, werewolves also have the distinct and great advantage of being able to be active during the day when the vampires must return to soil from their original graves. So whether or not werewolves win depends on them being able to survive night-time attacks while in their weaker human forms long enough to find the vampire coven during the daytime and destroy it. And since vampires have been hiding out effectively for a very long time, I am going to assume that they are very good at it and as such would destroy the werewolves before they are found and destroyed. So here the vampires win.

Scenario 2:

Zombies would win. Once again, cylons would be out due to EMPs. Vampires and werewolves have a vested self-interest in preserving a sizeable human population to feed off of so that they may continue to exist as individuals. Zombies don’t give a shit. Zombies will eat whatever they can get their claws on because they are no longer fully autonomous individuals (they are driven entirely by hunger) and do not plan for their long-term viability. Zombies also do not have supernatural restrictions on the times of day or month that they can attack and eat humans, which they can also then convert to being more zombies. End effect is that the zombies win and the vampires and werewolves are helpless to do anything more than try to keep a feeder population of humans safe from the zombies.

It probably says much that I have a more detailed response to this question than to any of those above. It's probably now rather obvious that I think Cylons are lame. Daleks are scarier than those wusses.

If you were a Scientific Superhero, what would be your theme song and why?

This one is difficult because there are so many songs that would fit. I’m torn between J.S. Bach’s Concerto No. 1, First Allegro Movement as played by Lara St. John (because it’s such a bad ass piece of music) and “Blitzkrieg Bop” by The Ramones (because it is). However, “Phat with a PhD” by Kid606 is also a strong contender. This would be easier if I were allowed to have a new theme song each day, or else the same song would get tired quickly.