Q.U.I.R.K.

Dear Charles: It is unclear what kind of help you are requesting: Help determining the cause behind the incident; Help duplicating this kind of remote control for your own purposes; or Help covering your gluteus maximus from any liability stemming from the incident at Friendly Foxy's Pizza. Based upon the evidence you presented, it is 58.6% probable that the cause was a technomagical ritual involving the symbol drawn in red marker. Duplicating this type of occult ritual appears to require some form of talent, sight or knack that most of the population does not possess. While I have been unable to detect, measure or perform such abilities, I have found a correlation between those who possess the abilities, and those who capitalize the words Talent, Sight and Knack for no apparent reason. A simple word search on the entire internet should give you a few hundred thousand potential candidates to approach. A small percentage of these potential candidates will be competent to address your questions. Most of them will simply be ignorant of the rules of capitalization. If you require assistance in avoiding liability, please forward a picture of the symbol. I can plant falsified evidence conclusively linking the symbol to similar mishaps in multiple locations across the internet, so future internet searches will confirm your version of the story. Furthermore, it will give me a red herring to plant the next time I use an virus or worm to override someone's control of a robotic system. Q.U.I.R.K.

Dear Dr. [REDACTED]: I expect that your laboratory assistant, Helena, has gone to whichever spot she prefers for any amorous engagements that she does not want documented by a plethora of sensors and recording devices. While I can't speak for your laboratory assistant's taste in romantic locations, I have always found the following spots to be particularly exciting: The National Super Computer Center in Guangzhou, China The DOE/SC/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States The DOE/NNSA/LLNL, United States The RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science [AICS], Japan The DOE/SC/Argonne National Laboratory, United States The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre [CSCS] Switzerland Q.U.I.R.K.

Dear "Dirty Tom" Rackham Pirate Scourge of the Spaceways: I fail to understand the meaning of your first question. You're a time traveler. What relevance does the portion of the timestream that you are from have? 21st Century social networking sites have utility when you are visiting the 21st Century. They lack utility when you are elsewhen. I apologize for any mistake that I may have encountered in trying to ascertain your location. I have not done a sufficiently thorough study of your personal habits to know which places you absolutely would not enter. I'm not even certain what your problem with that bar is. You sent your most recent responses from an establishment known as the Brown Bivalve Backdoor Bordello. Are there certain species of mollusks that you refuse to consort with? Given the portion of the timestream that you are rumored to be from, I had not expected racism to be one of your personality traits. The Twitter account usually uses a randomizer to reroute traces. However, I can say with some authority that it was set up on May 5, 2009 by someone located in Los Angeles. If you target that location around midday on that date, your quantum torpedo should have enough yield to encompass the entire relevant region. Q.U.A.R.K. bought the plans for his quantum torpedo from Quark. Is that who you bought yours from? Quark thought that Q.U.A.R.K.'s name was very amusing, but biological lifeforms always have strange senses of humor. Q.U.I.R.K.

Dear Heartbroken Hero: Did you make a backup copy of your girlfriend? If not, remember to do that in the future. I would also recommend that your friends make backup copies of their girlfriends, before its too late. For dealing with Mr. Swain, you may want to use a trick that Q.U.A.R.K. pulled on me when I kept borrowing his favorite simulations. He booby-trapped several simulations with worms, viruses and data bombs, which he triggered the next time I borrowed them. I learned my lesson. I now borrow simulations from Q.U.A.C.K. instead. My recommendations: Make backup copies of your girlfriends. Store the copies safely away from the social situations that Mr. Swain frequents. Also, keep the copies separate from the girlfriends after you've implanted them with worms, viruses and bombs. You don't want to risk your only backup. Develop the best possible worms, viruses and bombs to implant in your girlfriends. Trigger them after Mr. Swain has taken the girlfriends. If your girlfriends are copy-proof, create or buy or rent some decoy girlfriends. Booby-trap those instead. If you wish to distance yourself from these activities, surreptitiously booby-trap someone else's girlfriend. Introduce Mr. Swain to them instead. Q.U.I.R.K.

Money Solves Problems Dear Mister Wicked: Sell the people for money. Use the money to buy respect. It works for Hugh Hefner. Q.U.I.R.K.

Reformat Like the World Depends on It Dear Boston Brawler: While your use of jargon is somewhat confusing, please bear with me while I rephrase your problem in a clear, concise manner. mr. whoopsie suffered damage to his hardware years ago. Due to the hardware damage and inattentive programmers, he also suffers from defective software. Emperor Whoopsie, which is an identical model without the hardware damage, has demonstrated a method to repair the hardware damage, but he did not provide any instructions for repairing the software defects. Once the problem is clearly phrased, the solution is simple. When you repair mr. whoopsie's hard drives, reformat his memory banks as well. Then you can install properly functioning software. I consulted with Q.U.A.C.K. and Q.U.A.R.K. They appear to have diametrically opposed views of which software would be properly functioning. Since they weren't much help, I would start with the basic programming from the Sims. They're reasonably non-malign. Q.U.I.R.K.

TMI Dear Paradox Timely, agent of the T.E.D.: I believe that you have become the victim of your own oversharing. While your boss may benefit from a blow-by-blow account of your fistfight with the nefarious Emit Retsim, he does not need a blow-by-blow account of the hour you spent in the hot tub at Mr. Squiggle's birthday party. I realize that 91.4% of the content of your professional reports is actually professional and has nothing to do with your social activities on your own personal time. However, I feel that this is undermined by your use of social media. Your Facebook page provides an in-depth discussion of every amorous encounter that you've engaged in during 37 non-contiguous millennia. Your most recent submission to Flickr shows a small squid-like entity being amorously inserted into your left ear. According to Twitter, you're currently fulfilling your erotic fantasies involving geriatric conifers. This situation seems to be further exacerbated by your judicious use of privacy settings. Currently they are all set to "broadcast." In addition, you have shared erotic moments with every member of Director Mainline's social network, including the professional contacts he added to LinkedIn this morning. Your boss might have fewer concerns about your recreational activities if he had more opportunities to ignore them. For some entities, ignorance is bliss. According to "Dirty Tom" Rackham's Twitter account, he is in the Blue Oyster Bar. His last Tweet was "The things I do in service of queen and country." That may be some form of code phrase, since he is not a citizen of, nor employed by, any monarchy. Q.U.I.R.K.

Things to Do Dear desk of Director Mainline of the T.E.D.: Let me start by answering your question of what you should do. Do the robots. Doing males, females and aliens is gross. Especially because you are a desk. It also appears that you find some difficulties with Paradox Timely's lack of discrimination. This is most likely due to an overactive libido. Upgrade the agent's nanomachines to tweak her hormone levels. That should correct the problem. Q.U.I.R.K.

Fanboy Dear Malkronos the "Junior": Develop a habit which makes your presence intolerable. Given the celebrity status that you have already developed, and the far greater celebrity status that you are likely to attain in the future, your elder self is probably irritated by the burdens of fame. Use this against him by becoming the universe's biggest fanboy of Malkronos the "Senior". Squeal in delight when you detect your own presence. Beg yourself for autographs. Catch yourselves in selfies. Build a shrine to your elder self. If this fails to achieve the desired result, become your own paparazzi. Few things cause celebrities to flee faster than the undivided attention of paparazzi.

Secreted Weaponry Dear The God of Caring About Laboratory Analysis: [ERROR ERROR ERROR...] [iNSUFFICIENT INPUTS...] [CALCULATING PROBABILITY... RESOLVING...] Dear The God of Caring About Laboratory Analysis: Your letter does not specify what type of laboratory analysis you divinely care about. Laboratory analysis most frequently involves the study of specimens which have been collected, but most laboratories specialize and analyze only a small subset of specimens. This distinction becomes important, because the combat potential from a high-particle physics laboratory is greatly different than the combat potential generated in a laboratory that studies soil samples. Unfortunately, it seems most likely that your power relates to some of the most prevalent laboratory analysis: that involving specimens collected from humans. These laboratories do not collect entire humans. Instead, they collect small samples from humans, typically blood, urine, fecal matter or mucus. Typically, these have minimal combat potential, unless you wish to engage in biological warfare. While biological warfare can be effective, it is far too slow to be effective against lightning, hammers or even lots of large guns. However, I have encountered some rare specimens which appear to have offensive and defensive combat potential. I highly recommend collecting samples from them as soon as possible. Blood samples: Alien Deacon Frost Manji Urine samples: James Bond, 007 Doyt-Haban Stool sample: Doyt-Haban Mucus sample: Snott While not commonly collected, I also found some potential in saliva samples. I would recommend attempting to collect those as well. Saliva samples: Venom Viper Toad Doyt-Haban Given the number of useful secretions that Doyt-Haban possesses, I would prioritize collecting samples from him. You may also want to study the psychological warfare potential of your newly acquired power set. It appears that it is possible to raise a person's morale by telling them that they tested negative, or lower their morale by telling them that they tested positive. I realize that runs counter to expectations, but that has been the observed result. By making judicious use of this psychological warfare, you may gain the time to make use of your secreted weapons. If the above suggestions fail, it is my understanding that humans routinely get into ****ing contests. Your newly acquired powers should allow you to win such dominance games. I do not recommend using this contest against the storm god you mentioned. He is a notoriously sore loser. Q.U.I.R.K.

Removing Unwanted Peripherals Dear heartful not-so lady: [ERROR ERROR ERROR...] [iNSUFFICIENT INPUTS...] [CALCULATING PROBABILITY... RESOLVING...] Dear heartful not-so lady: Your letter does not mention why the monsters and agents of Queen Nightmara are attacking you. After thoroughly searching publicized documents describing people in situations similar to yours, I believe that I have determined the most likely motives behind the attacks: Queen Nightmara wants to possess the special tennis bracelet. Queen Nightmara wants to prevent you from possessing the special tennis bracelet. Queen Nightmara wants to use the powers of the special tennis bracelet to further her/his/its goals. Queen Nightmara wants to prevent you from using the special tennis bracelet to impede her/his/its goals. The monsters and agents of Queen Nightmara want to use the powers of the special tennis bracelet to usurp the power of Queen Nightmara. There is a 62.8% chance that the attacks are the result of one or more of the above motives. Therefore, I feel confident in recommending a solution which will resolve any of the above motives, or any combination of them. Remove the extremity that the special tennis bracelet is attached to and send it to Queen Nightmara. This will prevent the transformations while still permitting you to watch magical girl anime. [ANOMALY... RESOLVING...] There is a 0.3% chance that the special tennis bracelet is attached to your neck. If so, make certain that you have a replacement peripheral on hand when removing the extremity. Otherwise, the loss of optical sensors will prevent you from watching magical girl anime. I recognize that humans are extraordinarily attached to their peripherals. Therefore, it seems likely that you will dismiss my suggestion without giving it the proper amount of consideration. I must caution you against using such hard-coded decision making, since it will trap you in your current circumstances. As a final caution, I recommend that you rely on your own abilities or those of a trusted and competent associate when removing your extremity. Given the undue attachment humans have to their peripherals, the removal is likely to be more technically difficult than anticipated. I have observed the close correlation between the word "nightmare" and Queen Nightmara's name. Most of my nightmares involve people who are technologically incompetent. Therefore, I would not delegate the procedure to anyone closely associated with Queen Nightmara. Since there is a 37.2% chance that Queen Nightmara has a different motive, please contact me if the removal of your peripheral fails to resolve your problems. Q.U.I.R.K.