the Funnelwhich

British researchers say the Darfur crisis is NP-complete

[VIJAYAWADA, INDIA] Recent breakthroughs in the field of complexity theory have yielded astonishing results about the computability of several international crises, or so a new British research report from the Dutch East Indian Genocide Company finds. Their findings culminate decades of international ignorance of humanitarian crises around the world because they are simply too boring and tragic. Ah, how many a journalist in this industry remembers the first humanitarian crisis way back in 1998 during the Great California Blackout when, faced with no computers, we were forced to talk to each other.

In complexity theory, a polynomial solution to a NP-complete, where NP is an acronym for Nasty Piles due to Alan Kay’s many kinky fetishes, problem implies nerds in 3M laboratories can solve all NP problems in polynomial time, provided the polynomials are very large and have many imaginary solutions. Also, due to the eccentricity of Alan Kay these polynomials must spell out “nasty piles” with their variables. Scientists balk at this rigid limitation but computer scientists nod sagely, as if they understand, leading many to suspsect a nasty piles revolution in the year 2182. Anyway, many occultists know for certain those solutions do not exist, a tragedy as today all NP-complete problems retain the prerequisite of a virgin sacrifice, leading to an underground death industry in many graduate computer science curriculums. Today, professors often solve this trickly dilemma by simply just using the four years to teach students 10% of Java.

Meanwhile, back at the DEIGC, a penguin waddles nearby and cuddles one of the scientists. They are too choked to speak. It is Monday morning and the weary mathematicians stand outside in the dreary British climate presenting their studies with infinite sorrow.