It's not working....

My research group is putting on a conference this week, called ICEPAG (International Colleqium on Environmentally Preferred Advanced Generation). Needless to say I did not make up that acronym- mainly because I can't spell the second word. The whole conference is basically about large scale Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell / Gas Turbine hybrid systems. Basically pairing two new and upcoming technologies together in what could be the best possibly way to get power out of fossil fuels. (Still fossil fuels though)

Anyway, I was in a "short course" today about Hybrid Systems, and the one presenter was giving this presentation with powerpoint, heavily using the laser pointer. He had plenty of graphs and diagrams and everything, so it was very appropriate to use the laser pointer, though. What I found real comical was that the laser pointer stopped working about halfway through his second presentation. No problem for him, however, as he simply kept talking, and pointing the laser pointer at the screen, as if it were working. Now I was able to pick my way through what he was talking about, but it was just really funny that for the last twenty minutes this guy pretended like his laser pointer worked.... when clearly it did not!! Why even try to make it look like it works??