ID: 354
Tech
How do you know if a dummy has been sending e-mail?
You see a bunch of envelopes stuffed into the disk drive.
ID: 13438
Tech
Google Products We'll Never See
11. Google Hitman Assistant - Find, schedule, and collect on all your assassinations with this suite of products.
10. Googlearchy - Tired of democracy? Install the government that everyone loves without annoying pop-up ads.
9. Google Smite - An extension of Google Earth uses laser beams attached to the satellites to exact revenge or just have some fun for paid subscribers.
8. Google Carnage - Use real-time satellite images to zoom in and see car, train, or plane crashes and other disasters.
7. Google Ogle - The hottest unsecured webcams on the Internet.
6. Googlebator - Used with Google Ogle, it's our first attempt at hardware.
5. Google Alibi - Paid service that will provide you with a credible account for your whereabouts.
4. Google Telegraph - Dash-Dot, Dash-Dash-Dash, Dash.
3. Google Gaggle - The only search engine for geese.
2. Google Invading Force - Some pesky third world country got you down? Send in the troops with Google's new troop management tool.
1. Gogoel - Search, for dyslexics.
ID: 18173
Tech
Long ago I gave my kid an iPod.
Last year he talked me into buying him an iPhone.
This year he said he needed an iPad.
I asked what the i- means and he said that's the way Apple name their products.
Now he's asking for an i7 laptop. My goodness, Apple have made so many things they've now run out of names!
ID: 16116
Tech
In a joint press conference in St. Peter's Square this morning, MICROSOFT Corp. and the Vatican announced that the Redmond software giant will acquire the Roman Catholic Church in exchange for an unspecified number of shares of MICROSOFT common stock. If the deal goes through, it will be the first time a computer software company has acquired a major world religion. With the acquisition, Pope John Paul II will become the senior vice-president of the combined company's new Religious Software Division, while MICROSOFT senior vice-presidents Michael Maples and Steven Ballmer will be invested in the College of Cardinals, said MICROSOFT Chairman Bill Gates.
"We expect a lot of growth in the religious market in the next five to ten years," said Gates. "The combined resources of MICROSOFT and the Catholic Church will allow us to make religion easier and more fun for a broader range of people."
Through the MICROSOFT Network, the company's new on-line service, "we will make the sacraments available on-line for the first time" and revive the popular pre-Counter-Reformation practice of selling indulgences, said Gates. "You can get Communion, confess your sins, receive absolution - even reduce your time in Purgatory - all without leaving your home."
A new software application, MICROSOFT Church, will include a macro language which you can program to download heavenly graces automatically while you are away from your computer.
An estimated 17,000 people attended the announcement in St Peter's Square, watching on a 60-foot screen as comedian Don Novello - in character as Father Guido Sarducci - hosted the event, which was broadcast by satellite to 700 sites worldwide.
Pope John Paul II said little during the announcement. When Novello chided Gates, "Now I guess you get to wear one of these pointy hats," the crowd roared, but the pontiff's smile seemed strained.
The deal grants MICROSOFT exclusive electronic rights to the Bible and the Vatican's prized art collection, which includes works by such masters as Michelangelo and Da Vinci, but critics say MICROSOFT will face stiff challenges if it attempts to limit competitors' access to these key intellectual properties.
"The Jewish people invented the look and feel of the holy scriptures," said Rabbi David Gottschalk of Philadelphia. "You take the parting of the Red Sea - we had that thousands of years before the Catholics came on the scene."
But others argue that the Catholic and Jewish faiths both draw on a common Abrahamic heritage. "The Catholic Church has just been more successful in marketing it to a larger market. Over the last 2,000 years, the Catholic Church's market share has increased dramatically, while Judaism, which was the first to offer many of the concepts now touted by Christianity, lags behind.
Historically, the Church has a reputation as an aggressive competitor, leading crusades to pressure people to upgrade to Catholicism, and entering into exclusive licensing arrangements in various kingdoms whereby all subjects were installed with Catholicism, whether or not they planned to use it. Today Christianity is available from several denominations, but the Catholic version is still the most widely used. The Church's mission is to reach "the four corners of the earth," echoing MICROSOFT's vision of "a computer on every desktop and in every home".
Gates described MICROSOFT's long-term strategy to develop a scalable religious architecture that will support all religions through emulation. A single core religion will be offered with a choice of interfaces according to the religion desired - "One religion, a couple of different implementations," said Gates.
The MICROSOFT move could spark a wave of mergers and acquisitions, according to Herb Peters, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Baptist Conference, as other churches scramble to strengthen their position in the increasingly competitive religious market.
ID: 14984
Tech
Recently the following undocumented Windows 98 error-codes were found. Microsoft forgot to explain them in the manuals, so they will be spread via the Internet:
WinErr: 001
Windows loaded - System in danger
WinErr: 002
No Error - Yet
WinErr: 003
Dynamic linking error - Your mistake is now in every file
WinErr: 004
Erroneous error - Nothing is wrong
WinErr: 005
Multitasking attempted - System confused
WinErr: 006
Malicious error - Desqview found on drive
WinErr: 007
System price error - Inadequate money spent on hardware
WinErr: 008
Broken window - Watch out for glass fragments
WinErr: 009
Horrible bug encountered - God only knows what has happened
WinErr: 00A
Promotional literature overflow - Mailbox full
WinErr: 00B
Inadequate disk space - Free at least 500MB
WinErr: 00C
Memory hog error - More Ram needed. More! More! More!
WinErr: 00D
Window closed - Do not look outside
WinErr: 00E
Window open - Do not look inside
WinErr: 00F
Unexplained error - Please tell us how this happened
WinErr: 010
Reserved for future mistakes by our developers
WinErr: 013
Unexpected error - Huh ?
WinErr: 014
Keyboard locked - Try anything you can think of.
WinErr: 018
Unrecoverable error - System has been destroyed. Buy a new one. Old Windows license is not valid anymore.
WinErr: 019
User error - Not our fault. Is Not! Is Not!
WinErr: 01A
Operating system overwritten - Please reinstall all your software... Yet again.
WinErr: 01B
Illegal error - You are not allowed to get this error. Next time you will get a penalty for that.
WinErr: 01C
Uncertainty error - Uncertainty may be inadequate.
WinErr: 01D
System crash - We are unable to figure out our own code.
WinErr: 01E
Timing error - Please wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.
WinErr: 01F
Reserved for future mistakes of our developers.
WinErr: 020
Error recording error codes - Additional errors will be lost.
WinErr: 042
Virus error - A virus has been activated in a DOS session. The virus, however, requires Windows. All tasks will automatically be closed and the virus will be activated again.
WinErr: 079
Mouse not found - A mouse driver has not been installed. Please click the left mouse button to continue.
WinErr: 103
Error buffer overflow - Too many errors encountered. Additional errors may not be displayed or recorded.
WinErr: 678
This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play another game?
WinErr: 683
Time out error - Operator fell asleep while waiting for the system to complete boot procedure.
WinErr: 815
Insufficient Memory - Only 50,312,583 bytes available.
WinErr: 844
Competing Product - Remove all competing products and install Microsoft equivalents.
WinErr: 910
Personal Data Communicate Difficulties - Could not transmit social insurance number and or tax details back to Microsoft headquarters for further analysis.
WinErr: 960
Minimal Effort - User has only reinstalled Internet Explorer four times while trying to get it operational, please reinstall again.
WinErr: 2000
You have not downloaded your daily Y2K and security glitch patch.
ID: 13353
Tech
The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates. Why did the English people build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on the old long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts. So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe were built by
Imperial Rome for the benefit of their Legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots.
Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches
derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specs and Bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's behind came up with it, you
may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two warhorses.
ID: 15808
Tech
The following are real excerpts from Help Desk logs at real corporations. Or are they?
1. Help Desk: What kind of computer do you have?
Female customer: A white one...
2. Help Desk: And now hit F8.
Customer: It's not working.
Help Desk: What did you do, exactly?
Customer: I hit the 'F' key 8 times as you told me, but nothing's happening...
3. Hi, good afternoon, this is Elaine. I can't print. Every time I try, it says, 'Can't find printer'. I've even lifted the printer and placed it in front of the monitor, but the computer still says he can't find it...
4. Hi, this is Celine. I can't get my diskette out.
Help Desk: Have you tried pushing the button?
Customer: Yes, sure, it's really stuck.
Help Desk: That doesn't sound good; I'll make a note.
Customer: No ... wait a minute... I hadn't inserted it yet... it's still on my desk... sorry.
5. Help Desk: What's on your monitor now ma'am?
Customer: A teddy bear my boyfriend bought for me in the supermarket.
ID: 16042
Tech
Is zero a 1-digit number or a 0-digit number, or neither?
You may think that 0 is a 1-digit number. However, this will make 00 a 2-digit number, 000 a 3-digit number, and so on. Leading zeros do not count towards the digits, and 0 itself is a leading zero.
If you think that 0 is a 0-digit number, you're still wrong. 100 is a 3-digit number, 10 is a 2-digit number, 1 is a 1-digit number, and therefore, .1 is a 0-digit number, .01 is a -1-digit number, and so on. Therefore, the number of digits of a real number x is 1+int(lgx). Since lg0 is meaningless, the number of digits of 0 can't be defined.
ID: 14725
Tech
From Harper's Magazine:
Amount of pizza eaten each day in U.S. (acres): 75.
+10,000 Jokes