The daily grind
"Sirs", begins Paul Harper at AkzoNobel UK - we like email that gives us what we consider to be the proper respect. "I note with amusement the IBM advertisement on page six of last week's Computing showing a chap carrying three cogs." Stick with us, it gets better. "...In such an arrangement that no matter which way any of the cogs is turned, the whole device grinds to a halt almost immediately. Presumably the Power is needed to apply so much force that all the cogs are stripped of their teeth in an attempt to un-jam the device, but I am unsure where the Management bit comes in?"
It's management that bought the cogs in the first place.
Blistering performance
Following our report that those of you who use their laptop on top of their lap might struggle to conceive, a story reaches us from medically qualified Chris Wheatley: "A gentleman entered his hotel room, removed his trousers, and placed them in the trouser press. He sat on the chair, plugged in his laptop and proceeded to work in his silk boxer shorts. Silk conducts heat. The gentleman received burns that required grafting to his penis and a lot of remedial care to the ulcers on his scrotum. I pointed this out to our burns and plastics consultant, as he had the same model."
Pus-onal computing
Also, from 2002, we bring you this letter from august medical journal The Lancet on the case of a Dell Latitude owner who had even kept his trousers on.
"The next day he noticed irritation and oedema of his penile prepuce. Furthermore, the ventral part of his scrotal skin had turned red, and there was a blister with a diameter of about 2cm... After the first two days, the penile and scrotal blisters broke and developed into infected wounds that caused extensive suppuration..."
Stop! That's enough.
The bald truth
Ronan Miles at BT Design wrote in response to our story that living in space will make you look like an alien. He points out that we wrote: "Without gravity, fluid would float up to pool in the skull."
He asks: "Which way is up when there is no gravity?", also pointing to our statement that not needing to insulate your head would result in hairlessness. "Is it central heating that is causing me to lose my hair because I don't need to insulate my head so much? Maybe I can fix it by putting my head into iced water."
Actually, Ronan, it's probably the fact that you run the UK Oracle User Group that's causing baldness - but the iced water might help with that too.
Will they Gopher it?
We asked how Microsoft could encourage Windows 7 users to download browsers without bundling a browser, which is what the EU says it has to do. We implied that perhaps the eurocrats weren't technical enough to spot the obvious impracticality, but luckily a reader has come to the rescue.
"Microsoft could always include a Gopher client and get Sourceforge or similar to host a copy of the IE install files on a Gopher server," says Stephen Booth, "to which the client is automagically pointed, that any other browser author is able to upload their wares (as opposed to warez)."
See! It's simple! Apart from the viruses and spyware and the support calls from millions of frustrated users in at least 20 languages, it's certainly an improvement on the current situation.
Tomorrow people
More time periods: Dave Evans at Wave Telecom Guernsey promotes the Mañana Half-Life: "After having an old boss who, when asked to do something, would reply with "Mañana", this is defined as the period of time that an engineer defers dealing with an issue from the point it was logged, and the fault resolving itself or being forgotten about."
Extreme indoor sports
More tips on email roulette. Regular correspondent Anthony Hawkins at the University of Sheffield suggests the extreme version.
"Michael Raven is clearly missing the point of email roulette. All he is doing is sorting emails into an order of reading. Real IT professionals, on return from time off, do the same analysis of sender, subject and size - but then simply delete, unopened, all those they believe they can get away with deleting.
"Note that 'time off' in this case includes the period between going home in the evening and returning to the office the following day," he says.
John Allard at Avon Insurance goes for the extreme extreme version. "You just delete everything in your inbox and wait for reminders, hoping, obviously, that you haven't deleted anything that might be the equivalent of a loaded bullet."
We're not telling you to do it, just giving you options.
No browsing
We like to uphold those who would build a better world for all of us, so we're offering some advice to whoever in the European Commission (EC) is in charge of the Microsoft case.
"So Microsoft will release Windows 7 in the EU with no internet browser to satisfy competition rules," writes Darren McSweeney. "However, users may download and install their browser of choice. Is it just me, or can everyone see a flaw in this?"
He's right. No one seems to have coughed and said quietly: "Without any browser at all, how will they download another one?"
Microsoft has promised to make it easy to get one, though, to which the EC says: "It would also have to consider whether this initial step of technical separation of Internet Explorer from Windows could be negated by other actions by Microsoft".
Probably the most acceptable eurosolution would be if every browser company could send a salesperson to your house. At the same time. Send us more ideas please, because we like to help.
Fly in the face of science
For anyone who suffers from jet lag, the news that researchers at the University of Michigan have created software that prescribes, depending on where you are travelling, a regimen to switch lights off and on to minimise the effects, will be met with a weak and slightly irritable "hooray".
"The result is more efficient sleep, a decrease in fatigue, and an increase in cognitive performance. Poorly timed light exposure can prolong the re-synchronisation process," explains Science Daily.
This contrasts with the traditional Backbytes "six gin and tonics" method, which has excellent results so long as you don't need to stay awake. Any other suggestions gratefully received.
Life in space
It turns out we already knew that living in space makes you short, fat and bald, if only we had examined the available evidence. "It reminds me of the Mekon in Dan Dare," says Peter Excell at Glyndwr University in Wrexham. "That really dates me."
"It conjured up the following image in my mind: short, fat, bald, skinny legs and a swollen skull," says Paul Ireland at the Utilities Exchange. "Does Backbytes know something about Roswell it is not telling us?" We attach this picture of an alien autopsy as definitive proof.
