A strange case of self abuse
We have finished dealing with cold callers, and let's hope they have got the message you sent them, but some of our email is just too strange to be ignored.
We're thinking specifically of the experience of Stephen Loughins' wife: "She answered our phone a couple of days ago to hear an automated message from Tesco Insurance, apologising to her that there was no one available to talk to her," he writes. "Is this the first case of a cold caller hanging up on themselves?"
We must hope that the competitive instincts of other insurance providers don't win out; if they all started calling us to play hold music and ask us not to hang up because their call is very important to us, the entire phone system would go into meltdown.
Nude recycling
If you're wondering what to do with your old Sinclair Spectrum, Epson LX-81 dot matrix printer (ask your parents what one of those is) or your HP Scanjet 4C, check out www.vimeo.com/1109226.
It shows James Houston from the Glasgow School of Art remixing Radiohead's Nude using obsolete IT kit.
"I placed them in a situation where they are trying their best to do something that they are not designed to do, and not quite getting there," says James.
"It doesn't sound great, because it's not supposed to." Actually, it sounds totally brilliant.
Towers of eco madness with Oxo
We are excited by the scope for jumping on the green bandwagon. After all, if the IT industry can say the words "green datacentre" with a straight face, it can claim green credentials for more or less anything.
The scope for innovation has obviously fired the imagination of someone involved in materials science.
"I have just had a magazine delivered in a plastic wrapper that has printed on it: 'This polythene is oxo-degradable'," says Chris Harris at IBS-STL. "So is there a recycling facility somewhere with operators stirring polythene wrappers into bubbling vats of Oxo gravy?"
Any more silly green bandwagon jumpers who deserve exposure will get it in this column, provided you help by nominating them.
Oh happy day
A new low in the tawdry "Formula for" PR business, as the Daily Telegraph reports that Cliff Arnall, a "psychologist and former tutor at Cardiff University" has calculated that 20 June is scientifically the happiest day of the year.
The equation, in case you really really want to know, is: "O + (N xS) + Cpm/T + He".
We are not telling you what it stands for because the whole thing is just too stupid. If any of you want to spend three minutes chasing exposure in a newspaper, we'll print the best "Formula for" the world's stupidest pseudo-science story.
When your coffee cup runneth over
Thank you for all your tales of stupid male relatives. As of next week we will be gender-blind, and go back to our usual policy of selecting stories entirely at random in a panic just before press time. Until then, the blokes get it this week.
"Just after we had cable installed we sat down one evening to watch a film.
Before it started, my husband kept getting up to check that there was no one at the door. He knew we had ordered a film, and thought it was going to be delivered, like a pizza, by motorcycle," says Elana Fligg at Brodetsky Primary School.
Carolyn Vaughan at Toyota went to a rugby game with five men. "We used a coffee machine where the cups provided were too big to go under the jet of liquid.
"Four of the men had already ripped off the tops of their cups and were struggling to control the now escaping hot coffee, when I arrived at the machine and pointed out that they should have broken down just one cup and used that to fill all the others."
Clever click
Our helpdesk moment this week is provided by Jim Blair and the firm of accountants for which he worked. One of the partners called to say that his computer was making a funny noise.
"I entered his office, looked at his PC and removed the folder that was holding down the Enter key and the noise stopped. DOS, for those old enough to remember, would click if the input buffer was full."
And, if Jim hadn't popped in, it might still be clicking.
Carried off at its convenience
First to the important stuff: "I can confirm that Jerry the cat has been captured and is back with its owners," says our Polperro correspondent Kerry Hoskin, who combines this hazardous role with a job at Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
We are delighted to be building a regional network of dedicated reporters, but we have to deny his request for payment.
After all, we can find out everything from the village's web site, including the news that the derelict public loo was sold at auction for £29,500.
On the other hand, as satnav-using lorries get themselves wedged in Polperro's tiny streets again this summer, we are all looking forward to pictures.
Identities are immaterial
"I sometimes wonder about the vetting of readers' articles," writes a reader,
"especially when you have contributions from readers such as Terry Lean."
If you recall, Terry was the guy who was sent an excellent investment proposal in his spam from the Foreign Secretary.
"I know it's quite likely that Terry is a genuine contributer and a very nice chap but who next? Maybe his brother Crimp, his cousin Polly Ester or Lynn Enn," adds, er, "Ray Onne".
Keep quiet about nuisance callers
We are not so much a campaigning page, more one that doesn't know when to shut up. So we are happy to claim the credit for exciting - but probably useless - developments at the Telephone Preference Service.
"Since you featured my problem, TPS will now accept complaints about silent calls - but will not act on them," says John Loader. "They now forward all complaints to Ofcom."
It seems that when Ofcom set up the TPS, it did not know about autodiallers, so TPS simply does not have the authority to do anything. A tip: if you're an irritating and malicious cold caller, it's not making a call to a TPS-blocked number that will get you in trouble, it's opening your mouth when you get through.
"When I worked for Post Office Telephones silent calls were treated as malicious and a crime, now they're honest commercial practice," John adds.
"How about a campaign to make silent calls illegal because of the effect they can have on vulnerable people?"
Retro style
We commented three weeks ago that the computer studies exam paper that used the spelling "programme" was old-skool.
"It must be very old indeed - the spelling 'program' was adopted at the 1953 Conference on High Speed Digital Computers held at the National Physical Laboratory," says Ross Morton.
Let's hear it for the boys
Not everyone's delighted with our thread about mothers who don't understand technology.
"Bet there won't be any tales of IT-inept dads. Wouldn't amuse the (presumably predominantly male) readership, would it?" asks a female reader.
Fair cop, we're bang to rights, but when it comes to making fun of our relatives we can honestly say that we're gender-neutral and hope you are too. Prove it, and pass on our apologies to mums who happily grasp science and technology.
But while we wait for funny male dimness: "In the days when cars had big shiny hubcaps, my mum spotted a large dent, on a neighbour's car near the top of the hubcap," says Martin Smale. "'That must have been a very high kerbstone he hit,' she said."
Janet and John
If it helps, we can bring you two stories of stupid men from Chris Pritchard and his colleagues at the helpdesk of Truck-Lite Europe.
"When I ring John Peters on extension 480 it keeps ringing and ringing but I know he's at his desk. When he does pick up, the line is very quiet and it doesn't sound like him at all," was the request.
PC Support: "John Peters is on extension 460. 480 is Janet Smith."
Caller: "That'll be it then. Thanks."
And credit to Truck-Lite's team for the answer to the user who complained that his fiancée had told him she had a more powerful PC than his five years ago.
"If this is causing embarrassment at home, I suggest looking for a new fiancée with a lower-spec machine," was the helpdesk's reply.
In contact with the mother ship
For those of us who recall having embarrassing mothers when we were young, one reader, who wants to remain anonymous, writes to tell us of his mum’s ferry crossing in the 1980s.
“We were stuck on a ferry, anchored outside the harbour and unable to dock because of thick fog. My mother was worried about her father, who was supposed to collect us, and wanted to let him know we would be late.”
The captain took her to the bridge and allowed her to make a ship-to-shore call.
“She commented on how remarkable the captain must be to park the boat directly over the cable to connect the telephone.”
If anyone else has a mum with a similar grasp of technology, please let us know.
It’s raining links
While Charles Etchells was involved in some essential research into, er, the weather, he stumbled on the Yahoo news item “Heavy rain threatens parts of UK”.
Nothing unusual so far. In that story, he found the line: “We could see rainfall of more than 30mm in a fairly short space of time.”
Looking closely, he found that “space” was a link. Clicking on that, he got straight to “Space shuttle docks at station with Japanese lab”. It’s a sort of news for the random generation.
Sensors working overtime
Dusty Pulver at Johnson Matthey wants to talk bras.
After we covered the rather pathetic Triumph solar panel bra photo opportunity – possibly the worst underwear stunt in the greatly undistinguished history of newspaper science pages – Dusty contacts us with a much more useful invention: the bra with built-in touch sensors wired to a video game, so that one player can control the game by squeezing the other player’s boobs.
We are not making this up; there is a video. For the intimate story, visit
http://www.jennylc.com/intimate_controllers/.
As the project’s creator comments: “I have become interested in how game interfaces can change the way players interact with each other off the screen.”
Before you ask, the bra does not play Grand Theft Auto, so you have to make a choice.
Strings attached
More helpdesk weirdness. Reader Rob Milner previously worked in a hospital IT department, where he took a call from a nurse “who wanted to ask the best method for cleaning a bed-pan – should she be using bleach liquid or sterilising tablets?”
Now he is working in an IT department with an ever-broader skillset. Last Friday, he was asked if IT could send someone over who knew how to tune a guitar. “Oddly enough,” he says, “we could, and we did.”
Code of conduct
As proof that we are the go-to geek humour column for the people who influence how we while away the quiet hours between 9am and 6pm, Adam Lindsay – yes, the originator of Lolcode – contacted us this week.
“I have been surprised, flattered, and impressed that it has shown up a couple of times in Backbytes,” he said. See that? He said “flattered”.
“I don’t know what your publishing schedule is, but I’m running a contest until the end of June, urging people to contribute illustrations, photos, or original code listings,” he adds.
It is at http://lolcode.com/news/you-gee-see. Go on, Lolcat-lovers, it’s hours until home time.
A night shift in Edin-bleuurgh
The stories of drunkenness at work do not get any easier to read over lunch.
“A well-known brewery in a Scottish city housed its main computer centre at the bottom of the Royal Mile,” recalls Jim Blair from Hills Road Sixth Form College, from his days in support, “and an operator came onto night shift and took his place at the computer console.” The operator had spent the evening, to that point, in Edinburgh’s pubs and curry houses.
“In those days the console consisted of a golfball typewriter with an open well that contained the golfball, rollers and paper feed. The mainframes had an audible alarm, which was a fairly loud siren.”
The operator promptly fell asleep, only to be awakened soon afterwards by the siren – causing such panic that he promptly sicked up his evening’s work over the well of the console.
Pity the engineer who was called out for the “repair”.
The long and winding email
“While I appreciate that any email system in a large company must have an organised and well-structured email account naming system,” starts Michael Pudney – you know where this is going, don’t you – “I wonder when such a system becomes rather silly.”
He recently received an email from one of his customers: “We have assumed they don’t actually wish to receive emails and will in future send them a pigeon, unless we can persuade our accounts software providers to increase the number of characters available in an email address field to the required 60,” it complained.
The offending email? “Perkins_Shared_Services_Centre_Accounts_Payable@fgwilson.com”.
Can you provide a sillier business email address based on someone’s rigid naming policy?
Band substance
Reader Terry Lean has a clue that members of the government are planning for a life after politics.
“What a pleasant change to receive a business proposition from a reputable name,” he says, enclosing his spam from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
“Compliments of the day to you. Following the Global economic direct investment Scheme, I want to do business for the benefit of the both of us to boost economic ties and build on the changing business climate in your country and the enormous opportunities your country has to offer,” writes someone called David Wright Miliband MP.
Has he been visiting Nigeria recently to pick up business tips? Seems so.
“As the British foreign secretary, I got your contact from the internet security directory affiliated to my office and I want to invest £40,000,000 in your reputable company or in any good sector of your country’s economy.”
Good to see a politician planing for a future career “as soon as I retire from office,” as Mr Miliband puts it.
Food for thought
Peter Langford supplies more Lolcode, which if you hate the whole Lolcat phenomenon, must be driving you crazy – or have you scratching your head.
For those of you who will treat what follows as the beginning of a voyage of discovery, find more at www.lolcode.com.
HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
I HAS A FUD ITZ ‘cheeseburger’
VISIBLE ‘GIMMEH UR FUD’
PLZ GIMMEH A VAR
AWSUM THX
IZ VAR LIEK FUD?
YARLY
VISIBLE ‘NOM NOM NOM ‘
NOWAI
VISIBLE ‘BLURGH’
KTHX
O NOES
INVISIBLE “I BAKED U A COOKIE, BUT INTERNETZ EATED IT!”
KTHXBYE
Expert texpert choking smokers
“SuperSmoker has developed technology to help smokers beat the smoking ban!” says a slightly manic press release crossing our desk.
For those of you for whom the idea of going outside for a fag has too little technology in it, “The SuperSmoker contains no tobacco and does not burn – instead it consists of a microchip and a harmless liquid that, when the user inhales, turns into a virtually odourless vapour and then provides the hit of nicotine.”
It even produces its own little puff of smoke.
“The liquid, which is manufactured in Germany, is made up of food products to create a tobacco-like flavour.”
Yum. Perhaps the genius of SuperSmoker is that, at £79 plus £6.95 for the refills, it is one of the few remaining ways to extract even more money out of our nicotine addictions.
Old meets new
We commented three weeks ago that the computer studies exam paper which used the spelling “programme” was old-skool.
“It must be very old – the spelling ‘Program’ was adopted at the 1953 Conference on High Speed Digital Computers held at the National Physical Laboratory,” says Ross Morton.
Happy e-fur after
Rejoice! We know how much you worry, so we have been assiduously monitoring www.polperro.org. And now we have news the nation wanted to hear.
“Jerry the wandering tom has been caught and is back home with Abbi. Visit our forum to read the full story – look for topic ‘LOST CAT!’ on the ‘Village Pump’ board.”
