A Time When Chain Letters Were Fun

When writing Bash scripts I often use the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide for reference. By now I've probably browsed through almost every chapter in the guide, that is except one: Recess Time. The chapter never seemed to apply to what I was looking for at the time, so I never bothered to look at it -- until today.

There, I discovered this fun piece:

Fellow Linux user, greetings! You are reading something which
will bring you luck and good fortune. Just e-mail a copy of
this document to 10 of your friends. Before making the copies,
send a 100-line Bash script to the first person on the list
at the bottom of this letter. Then delete their name and add
yours to the bottom of the list.

Don't break the chain! Make the copies within 48 hours.
Wilfred P. of Brooklyn failed to send out his ten copies and
woke the next morning to find his job description changed
to "COBOL programmer." Howard L. of Newport News sent
out his ten copies and within a month had enough hardware
to build a 100-node Beowulf cluster dedicated to playing
Tuxracer. Amelia V. of Chicago laughed at this letter
and broke the chain. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out
in her terminal and she now spends her days writing
documentation for MS Windows.

Don't break the chain! Send out your ten copies today!

It gave me a few laughs and made me realize that a time probably existed when chain letters were actually fun to read!

Computer Quiz Required

While registering for my Harvard email account, I came across this:

Thank you. You must take a short quiz on Use of Computers and Networks before selecting your username and password. You will be automatically redirected to the quiz within a few seconds, or you may click the button below.

I suppose it's a step in the right direction...

Windows Error on Cable TV

When I turned on the TV, none of the 76 stations seemed to be working (maybe they finally cut off the free cable service I've had for the past 8 months). I started checking the channels starting at channel 1 and found a Windows "unable to detect a mouse" error message on channel 3:

Cable TV showing a Windows Error

I've got a Mac dammit, leave me alone!

Good Comedy with Tech Industry News

The news stories over at The Register, a British technology news website, are always filled with comical remarks and creative titles. I found the site many years ago and it hasn't changed much since. Scanning titles like "Smut pop-up teacher retrial stuck in delay loop" make my brain work overtime as I try to decipher the almost cryptic information and decide if the content of the article is worth reading.

Those who know me will probably tell you I'm a very factual, get-to-the-point, kind of guy. For that reason, I haven't read a full article on The Register in some time. Then today I saw a news title that caught my attention, "And so we begin the tech sector's journey into the Heart of Darkness". I read the entire article laughing out loud while I sat in a coffee shop. Then I read another one, "How to be an instant Web me-2.0 developer", and another, "Microsoft kicks Ubuntu update in the hardy herons". Maybe I've rediscovered The Register!

A Threatening Spam Message

Wow, spammers are either becoming really desperate or totally creative. Here's a threatening email I received today:

From: [email protected]
To: [ concealed ]
Sent: Apr 23, 2008 13:03
Subject: She has already gone to hospital! ! !

Hello, info.

Listen to me carefully, i don't know what your name is, but i'll find you and i'll cripple you, because this is you who tempted her!!!
She has already gone to hospital, you're next, this is evidence: [removed URL in case its virus infected]

--
slyder mailto:[email protected]

What form errors?

I tried creating an account on the Mozilla Firefox AddOn site and got this error:

It would definitely be helpful if it could tell me what error it's referring to, because I have no idea what it's talking about. I triple checked that the passwords match and even tried a non-free email address. No dice.

New York Notes by Phil Hollenback

I stumbled across this site by Phil Hollenback. After moving from Northern California to New York City, he started keeping notes of the observations he made about the differences between the two places.

My favorite observation has to be this one:

I was walking to work today and saw some workmen shoveling something out of a dump truck into wheelbarrows and wheeling them into a building. Couldn't figure out what it was - the stuff was all shiny black embers. Then I realized - they were delivering coal! I have never, ever seen that before.

Check out the list of notes. Some of them are really hilarious. I live in Boston, not NYC, but there are a lot of observations he made that are relevant to New England in general.

Payton vs Eli Manning

Aerva, the software company where I am employed, has created software called AerChannel, which provides its customers with the ability to create and manage content on their own digital signage network. An added bonus to AerChannel is Aerva's MoApp technology which enables viewers to interact with the screen by sending SMS text messages.

One of our customers, BarCast, has screens in several bars around the Boston area. As you can see from the screenshot above, they have created a poll to allow viewers to vote who they hate more, Payton Manning or Eli Manning.

Luckily, I can vote for both.