TWO WEEKS ago we listed some of the abstruse error messages that
long-suffering readers have been receiving from their computers. Now we find
that these have been elevated into an art form. A compilation of error-message
haiku poems is circulating on the Internet. Here are three of our
favourites:
A file that big?
It might have been very useful.
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But now it is gone.
A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.
Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
LAST WEEK鈥橲 news that rats fed on 鈥済enetically modified鈥� potatoes ended up
with damaged immune systems produced lots of hot air about the safety of
genetically engineered food鈥攗ntil it emerged that what had been added to
the potatoes was not even a gene, but a known toxin (This Week, 15 August, p 5).
But few noticed a surprising revelation in the BBC鈥檚 report on the experiment,
conducted at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen.
It seems that Monsanto, the biotechnology company, has managed to breed a new
race of superintelligent rats. According to the BBC鈥檚 website (
http://news.bbc.co.uk): 鈥淸Monsanto] spokesman Dan Verakis said that they
had carried out `extensive safety assessments of new biotech crops鈥�, including
tests using rats that have had results published in journals.鈥�
FORENSIC scientists face many unpleasant and difficult tasks in the course of
their duties, as the Journal of Forensic Studies makes uncomfortably
clear.
What other professional journal, one wonders, would devote space in its pages
to a paper entitled 鈥淒istinguishing between new and slightly worn underwear: a
case study鈥�?
The study, which appears in volume 43 (p 203) of the journal, describes the
use of lasers to tell the crustier kind of underwear from the unsullied. It only
adds to the conventional wisdom that you should always wear a clean pair because
you never know who will see them.
THE BRITISH government鈥檚 Action 2000 body is spending 拢10 million on an
advertising campaign to make people aware of the millennium bug. You can鈥檛
escape the big yellow warning billboards.
Yet despite all the government鈥檚 pledges, from Prime Minister Tony Blair
downwards, Action 2000 still has not put together its own software, or endorsed
existing software, that people can safely use to check that their PCs are
bug-free. Instead, it is producing a Helpbook, now in draft form, which
Feedback has seen.
The book explains how problems can arise when the battery-powered Real Time
Clock in a PC hands a two-digit year to the PC鈥檚 Basic Input/Output System
(BIOS) chip, which converts it to a four digit year.
If in doubt about whether your BIOS can cope, 鈥渞efer to your PC handbook or
supplier鈥�, advises the Helpbook, or use unspecified 鈥渢ools鈥�. But as PC
owners are aware, many suppliers know painfully little about their products.
Robert Clark and Duncan Cooper are responsible for nearly 5000 PCs at
University College London and are coordinating UCL鈥檚 bug hunt. They have found
that all of the hundreds of BIOS versions can be identified by the date on which
they were officially released. This date is revealed by programs such as Norton
Utilities or Microsoft鈥檚 MSD, which are routinely used to check PCs鈥�
specifications and performance.
So far the UCL team has not found any two different BIOS versions with the
same release date. So, they reason, it would be easy to make a list of BIOS
versions and their dates. To check your PC, you would simply check the date of
your BIOS and look at the list to see if it was year 2000 compliant.
Clark and Cooper say they would be happy to help Action 2000 compile such a
list. Feedback, in turn, is happy to play dating agency and introduce them to
Action 2000.
JOHN BRATTON was walking on a hillside in Gloucestershire recently when he
overheard two other walkers chatting to each other. 鈥淭he other good thing about
spider plants,鈥� one of them said, 鈥渋s they suck up all the radiation from the
office computers.鈥�
He didn鈥檛 hear what the first miraculous property was.
FEEDBACK enjoys sampling exotic foods but has never had the stomach for
frogs鈥� legs, despite protestations that they taste exactly like poultry.
Now we have learned that an edible frog which lives on the Caribbean island
of Montserrat is called the mountain chicken. That is its real name, not its
nickname.
We hope that giving animals the names of other animals like this will not
become a trend. Knowing what the items listed on restaurant menus really consist
of can be tricky enough at the best of times. Himalayan oysters, anyone?
GRAHAM BERRY tells us he saw a table tennis table the other night with a
label giving instructions for its care.
Instruction number two said: 鈥淒o not expose the surface of this table to
moisture.鈥� Number three said: 鈥淐lean table using a damp cloth.鈥�
FINALLY, one of New 杏吧原创鈥檚 American staff bought a ConAir
curling iron recently. One of the warnings on the package was: 鈥淒o not use while
蝉濒别别辫颈苍驳鈥�.