Virtual Illusions

The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. 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 some of 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, 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.

Technology, Urban Legends

SuperMac records a certain number of technical support calls at random, to keep tabs on customer satisfaction. By wild “luck”, they managed to catch the following conversation on tape.

Some poor SuperMac TechSport got a call from some middle level official… from the legitimate government of Trinidad. The fellow spoke very good English, and fairly calmly described the problem.

It seemed there was a coup attempt in progress at that moment. However, the national armoury for that city was kept in the same building as the Legislature, and it seems that there was a combination lock on the door to the armoury. Of the people in the capitol city that day, only the Chief of the Capitol Guard and the Chief Armourer knew the combination to the lock, and they had already been killed.

So, this officer of the government of Trinidad continued, the problem is this. The combination to the lock is stored in a file on the Macintosh, but the file has been encrypted with the SuperMac product called Sentinel. Was there any chance, he asked, that there was a “back door” to the application, so they could get the combination, open the armoury door, and defend the Capitol Building and the legitimately elected government of Trinidad against the insurgents?

All the while he is asking this in a very calm voice, there is the sound of gunfire in the background. The Technical Support guy put the person on hold. A phone call to the phone company verified that the origin of the call was in fact Trinidad. Meanwhile, there was this mad scramble to see if anybody knew of any “back doors” in the Sentinel program.

As it turned out, Sentinel uses DES to encrypt the files, and there was no known back door. The Tech Support fellow told the customer that aside from trying to guess the password, there was no way through Sentinel, and that they’d be better off trying to physically destroy the lock.

The official was very polite, thanked him for the effort, and hung up. That night, the legitimate government of Trinidad fell. One of the BBC reporters mentioned that the casualties seemed heaviest in the capitol, where for some reason, there seemed to be little return fire from the government forces.

Computers, Government, Technology, Urban Legends

It is common practice in England to ring a telephone by signaling
extra voltage across one side of the two wire circuit and ground
(earth in England). When the subscriber answers the phone, it switches
to the two wire circuit for the conversation. This method allows two
parties on the same line to be signaled without disturbing each other.

Anyway, an elderly lady with several pets called to say that her
telephone failed to ring when her friends called, and that on the few
occasions when it did ring her dog always barked first. The telephone
repairman proceeded to the scene, curious to see this psychic dog.

He climbed a nearby telephone pole, hooked in his test set, and dialed
the subscriber’s house. The phone didn’t ring. He tried again. The dog
barked loudly, followed by a ringing telephone.

Climbing down from the pole, the telephone repairman found:

1. The dog was tied to the telephone system’s ground post via an iron
   chain and collar.

2. The dog was receiving 90 volts of signaling voltage.
3. After several such jolts, the dog would start barking and urinating
   on the ground.

4. The wet ground now completed the circuit and the phone would ring.

Which shows you that some problems CAN be fixed by just pissing on them.

Technology

1. The AMC Spacer
2. Uncle Boris’s Last Chance Galactic Truck Stop & Fireworks Stand
3. I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-A-Space-Station
4. Skylab for Dummies
5. Emergency Vodka Storage Unit #6
6. Absolut NightMir
7. The New, Improved People’s Deathtrap 2000 (”Now with leaks!”)
8. Space Toast Coast-to-Coast
9. The S.S. Minnowsky
10. The Black Cat, Walking Under a Ladder, Broken Mirror, Spilled
    Salt, Friday the 13th Space Module

11. Kaputnik
12. Cattlecar Galactica
13. Spacey Spice
14. The Amazing Orbiting Barge O’ Death
15. Deepshit Nine

Science, Technology

With Viagra such a hit, Pfizer is bringing forth a whole line of drugs oriented towards improving the performance of men in today’s society….

DIRECTRA - a dose of this drug given to men before leaving on car trips caused 72 percent of them to stop and ask directions when they got lost, compared to a control group of 0.2 percent.

PROJECTRA - Men given this experimental new drug were far more likely to actually finish a household repair project before starting a new one.

CHILDAGRA - Men taking this drug reported a sudden, over-whelming urge to perform more childcare tasks - especially cleaning up spills and “little accidents.”

COMPLIMENTRA - In clinical trials, 82 percent of middle-aged men administered this drug noticed that their wives had a new hairstyle. Currently being tested to see if its effects extend to noticing new clothing.

BUYAGRA - Married and otherwise attached men reported a sudden urge to buy their sweeties expensive jewelry and gifts after talking this drug for only two days. Still to be seen: whether the drug can be continued for a period longer than your favorites store’s return limit.

NEGA-VIAGRA - Has the exact opposite effect of Viagra. Currently undergoing clinical trials on sitting US presidents.

NEGA-SPORTAGRA - This drug had the strange effect of making men want to turn off televised sports and actually converse with other family members.

FLATULAGRA - This complex drug converts men’s noxious intestinal gases back into food solids. Special bonus: Dosage can be doubled for long car rides.

FLYAGRA - This drug has been showing great promise in treating men with O.F.D. (Open Fly Disorder). Especially useful for men on Viagra.

PRYAGRA - About to fail its clinical trial, this drug gave men in the test group an irresistible urge to dig into the personal affairs of other people. Note: Apparent overdose turned three test subjects into “special prosecutors”

LIAGRA - This drug causes men to be less than truthful when being asked about their sexual affairs. Will be available Regular, Grand Jury and Presidential Strength versions.

Sex, Technology

by mike popovic <carpediem@locnet.com&gt

10. The computer keeps asking you to “Insert Setup Disk 3 to continue”
9. There is no space left on the hard drive to store mission data.
8. The computer refuses to interact with the Mir’s “Mr. Java” coffee
   maker.
7. Millions of dollars are traced to phone calls to a Redmond, WA 900 number.
6. Mir astronauts are caught stealing RAM from other satellite’s
   computers to keep their system running.
5. The Space Shuttle can no longer dock with Mir since “the proper
   driver cannot be found”
4. The system locks up whenever the astronauts try to run life support,
   the solar panels and thrusters at the same time.
3. The astronauts spend three days looking for cyrillic version of the
   CTRL-ALT-DEL keys.
2. Alien ships secretly observing Mir flee in terror.

   And the number one sign the new Mir computer is running Windows 95….

1. You start receiving welcoming e-mail from the Borg

Microsoft, Technology

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the
computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up
with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving
twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 mi./gal.”

Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the
statement, “Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?”

1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy
   a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you
   would just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and
   fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange
   reason, you would accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought
   “Car95″ or “CarNT”. But, then you would have to buy more seats.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable,
   five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but would only run on 5
   percent of the roads.
6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to
   their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.
7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a
   single “general car default” warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say “are you sure?” before going off.
10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what
    happened.

Microsoft, Technology