Jeff Milner

The Museum of Hoaxes has the Top 100 April Fools Day Hoaxes of all time. The picture here is ranked number 1 and it comes from the BBC news show Panorama. As part of the April 1st, 1957 broadcast they announced that because of very mild winters and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper crop. I remember my dad telling me that he saw this during a news clip when he was a kid going to see a movie. I guess in those days you got news at the theatres instead of worthless ads before the show.

With April 1st coming right up, I’m thinking of some possible pranks to pull, but alas I’ve come to the conclusion I’m not much of a prankster. Plus I’m going to Calgary with Anna-Maria to see the BareNaked Ladies or BNL, if you prefer. I saw their show the last time they were in Calgary and I must say, they put on a great performance. I’ll have reviews of this upcoming show posted here in the first week of April.

Victorinox has created a version of the classic Swiss Army Knife that has a USB key as one of it’s tools. This, for those that don’t know about USB devices – like my parents, would allow you to connect your knife to your computer and transfer data to and from your knife. So if you’re thinking about burning your favorite MP3’s to CD to take to a friends house, with this invention all you would need to do is download the files onto your knife and then plug it in to your pals computer. I already carry my knife with me everywhere anyway; this would be way more useful than say a corkscrew or nail file.

I’m glad somebody is finally (almost) doing something about the dihydrogen monoxide threat. Think about that the next time you buy Styrofoam cups and think you’re not putting yourself at risk.

“I’ll buy you an IPOD if you be my GF for one and 1/2 weeks – $300” reads the headline of an apparently desperate 24 year old single white male from New York City. His parents are coming to visit and he “needs” someone to play the part of the love of his life that he has told his parents so much about. Is it a real plea for help or a new marketing technique trying to increase the perceived value of an Ipod. You be the judge.

I have been making some subtle changes today. The Google Search is now customized with a graphical interface (as opposed to the default form) and I added a couple of links to webpages that I have created. I created them a couple of years ago before I signed up for New Media. Anyway I haven’t checked the page in any other browsers yet so if you notice anomalies with the Google Search on the left side of the page, please let me know via the comments. Thanks.

Paul Tyma is a frequent (and opinionated) computer industry speaker and writer. Paul has two articles which I think you should read.

The first is called “The Internet is full of Idiots”. It’s about Amazon.com book reviews. Paul is writing a book and guarantees that the reviews he will get on Amazon will be good ones, at least the first couple. How can he be so sure? Well he’s going to write them himself. (Read More)

Paul’s next article is titled, “I’ve invented the greatest compression algorithm ever”, and as Paul explains – he’s keeping it a secret.