Tag Archives: lol

Petition to make “Hella” the prefix for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Carl sez, “A petition to make Hella- the official SI prefix for 10^27, for measuring things bigger than Yotta- (the prefix for (US) billion trillion). For instance: ‘the sun (mass of 2.2 hellatons) would release energy at 0.3 hellawatts.’ It would also come in handy for eventually measuring Internet traffic and US national debt.”

via Petition to make “Hella” the prefix for 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – Boing Boing.

The Pudding Guy

In 1999, UC-Davis civil engineer David Phillips was grocery shopping when he noticed something peculiar. Healthy Choice Foods was offering frequent-flyer miles to customers who bought its products. But a 25-cent pudding would bring 100 miles — the reward was worth more than the product itself.

Recognizing a good thing, Phillips bought 12,150 servings of pudding for $3,140, claiming he was stocking up for Y2K. Then he enlisted the Salvation Army to help him peel off the UPC codes, in exchange for donating the pudding.

He mailed his submission to Healthy Choice, and to their credit they awarded him 1.25 million frequent-flyer miles, enough for 31 round trips to Europe, 42 to Hawaii, 21 to Australia, or 50 anywhere in the United States.

There’s no downside. Phillips also got Aadvantage Gold status for life with American Airlines, which brings a special reservations number, priority boarding, upgrades, and bonus miles. And he got an $815 tax writeoff for donating the pudding.

via The Pudding Guy | Futility Closet.

Microsoft confirms 17-year-old Windows bug

Microsoft late yesterday issued its second advisory of the last week, warning users that a 17-year-old bug in the kernel of all 32-bit versions of Windows could be used by hackers to hijack PCs.

[…]

The VDM subsystem was added to Windows with the July 1993 release of Windows NT, Microsoft's first fully 32-bit operating system. VDM allows Windows NT and later to run DOS and 16-bit Windows software.

via Microsoft confirms 17-year-old Windows bug.

Yesterday, as in the day before January 21.

Apologies for all the old news – I’m clearing out some archives/”to-blog” sections of different places, and when that content is time-dependent, well, I’m sure you’ll get over it.

Mac funnies – MacTalk Forums

Three Microsoft engineers and three Apple employees are travelling by train to a computer conference. At the station, the three Microsoft engineers each buy tickets and watch as the three Apple employees buy only a single ticket.
“How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asks a Microsoft engineer. “Watch and you`ll see,” answers the Apple employee.
They all board the train. The Microsoft engineers take their respective seats, but all three Apple employees cram into a restroom and close the door behind them.
Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, “Ticket, please.” The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes the ticket and moves on.
The Microsoft engineers saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the Microsoft engineers decide to do the same on the return trip and save some money.
When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the Apple employees don`t buy any ticket, at all.
“How are you going to travel without a ticket?” asks one perplexed Microsoft engineer.
“Watch and you`ll see,” answers an Apple employee.
When they board the train the three Microsoft engineers cram into a restroom and the three Apple employees cram into another one nearby. The train departs.
Shortly afterward, one of the Apple employees leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the Microsoft engineers are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, “Ticket, please…”

via Mac funnies – Page 4 – MacTalk Forums.

Unfortunate, no?

It’s the wardrobe malfunction to end them all.

Italian Olympic swimmer Flavia Zoccari was forced to sit out a championship race at the Mediterranean Games yesterday after her bathing costume burst open in a very unfortunate place.

Flavia, 22, was wearing the controversial £318 top-of-the-line Jaked J01 swimsuit when disaster struck at the Games in Pescara, Italy..

via Top Italian swimmer’s horror as her bathing costume bursts open in a very unfortunate place at championship meet | Mail Online.