Cross-eyed

Mutterings continued.

Spent most of this afternoon redoing the intranet site. Created a few new pages, lots of cutting, pasting, losing stuff.

Had a very nice lunch at Secret Garden (yes, again).

Silliness:

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

IF YOU RECEIVE A GIFT IN THE SHAPE OF
A LARGE WOODEN HORSE DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT!!!!
It is EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE and will overwrite your ENTIRE CITY!

The "gift" is disguised as a large wooden horse about two stories
tall. It tends to show up outside the city gates and appears to be
abandoned.

DO NOT let it through the gates! It contains hardware that is
incompatible with Trojan programming, including a crowd of heavily
armed Greek warriors that will destroy your army, sack your town, and
kill your women and children. If you have already received such a
gift, DO NOT OPEN IT! Take it back out of the city unopened and set
fire to it by the beach.

FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

Poseidon

******************************

RE: Greeks bearing gifts

Laocoon,

I hate to break to you, but this is one of the oldest hoaxes there is.
I've seen variants on this warning come through on other listservs,
one involving some kind of fruit that was supposed to kill the people
who ate it and one having to do with something called the "Midas
Touch."

Here are a few tipoffs that this is a hoax:

1) This "Forward this message to everyone you know" business. If it
were really meant as a warning about the Greek army, why tell anyone
to post it to the Phonecians, Sumerians, and Cretans?

2) Use of exclamation points. Always a giveaway.

3) It's signed "from Poseidon." Granted he's had his problems with
Odysseus but he's one of their guys, isn't he? Besides, the lack of a
real header with a detailed address makes me suspicious.

4) Technically speaking, there is no way for a horse to overwrite your
entire city. A horse is just an animal, after all.

Next time you get a message like this, just delete it. I appreciate
your concern, but once you've been around the block a couple times
you'll realize how annoying this kind of stuff is.

Bye now,

Hector

And this:

This was actually posted very briefly on the McDonnell Douglas web site by
an employee there who obviously has a sense of humor. The company, of
course, does not - and made the web department take it down immediately.
(In case you don't know: McDonnell Douglas is (was) one of the world's
chief suppliers of military aircraft).


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