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Spam Email (WFOTD)

Gary Thuerk was the world’s first e-mail spammer. He wrote the first ever spam email which was sent out on May 3, 1978 to a network of government and university computers.

In total, 600 unwilling people received his email, which was publicizing open houses in Los Angeles and San Mateo. The reaction from the net community to the email was fiercely negative, but Thuerk’s spam did generate some sales. In fact, Thuerk estimates it led to $12 million in sales.

Since then, spam emails have grown in numbers, with 90% of all e-mails sent today considered as spam. Estimates suggest that as many as 200 billion spam messages are sent daily, and it’s all thanks to Gary Thuerk.

Anatomy of Apple Design

Here is a wonderful tribute to the beauty of Apple design. Right from 1976 and the Apple I personal computer kit, to the present day of iPods, iPhones, iPads and so much more. This is for all you Apple fans out there, so sit back and admire.

Cleankeys Touch Keyboard Leaves Bacteria With No Place To Hide

Everyday we go about our business on our computers without giving a thought to the thousands of bacteria lurking on the keyboard. In fact, a standard keyboard is one of the most bacteria-dense places in the modern household. If this has grossed you out, don’t worry, Cleankeys can save us.

Cleankeys is a touch sensitive keyboard which eliminates germs without a fuss. Wiping a standard keyboard with a disinfecting cloth kills about 5% of bacteria. Cleankeys claims the same test kills 99% of bacteria on their keyboard, simply because they have nowhere to hide.

At $400 for the standard plastic model and $450 for a glass Cleankeys, it’s not cheap, but at least you’ll have a germ-free keyboard. Alternatively you could just use your immune system. It’s up to you.

Link Via Gizmodo

Drawing in Microsoft Excel

Excel’s for spreadsheets and numbers right? Wrong. Well, actually it is, but Youtube user shukei01 can use it to create some incredible drawings. This one took 12 hours 56 minutes to complete, but the time-lapse video has squeezed it all into just under 5 minutes.

Hacked Wiimote Keeps Your Keyboard Alive

We’ve all had to suffer the pain, anger and frustration caused by our computers going to sleep at the worst possible time, but how do we solve this problem whilst remaining energy efficient, as well as productively efficient, on and off the computer?

Well, Todd Harrison has used some pretty neat physics to combat tired computer syndrome. Here he explains all:

Via Hacked Gadgets

Geek’s Remains Stored In Computer Casket

I’m sorry to start off today’s posts on a slightly morbid topic, but this story is about probably the most hardcore geek that ever lived, so I had to give him a mention.

The family of a geek who recently died have stored his remains inside a converted PC and invited friends to attach post-it note tributes. While those who wanted to keep their words private could just slip their note into the case through the floppy slot.

The epitaph is an apt Star Trek quotation that he repeated shortly before his death: “Beam me up Scotty, I’m done here”.

The classic computer – a type of SPARCstation that was discontinued in the 1990s – now carries a plastic plaque bearing his name, Alan, and the dates of his birth and death. (Flickr Stream).

Link

Gross Mechanical Tumor is a Computer Peripheral

Whoever designed this computer peripheral may need to seek help immediately. I mean why would you want to design a “mechanical” tumor that connects to your computer to measure your CPU?

Okay, aside from the geek bashing, the way this thing works is actually pretty cool. The flesh of this organic-looking material beats like a pulse as your computer processes data. The emphasis of the expansions and contractions depend on the amount of stress your computer is experiencing.

Equipped with a series of motors and pneumatic actuators, the mechanical tumor pulsates gently when the CPU load is low. When the CPU load is high, the tumor’s air compressor is activated, causing the lump of flesh to inflate.

Here it is in action:

One can only imagine the outcome if your computer goes into overload, crashes or decides to blow up…

Link

Geek Tattoos Are All The Fashion

The days of celtic design and British bulldogs appear to be coming to an end, with the tattoo trend now moving towards ‘geek’ design.

A new generation of computer whizz kids and nerds are opting to be inked with images of their laptops or print from a text book, rather than the ‘hard man’ traditional designs.

A USB computer cable, the equation for Pi, machine code made up of 0’s and 1’s, the Apple trademark, and even a symbol for the old Commodore 64, are among the bizarre tattoos chosen by the new generation of body art wearers.

This Is How Geeks Express Romance

“You are the CSS to my HTML”. Probably the best geek love button ever!

10 Best Things We’ll Say to Our Grandkids

Here’s a nice post I saw on Wired, about the 10 best things we’ll say to our grandkids.

1. Back in my day, we only needed 140 characters.

2. There used to be so much snow up here, you could strap a board to your feet and slide all the way down.

3. Televised contests gave cash prizes to whoever could store the most data in their head.

4. Well, the screens were bigger, but they only showed the movies at certain times of day.

5. We all had one, but nobody actually used it. Come to think of it, I bet my LinkedIn profile is still out there on the Web somewhere.
6. 英語曾經是統治語言。 瘋狂，哼？ *

7. Our bodies were made of meat and supported by little sticks of calcium.

8. You used to keep files right on your computer, and you had to go back to that same computer to access them!

9. Is that the new iPhone 27G? Got multitasking yet?

10. I just can’t get used to this darn vat-grown steak. Texture ain’t right.

* Translation: “English used to be the dominant language. Crazy, huh?”

Some of the things we do seem very strange when you come think about it. Meat and calcium, hmmm.

Happy 40th Birthday Internet?

On September 2, 1969, scientists at the University of Los Angeles (UCLA), connected two computers with a 15ft grey cable that were able to communicate with each other.

The data these early computers exchanged was tiny and meaningless, but it was the breakthrough that eventually created the internet. However, with many other milestones in history, so when should we really celebrate the birth of the internet?

Oct 29, 1969 – The first time a message was sent between two distant ARPANET computers – from UCLA to a machine based at the Stanford Research Institute.

1971 – Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sent the first email. It was simply a test message to himself.

Jan 1, 1983 – On this day all computers on the ARPANET network were required to adopt the TCP/IP protocol, the online communication standard that is still used today.

March 1989 – Twenty years after the earliest incarnations of the internet emerged, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web as an efficient system for posting and accessing information.

April 1993 – The launch of Mosaic, the first web browser to make a real effort at usability, helped popularise the internet.

Whilst many believe that September 2 should be regarded as the internet’s birthday, when do you think is the most appropriate anniversary?

Link

Extreme Computer Junkie

This guy spends way too much time at the computer, but to be honest, I’d like to see the trash pile up and up until he physically can’t move anymore, and see what his reaction is.

Disclaimer: do not try this at home! :)

Retro Commodore 64 Birthday Cake

For some lucky geek’s 30th birthday, he got perhaps the coolest cake ever – a Commodore 64 Cake.

Old school really is cool!

Link

Keyboard For Blondes

Click here for a larger version.

Link

100% Computer Generated Burger, Fries And Drink

This may look like a normal McDonalds advertisement, but watch up to 28 seconds in.

They always look better in the commercials, don’t they?

New “Zombie” Cellphone Network Created

Everyone knows about computer viruses. They have the potential to be very dangerous. Botnets are usually networks of infected computers that can be used to make money from spam or extortion. But now, computers aren’t the only device capable of containing such harmful software.

Criminal hackers may have successfully created a network of “zombie” cellphones infected with software that can be used to send spam or attack websites without the owner ever knowing.

Security firm Symantec, says that a piece of software known as “Sexy Space” may be the first case of a botnet on a cellphone. It sends text messages containing a link, which when clicked asks the user to download software which, when installed, sends the same text message to all of the contacts stored in the phone.

Beware of this scam when opening texts.

Link

Japanese Introduce Smile Test At Work

Motivational theory tells us that happy workers are productive and efficient workers, but one Japanese company has taken the theory one step further.

Keihin Electric Express Railway Company has introduced a system to check that staff are smiling enough. The “Smile Scan” is able to analyze the facial characteristics of a person and gives their smile a score from 0 to 100 percent.

A camera is linked to a computer with the smile-scanning software installed on it. An employee must stand in front of the camera and have their eye, lip and wrinkle characteristics measured to give them an overall smile rating.

Those whose smiles are sub-standard will be given a message advising them to cheer up. “You still look too serious,” or “Lift up your mouth corners,” are just some of the statements that will be displayed on the screen.

Employees are required to scan their smiles before work and will receive a print out of their daily smile which they are then expected to keep throughout the day.

Maybe in the future we could see this practice going global. Would the smile scanning machine motivate you? Let us know.

Computer Learns Sign Language By Watching TV

British scientists have created a computer that is able to learn sign language by watching television shows that are both subtitled signed.

Researchers at the University of Oxford, came up with an algorithm to recognize gestures made by people. The team exposed the computer to around 10 hours of TV footage that was both signed and subtitled, tasking the software to learn 210 nouns and adjectives that appeared during the footage, of which it correctly learned 136 words.

The software uses a person’s arms to estimate the rough location of fast-moving hands and identifies flesh-colored pixels in those areas to understand the precise hand shape, however difficulty often arises when some words have different meanings depending on the context. E.g. cutting a tree has a different sign to cutting a rose.

Although this is a clever piece of technology, it still has a long way to go. Rather than working round the problem, maybe the researchers should concentrate their efforts more on making deaf people hear again. What do you think?