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Unsolved Mysteries of the Internet

2002.11.05

Sometimes it feels like we're just waiting for the Next Big Thing. Unless, of course, that Thing is a giant man-eating mutant Rat, in which case, we'd be running from the Next Big Thing. But there are plenty of mysterious things happening on the Internet right now, and we here at the Lite Side would like to point them out in a little article we like to call:

30 Unsolved Mysteries of the Internet

1. What anti-spam software do people who send spam use?

2. Which platform is better for designing biased Photoshop benchmarks?

3. Does anyone you actually know - you know, in person, face-time - ever use the term "blog"?

4. What kind of computer did the Dell Dude use before Dell gave him one? And what kind does he use now that he's no longer the Dell Dude?

5. Where did the aliens put the real people in charge of ATaT before they finished growing the replacement clones who recently took over the site?

6. Are there any people who publicly admit to using a Gateway Profile?

7. What is the maximum number of old white guys displayed on the Fox News home page at one time? (My personal record : 8. Today: 5. Can someone start a daily counter?)

8. Are there any replacement shells to cover up the vast majority of a Gateway Profile?

9. Just to test a hypothesis we've been debating, can we get the Washington Post to publish an article about bringing back HyperCard just to see what would happen? We already know that Wired isn't enough; but the Post might pull it off, don'tcha think?

10. Is it in fact true that the animators of Transformers: Beast Wars turned down the Gateway Profile job?

11. Is there a secret version of the Mac OS that runs on x86 hardware? Does it ask you to register for Passport every 14 seconds?

12. Is there any truth to the rumor that Apple plans to send Captain Archer through time so he can bring back some 5 GHz Motorola PPC chips? Are we talking around 2150 AD?

13. Is it true that Apple plans to make an iWorks program that takes ClarisWorks 4 and puts new shiny buttons on it?

14. Any truth to the rumor that Rush Limbaugh offered to do a Switch ad, but was bought off with a brand-new 21" flat-panel iMac to keep his mouth shut?

15. I heard Apple is trying to mount a Cinema Display on an enlarged iMac base to make a 21" flat-panel iMac. (I just read that somewhere, on this page I think.) Will they offer mortgages as a payment plan?

16. Is it true Steve Jobs "will not rest" until he releases another $10,000 computer?

17. If you drop a Gateway Profile from a 5 meter height, what will its velocity be after it hits the ground? Will it, in fact, look better than when you dropped it?

18. Any truth to the rumor that NBC is planning a comedy about two PC-using guys living with a Mac-using girl in a New York apartment? With a wacky Linux using next door neighbor? And one of the PC-using guys is, well, you know, an IT director? And the other has the head the size of Mercury, with a face flat like a frying pan?

19. All new TV shows, as you know, must either be spook shows, doc shows, or cop shows. Sometimes the doc is a doc (ER), the spook is a spook (Dead Zone), the cop is a cop (like Don Johnson), and sometimes the cop is a doc (CSI), the doc is a cop (Quincy), the cop is a spook (Witchblade), the spook is a cop (Buffy), the doc is a spook (X-Files), or - you get the idea. Who gets to pick the three words used in the one-sentence pitches to studio execs (spook, doc, cop)? Can we get this person to introduce a new term like "OS"? Then shows would need to be described as (spook, doc, cop, OS). So we'd get, "the doc who's a spook with a Mac," (Scully)? (footnote: my definition of "spook" is "someone who is spooky," a spy or someone who has been altered by supernatural forces. Work with me here.)

20. Just who is John Dvorak trying to kid?

21. Is Michael Dell secretly plotting to become Steve Jobs?

22. Does Saddam Hussein use a Gateway Profile?

23. If Charles W. Moore is traveling and his laptop battery dies but he forgot his power supply and has to send an article in through an airport Internet terminal where the only browser installed is Internet Explorer, will he use Internet Explorer to download iCab so he can do his work, or will he just go ahead and use Explorer, since it's not his computer anyway?

24. Is Matthew Rothenberg going to get Nick dePlume into Macworld SF this January on a press pass?

25. Daddy, what's a Nap-ster?

26. Do the Slashdot guys use a zero-seed random number algorithm to select articles? Or is it based on the number of clock cycles since their last reboot?

27. Will the next OS X revision be called "Tigger"?

28. How many teachers paid for .mac before the educational discount was announced?

29. Will someone at Gateway please just go ahead cancel the Profile? Put that thing out of its misery.

30. What is the funniest Lite Side? (Just click on your favorite one about 50 times to let us know.)

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