Bank Holiday Backbytes

Facebook love child and nut-job nuptials

Out-Foxed by Twitter

More uses for Twitter (we think we might be up to three by now, and we haven't even touched on how it is used to spread inaccurate information about superinjunctions): letting people know what secret agents really think about TV news. That's what the person who had access to the US Secret Service official Twitter account did last week, when he thought he was logged on to his personal account and posted: "Had to monitor Fox for a story. Can't. Deal. With. The. Blathering."

Oops! Higher-ups quickly removed it, calling it "unapproved and inappropriate". Not, we note, "inaccurate".

Off-the-wall name

After the last issue, where we revealed the kosher smartphone specially designed with no internet access - in other words, a phone - we return to Israel for the heartwarming story of Lior Adler and his wife Verdit, who are so besotted with Facebook that they named their new daughter "Like".

In later years Like can tell her psychiatrist that her parents informed the Haaretz newspaper that they were looking for a name that was "modern and innovative". Presumably they couldn't find one, so settled for "embarrassing and humiliating" instead.

Still, at least she wasn't born 10 years ago, or she'd be called "POP3" or "URL".

Astoundingly, little Hashtag Adler, or whatever her name is, was luckier than her sibling. Lior and Verdit also like to cook, so they named her older sister "Pie". We did not make this up.

Play it again, Dean (or not)

We asked for requests for Dean Stockdale, the pianist who has landed a job playing the piano at the Savoy when he's not working in the IT department at Darlington College. Your replies, for which we are of course grateful, show how awful your taste in music is, but some are appropriate.

Ian Thompson recommends "cloudbusting" by Kate Bush, and decides that the Police's "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" sounds like a tribute to the modem.

Ian Park requests "Walking in a Windows Wonderland" and "Send in the Clouds", as well as the Elkie Brooks classic "Pearl's a Language".

Our favourite this week, from Mark Young, is the rousing Clash classic "Lock the Taskbar", which you will now be humming all day.

Keith Swinford points out that if you want to order a cocktail, it's got to be a Dataquiri. Try it, and watch the waiter crease with mirth when you explain the pun to him.

Any more song titles? We could organise a Backbytes evening out: Dean will be charmed to see us.

Tying the nut

Latest in the trend for geek marriage proposals, which mostly serve to make you realise that maybe you could have tried a little bit harder, is Jon Hodgson's Harry Potter Quiz app, which he developed for Android and gave to his girlfriend.

The first four questions were basic Potter trivia. The fifth was "Meghan will you marry me?" and the option to tap "yes" or "no". When she tapped "yes" (inexplicably, as far as we're concerned), the app texted Jon so that he could produce the ring. This meant that Meghan had a proposal that she will always remember even if the marriage becomes dull and tedious, and an anecdote that has been immortalised on geek.com.

Warning: this is an advantage only for a special type of girlfriend.

Stand by for déjà vu

Jeffrey Rouder from the University of Missouri and Richard Morey from the University of Groningen have done a statistical analysis of recent experiments that suggested ESP exists. Their analysis suggests that you should update your beliefs to conclude that ESP, when used to sense future events, is 40 times as likely as you thought it was just now.
For people who think it is vanishingly unlikely (us, and the authors), this makes no difference at all to our expectation. But, if you believe you can sense future events, it is significant news. In that case, though, you probably already sensed this analysis would take place and so you already updated your belief. Therefore no one has to do anything. Forget you read (or will read) this.

If you've encountered anything weird, wonderful or infuriating relating to the world of IT, we'd love to hear from you. Just email us at [email protected] or leave a comment.

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