The Old New Thing

Crackpots in computer security: Don't plug it in, man!

January 28, 2008 Jan 28, 2008 01/28/08
Raymond Chen
Some time a few years ago, some folks on the security team were swapping crackpots stories, and this one somehow lodged in my mind. The story below is paraphrased, but the essense remains intact. "We had a crazy guy call into the security support line many years ago. He was going through a messy divorce and was convinced that his wife's ...

PLAY! A Video Game Symphony comes to Seattle

January 25, 2008 Jan 25, 2008 01/25/08
Raymond Chen
Competing with the Miss America pageant for your Saturday evening attention is the Seattle performance of PLAY! A Video Game Symphony, featuring music from a large number of video games. Presumably, the music will have something to do with the accompanying video being projected on large screens. The description of the concert omits any ...

What counts as a talent nowadays?

January 25, 2008 Jan 25, 2008 01/25/08
Raymond Chen
The annual Miss America Pageant struggles for survival tomorrow. And what makes it different from Donald Trump's Miss USA and Miss Universe is the talent competition. (Yes, Miss World also has a talent competition, but nobody in the United States pays any attention to Miss World, probably because of the aforementioned Donald Trump.) It's ...

The classic start menu is even more classic than it looks

January 25, 2008 Jan 25, 2008 01/25/08
Raymond Chen
In Windows 95, the Find option took its place on the Start menu between Settings and Help. In Windows 2000, the option was still there, but its name changed to Search, a name which persist today if you use the classic Start menu. When the menu option changed its name, the keyboard accelerator changed accordingly. Whereas Find used ...

The Windows 95 volume control almost went to eleven

January 22, 2008 Jan 22, 2008 01/22/08
Raymond Chen
The movie This Is Spinal Tap introduced the world to the phrase going to eleven. The people over at Windows Media Player were not immune to its charms, alluding to the catchphrase in their advertising campaign. Back in Windows 95, I know that there was at least one person who lobbied the multimedia team to give the Volume Control ...

If they had felt a little more mischievous when they titled the article Excerpts from Fischer-Spassky games

January 21, 2008 Jan 21, 2008 01/21/08
Raymond Chen
In response to the recent passing of chess celebrity Bobby Fischer, the Associated Press published an article titled Excerpts from Fischer-Spassky Games. The article consists of excerpts from the organization's coverage of the so-called Match of the Century in 1972. But given the title, I wondered whether the article had merely gone like ...

When computer programmers dabble in economics: Paying parking tickets

January 21, 2008 Jan 21, 2008 01/21/08
Raymond Chen
One of my colleagues has a degree in economics, and sometimes it manifests itself in strange ways. My colleague moved to a new apartment building and rented a parking space in the building's garage. After a month of noticing that there was usually an empty parking space or two on the street, my colleague made the economic calculation that the...