Rumours, silliness and the things we get up to in presentations.

First off I'm doomed unless I change the rules of the game. I just read in Eileen's post about the roadshow we have contests to see who can finish closest to zero seconds on the countdown clock. These folks present well, with passion and manage to watch the clock... As the new guy, what chance do I have? But ... there is a game that lawyers play of sneaking words into their closing speeches (journalists do the same thing with conference reports). Now if I get them to change to including as many vegetables or pop group names or whatever in our presentations I might have a chance. That could be a metaphor for so many things ...

Secondly. I've been active in web photographic communities ages so I thought I'd post a link to the Colour management post and the pictures I took working in India a few weeks ago. Since the links come to a Microsoft web site I thought I better explain that I worked for Microsoft and but I didn't want to get into "My OS is better than yours" arguments - the kind one of my colleagues terms the 'You suck' ... 'No you suck' argument. I illlustrated this for one of the people in the forum.

Poster A. I'm thinking of getting a new computer.

Poster B. I've got a Mac, you should get one too.

Poster C. Macs are pretty, but Windows is more flexible.

Poster D. Windoze is evil man. Look at all the money M$ makes. You should get linux [gives list of distributions]

Poster B. Linux is hard. My granny can use a Mac, and she's been dead for 10 years

Poster D. If she can't build a kernel she shouldn't have a computer, tree hugger.

Poster C. Have you looked at Windows XP-Dead Grandparent Edition ? It's got lots of features {lists them. All of them}

Poster E. Yeah, but that's the problem XP DGE is so bloated. It's been downhill since Windows 3.0, and we didn't get Viruses in those days.

Poster D. And those features are just a cover for Micro$oft to steal your brain.

Poster C. {Gives feature by feature justification, explains 15 years of changes in viruses. Denies brain stealing rumour. Misses meal)

Poster A. None of you have given me a reason to choose one OS over another.

Posters F-Z WE DON'T CARE !!

One of the forum regulars came back and said I'd missed a few ...

Poster K. Why do you need a computer? In my day we did everything in the darkroom - computers are just cheating
Poster J. Hey, I'm new here and I'm not sure if this is the right place - does anyone have a recipe for pancakes?
Poster L. Grab yourself a 3174 and run it green screen to an OS/390 host. If you're short of cash then AS400s are going for about £129 on eBay. Those fancy Mac things are really based on RS6000 technology anyway. Apple steal everything just like M$.
Poster X. Nah - OS/390 hasn't cut it since they renamed it z/OS....

He also asked if XP-DGE is an official rumour about vista. I get to officially denysomething! To the best of my knowledge, at this time, we have have no plans for a "Dead Grandparent Edition" of XP or Vista. Actually serious point here, although Vista will have five versions they align with what you want to do rather than the hardware that you have, so "DGE" could be a Vista product, but not an XP one. Still if the DGE turns up on slashdot you'll know where it started. Shame I missed April fools day.

Thirdly ... and how's this for a segueway... the Dead Granny on the car is one of the great urban legends... this morning I got a mail headed "Do Lemmings Commit Mass Suicide?" my first reaction was to reply with the question about the ablutions of bears. But it was promoting a web site de-bunking some other popular myths worth a look and there's a win a holiday competition. Checking on whether the suicidal lemmings are true or a myth I found that the penguin story I love so much is also a myth.