The best friends I never met

 
These days we all love people we don’t actually know

A MAN WITH NO internet connection secretly hooked up his computer into an unsecured Wi-Fi signal elsewhere in his apartment block. He used it sparingly at first, then threw caution to the wind and started downloading when he described as “extremely large files”, which I assume were life-sized photos of Kim Jung Un in Speedos or something equally irresistible.

But the neighbor noticed. He password-locked his hotspot and changed its name to:

GET YOUR OWN INTERNET

The signal-stealer, having no choice, did. He called his own hotspot:

LOOK I DID

The neighbor then changed the name of his Wi-Fi signal to:

GOOD IM PROUD OF YOU

To this day, neither of the residents know who the other is.

This true story was forwarded from Gawker.com by reader Ricky Chou, who offered it as a follow-up to an item in this column about hotspot names which discourage neighbors from stealing your Wi-Fi capacity. “The most thief-proof name ever came from one guy who called his hotspot TROJAN32.EXE,” he said.

I agree. No computer user would ever click on the name of a virus so powerful that it wipes out your hard drive, empties your beer-cooler and sleeps with your spouse.

But the cruelest tale came from a mischievous man who found a neighbor’s unlocked Wi-Fi signal and renamed it himself, calling it

LIVE STREAMING PORN

If that doesn’t make you rush home and password-protect your hotspot, nothing will.

Yes, these are whole new ways people who’ve never met interact with each other.

I gave up lecturing my kids against talking to strangers when I realized that several of my best friends are people I’ve come to know ONLY through the web.

I love it: I can talk to these folk every day, but never have to buy them birthday presents, eat their horrible cooking or pretend I like their vile children. And vice versa.

(Only joking. My cooking and children are faultless.)

***
WHY ALL this puzzlement over the mystery meteorite that landed in Russia? What they SHOULD be looking for is a small rocket containing a baby wrapped in blue and red blankets. Don’t Russians read great literature?

***
SEVERAL PEOPLE in India received one-month phone bills for the equivalent of US$20 million each last week, thanks to a computer error at the offices of MTNL Dolphin. The telecom company later sent out texts saying customers need not pay the mega-millions. The SMS added (I am not making this up): “If paid, please ignore.” Staff must have intended that for customers who can hand over US$20m without really noticing and don’t mind not getting it back. Idiots.

***

REAL REASONS why Pope Benedict resigned:

1) Missed cruising downtown Berlin in his retro convertible scoping chicks.

2) Told by image consultant that white robes were unflattering and leather pants would be more “him”.

3) Having acquired infallibility, wanted to try the slot machines in Macau.

Imagine if he retained his “infallible” status.

“I want your hotel’s presidential suite for fifty bucks a night.”

“But sir, that’s not the right price.”

“Hey, I’m the Pope and I say it costs fifty bucks a night.”

***

IN HONG KONG, the 102-year-old turbaned torpedo is resting this morning after doing a 10k run in 1 hour and 32 minutes. Fauja Singh said it would be his last race. I heard this from Grandpa, who read it in a paper, and wrote to tell me:  “You have been chosen to take his place for the next 50 years.”

Actually, I think Grandpa should. He admitted that he himself took around the same length of time recently to do a 10k trail, but that one was straight up and down the whole way, from sea level to 1,000 feet. Good going.

Reader Angela Lancaster told me she did a 5k yesterday in Los Angeles in37 minutes. Well done, young lady!

Meanwhile, I am still doing my daily 10k (I go slow, it takes me about 65 mins), but it’s easy—I am doing it on the Kowloon waterfront, so every step is completely flat, and the view is to die for.

The app I use to record my runs keeps asking me whether I want to make the data public. I want to shake it and say: “You kidding?! At that speed?!”

But I guess doing so would make me more acquaintances who I don’t know. And we can all sneer at each other. Yet another whole new way to make friends.

Technorati Tags: internet friends,friends you've never met,Fauka Singh,wi fi names,hotspot names

Comments

[Astarte]

This is a good topic. I have two friends I made on games such as runescape. I know them pretty well, but I have never been within 1000 miles of them.
I have a friend or two on facebook who I look forward to exchanging comments with, but I have never met them. They were friends of friends of friends etc.
I have probably six to ten people I could as good friends but whome I know only through the internet.

[Corinna]

I can now tell that "I can hear you scr?wing" were the last to move out of the house, "Bleeding on the floor" is still living nearby... "pitty home" is new.

I met some Twitter girl for real to go see a movie about Tokyo. She keeps posting in Japanese, so I could tell she'd be interested. It turned out she is very nice. She takes couchsurfers, especially from Japan: :-)

[Nury]

Hi Corinna, you're a good example of someone I feel I know, but we probably have knowingly been within 1000 miles of each other!

And as for Grandpa and some of the other regular commentators on this site, if I don't hear his thoughts every day or two, life is missing something....

[Lift Lurker]

Maybe it is also time to consider the case of internet marriage?

Marriage between two people who met only on the internet, and have no plan to meet each other, but want to stay devoted to each other forever.

The honeymoon night sound disgusting, but otherwise it is marriage free of snoring and toilet seat up or down problem.

--

PS: Grandpa is the best enemy I never met.

[Dancer]

Liftie, Internet marriage already exists in some online games such as the very old Lineage.

[Dancer]

'Married' couples can share special functions such as 'spouse tracking' so that you'll always know where he is and then use the 'summon' function to summon him over.

[grandpa]

Guys and girls
My apologies.
Thanks to time difference , I read the post in the Standard before you wake up.
I prepare my text, and I post it at 1 am , when I have my night snack.
Not this time
My internet was down and the technicians woke up at 8 am my time.
aargh
And my answer is in my home computer
Aargh

[Lift Lurker]

This internet friendship can be tricky as I learn the hard way.

For many years I talk to someone I met on the net every day.

We comfort each other. I tell him about my day. He tell me about his day.

I make sure he eat healthy and get good exercise.

We have some fun talking about my neighborhood dogs and cats. I tell him stories our odd mailman ('he always ring twice...').

Then one day he said "Liftie, you are best friend I ever had."

I was shock.

I could not escape and have to tell him the truth: that all these years, I only think of him as my pet. ("You were more fun than my tamagochi...")

[grandpa]

aargh
Those liftuanians

[grandpa]

My dear uncle
I am sorry to inform you that Liftuania is not located where you thought
As a pilot I always have to watch for this @&é$ù?!§ elevator cable, which is why I kwow that @&é$ù?!§ Liftuania storey too@&é$ù?!§ well

Here is the exact location

[grandpa]

HERE COMES THE DELAYED MESSAGE:

"I can talk to these folk every day, but never have to buy them birthday presents, eat their horrible cooking, or pretend I like their vile children. "
Are you so sure?
I know someone who could impose his cheese on you,and whose daughter will
trouble you, just fo the fun of troubling you

"Mistery meteorite?"
You should know the medjahs by now.
If they make so much noise about horse meat, they are trying to hide something more serious like:
Do you remember the Westerners sneering at cousin JIm jong one about a rocket which would be harmless because of the lack of an explosive charge?

Well
Jim Jong one shot his rocket at them , but he missed their country.
The rock , which had replaced the explosive charge ended up , crashlanding in his russian neighbors' backyard.
Now everybody is scared sh.tless because he can fling rocks to anybody.
And they have no weapon sophisticated enough to protect them.

"Real reasons why Pope Benedict resigned:"
This pope , just popped a fuse.

[grandpa]

totally out of place
totally out of subject
totally ou t of this world

We ( liftie and me) have finally found the ultimate airport for you uncle
No security, no screening, no customs, no police and no.....
..... runway

enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZISm4bYI-o

[Jason]

Christian, I have solved the problem of screaming babies/loud children on airplanes: make them fly as passengers on Cargo flights.

This occurred to me yesterday on a flight from Shanghai, with a very loud child and clueless mother who did not have the presence of mind to instruct her child on indoor voices. I remembered a lunch I had a couple of weeks ago with a very hot local friend of mine who told me she is dating a cargo pilot (lucky bastid he is).

Any parents with children under 8 should be required by international aviation treaties to fly only in the passenger cabin of cargo freighters. Problem solved.

[Lucy]

Liftie's idea of internet marriages is a brilliant idea..... And if you arranged the ceremony to take place in Europe, you could have gay internet marriages..... Since the couple never meet, even heterosexual guys who think gay marriages are icky and disgusting can get gay-married as a show of male solidarity....

[rafanjr]

internet infidelity and internet divorces will soon follow i suppose.

[Nury]

Lucy, are you suggesting that Grandpa marries Liftie?

[TS]

Grandpa and liftie as a married couple?
That'll happen when they start serving horse in the cafeterias of IKEA.

[Lift Lurker]

grandpa has just send me an engagement ring!

And it came by Lift! How thoughtful!!!!!

Is it real diamond grandpa? (blush)

But no matter, I cannot accept.

One, you are my grandpa.

Two, we are 4 or 5 generations apart -- I am gen-X you are pre-Cambrian gen.

Three, we are mortal enemies.

But can I keep the ring?

[Uli]

All these years it hasn't changed a thing!
It is great to be back among you very funny girls and guys, lifties, grandpas, Christians and of course Nurys! :-)
Best greetings from Germany
Uli

[grandpa]

@Liftie,baby
I could not marry you if I wanted to:I am a grown up ,when you are still tied down to your umbilical cable.
But yes , you can keep the ring.
Yes , for you it is called a diamond

But we, grownups , we call that a pacifier, dummy!

[grandpa]

@Uli
Welcome back.
How are the little ones?

[Chamin]

@Uli, welcome back. That said, I too am back after a while :o)

Are the Hotspots near Liftuania named "@#$%^& Cable"?