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.)
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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?
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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.
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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.”
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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.
