Error: The operation completed successfully

This is one of my favorite computer error messages of all time:

It's very easy for me to reproduce. It happens every time I try to print from the Photo Viewer in Windows.

For those wondering, the printing doesn't actually happen.

Weekly Hotmail Spam

I have a Hotmail account that I never use; it exists because I wanted to use MSN and back in the old days you had to have a Hotmail account to use MSN on the web. Since nobody emails me on this account, all it receives is spam. Lately I've been noticing a disturbing trend with the spam:  Once a week (exactly) I get one spam message that somehow misses the spam-filter and ends up in the inbox. My mail-checking program on my computer (happens to be Trillian) alerts me to a new mail, then I log in, delete the spam message, and log out.

Sometimes I've checked my Hotmail "Junk" folder only to find messages identical to the one that missed the spam-filter already sitting in my junk folder. This means that Hotmail knows that this message is spam, but decided to let it through anyway. There could be valid reasons for this; maybe other people have clicked "not spam" on the message? (Unlikely, given the content.) Maybe Hotmail thinks, "Messages just like this one were sent 100 times in the past month, maybe it's really important and we should let it through!"

But my theory is that Microsoft is annoyed that I'm not logging into this Hotmail account. By not logging in, they can make no money off of me. If I log in, I see ads, which generate ad-impressions, which they can charge money for on their ad-network. And if I were to click an ad, they'd make even more money off of me! Their solution? Let one junk mail a week come through, which brings me back to Hotmail to delete the message and allows them to show me all kinds of ads, and when I log off they can even send me to MSN's homepage to show me even more ads!

Sinister conspiracy plot or innocent Microsoft mistake? In the end I don't really care, because I'm getting free email out of the deal. Beggars can't be choosers. (And by the way, I can apparently get you a sweet deal on something called v1agara.)

Windows 7: A Step Backwards?

I upgraded to Windows 7 for two reasons; 1) they were going to cut support for the purchased copy of Windows XP I had been using without [many] problems for several years, and 2) Windows 7 is shinier, and I like shiny things as much as the next primate. I suppose fish, birds and some insects also like shiny things, maybe even more than I do, but that's beside the point.

While Windows 7 initially worked, unfortunately it's not as backwards-compatible as I'd have liked. Upon installation, I found that the following things no longer worked:

• No networked printer. It simply isn't detected. Ever. I therefore had to switch to a USB printer connection, so now only 1 computer in my network can print.
  
• No "documents" folders on networked drives. I used to have my "My Documents" folder on a networked drive, so that it could be shared across all my Windows computers on my network. With XP, I could tell Windows, "My 'My Documents' folder is over here, silly," and it would happily switch to the new location. Unfortunately, now that Windows 7 indexes the documents folders, it doesn't allow you to put them on a network drive because it cannot index a networked drive.
• No searching on networked drives. With XP I could right-click on my networked folders and click "Search" and then conduct an exhaustive (i.e. slow) search of the directory tree. I didn't care how long it took because I rarely ever did it. To my surprise, Windows 7 completely lacks this searching feature. Searching in Windows 7 is only done through the Windows indexing service, and the indexing service only indexes local drives (or networked drives that have local backups).
• Keyboard wasn't working (fixed now). At first, my keyboard would drop keys, some keys wouldn't work, and some keys would make other characters appear. Randomly. When I contacted Logitech's customer support I was told that my 2-year-old keyboard was "too old" to work with Windows 7, and I was told to "buy a new one". After weeks of frustration with the keyboard I almost did buy a new one, until a mysterious update from Microsoft made the problem vanish! Now my keyboard works perfectly.

Aside from that... meh, Windows 7 seems to "work". Upgrading to Windows 7 has left me with one lasting impression; they took away features from it that I was using, where Fedora Linux, the desktop linux distribution I also use, adds features with every release. Hmm, interesting.

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A new phase of oatmeal matter

[Toronto] Researchers have discovered a new form of oatmeal matter. This find could help yield all kinds of benefits to humanity, including furthering research into diseases, aiding the migration of humpback whales around shipping lanes, and creating a sustainable future through the re-use of paper-clips. Here's a summary on the phases of oatmeal, including information on the new phase found recently:

Dry Powdery Form

This is often called the "first form" of oatmeal. When you buy it from the store in its packaging, this is the form it is in. It is a solid, and yet it behaves like a liquid in that it takes the shape of its container. It also has limited ability to be compressed, thus has no defined volume.

Wet Oatmealy Form

When you add water to your oatmeal and heat it up, it changes into its second form. This is the tastiest of all the forms.

Solid Form

If you leave your oatmeal too long, it turns into a crystalline solid that is almost as hard as diamonds. Your dishwasher uses special solvents to break down the molecular bonds in order to remove solid-form oatmeal from dishes, yet sometimes this is not enough and flame-throwers must be employed to make your dishes sparkley-clean.

Plasma Form (new!)

Plasma, an entirely new form of oatmeal matter, was created in a laboratory through the following procedure: heat standing water up to near boiling point, add oatmeal to it and stir carefully. This seemingly simple procedure caused the oatmealocules to enter into a previously unobserved phase, which closely resembles the wet-oatmealy form, yet has the odd physical property of "not tasting the same". Scientific investigations are currently underway to unlock the mysteries of this new form of oatmeal. Skeptics have been reported as saying, "It still takes like [censored] to me." Yet all agree, this new phase of oatmeal may be the most important discovery of the past century.

Will the movie you're starting to watch be any good?

Does it start with the protagonist brushing their teeth? => It probably won't be any good. This is typically the work of a weak director who is using a cliché to portray aspects of a character early in a film (how they get ready for the day can reveal a lot). It is often typical of romantic comedy films that you don't need to finish watching.

Does it start with a shot of a city-scape? => It probably won't be any good. This is also an amateur directorial technique used to establish setting and mood (usually by the weather and time-of-day of the shot). It's okay to show a shot of San Francisco when watching Full House, but otherwise it's generally a waste of film.

Exceptions to these rules: Stranger Than Fiction starts off with the main character brushing his teeth, but it's for a reason. Blade starts off with panning over a city from the top (not a typical landscape shot of a city), and it's sunset scenery is used to convey the transition of the city into the world of the vampires.

Things That Chickens Do

In case you were wondering, here is a complete list of what chickens do:

• Eat
• Sleep
• Mate with roosters
  
• Lay eggs
• Cluck
• Produce waste
• Sort buttons better than people (when properly trained)

It has been rumoured that they can do other things as well, but until verified scientifically, they're just rumours.