Category Archives: theWeb

interesting stuff found on the Internet

April Fool’s Geek Humor

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For those who actually read Internet RFC’s (there are a few of us), the ones that get released on April 1 can be hilarious.

This year’s, The Transmission of IP Datagrams over the Semaphore Flag Signaling System (SFSS) is funny.

Here’s part of the introduction:
This document specifies IP-SFS, a method for the encapsulation and
transmission of IPv4/IPv6 packets over the Semaphore Flag Signaling
System (SFSS). The SFSS is an internationally recognized alphabetic
communication system based upon the waving of a pair of hand-held
flags [JCroft, Wikipedia]. Under the SFSS, each alphabetic character
or control signal is indicated by a particular flag pattern, called a
Semaphore Flag Signal (SFS).

I especially like the symbols showing how to hold the flags. Note how the hands wave for the “error” signal:

_\0/_
/|\
/ \

Temporary email addresses

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You want to sign up for that free whitepaper on the Internet, but you don’t want your email address to end up on a dozen more mailing lists — what do you do?

Use a temporary email address. Mark Gibbs has a great article about them at NetworkWorld.com.

Of course, there are drawbacks. If everyone starts using these, the companies giving out free stuff will have to find another revenue model. Mark says he’s going to talk about the consequences in a future issue of his newsletter.