Martha Stewart meets Trekkies

So what does a science-fiction geek do with all that time not spent dating? How about some nice crafting?

The Internet can teach you to make a lovely replica of the Starship Enterprise out of all those 3.5-inch microfloppies (you know you're a geek if you know why they're called "microfloppies") that you don't use anymore since thumb drives took over the world.

Since this is October, perhaps a Cylon Jack-O-Lantern is just the thing to brighten your doorstep. After all, without Halloween, when else could you dress up like a Klingon yet still go out in public?

Memory

The Internet has a better memory than we do. This post originally contained a description of how we recovered lost passwords from an abandoned laptop PC. But it turns out, we'd already discussed that.

Yarrr!

I be doubtin' that Talk Like A Pirate Day'd be the grand success 'tis now without th' Internet ter spread th' news. 'Least, twouldn't be not near so popular. So, mateys, be sure t' hoist yer hook fer this yearly celebration of the Pirate way o' life. Savvy?

I suppose you'd like fer me t' stop talking like this? I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request.

Means, "no."

The Internet is better than customer support

Back in the 1980s, I used to enjoy making a sauce for chicken from a recipe that was printed on the side of every can of Dole pineapple. Oh sure, I "kept" a copy of it somewhere, but the recipe was always available on that next can. About the same time that I moved to a new house and lost my copy of the recipe, Dole stopped printing that particular label. Eventually, I called their customer service number, but they could not find any record of the lost recipe. Fortunately, the Internet has everything, including this recipe for Sunshine Sauce, which goes great on chicken sandwiches.

Orange traffic cones

A great WILTI example, this site documents the proliferation of orange traffic cones.

Tech support

Recently, we received a couple of used laptops. They already had Windows 2000 installed on them, but the loser, er, I mean, "nice" person who gave us the computers did not know any of the username/password combinations to gain access to the computers. Not even the administrator’s password. Without that knowledge, these machines were little more than rechargeable doorstops, with 12-inch monitors.

Fortunately, the Internet has everything we need to know about resetting Windows passwords. This site provides, basically, an image of a bootable Unix floppy that can access the laptop's hard drive. It comes with an easy to use and very well documented program that did just what it promised: allowed us to restore (well actually, reset) the passwords to all user accounts on the laptop. End result: we have a laptop that works.

There’s nothing you can’t find on the Internet. That’s WILTI.

Weren’t we supposed to have flying cars by now?

I recently bought some Futuro compression stockings. Pretty boring.

On the other hand, this Futuro "House Of The Future" is pretty cool.

The future just isn’t what it used to be.

We have a Situation here

While reminiscing about my childhood, I recalled a game my family used to play called Situation 4. Part puzzle, part race, part strategy, it was a lot of fun. So was its sequel, the outer-space themed Situation 7.

Ukulele fans

The ukulele doesn't get a lot of respect. I guess that falsetto "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" kind of ruined its reputation. Perhaps that's why the Ukulele Hall Of Fame has snubbed Tiny Tim.

And goodness knows this song about the Proper Words for body parts isn't helping the ukulele's image.

On the other hand, there are some people who know how to play it.

Click-98

That used to be my brother's phone number. Way easier to remember
than a string of 7 (or, these days, ten) digits. It used to take tedious, manual work trying to figure out the best words one could spell out with a phone number.

But now the Internet makes it easy! What does your phone number
spell?