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#32478
06/15/2001 3:02 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
from The silicon.com Weekly Round-Up (thanx, John):
If you're sitting at your desk reading this and feeling rather unhappy, the chances are you're doing your job very well (and I'm doing mine very badly).
It seems that the less tickety-boo we feel in the office, the harder we work. Psychologists from the University of Alberta have found that chipper people waste time trying to maintain their happy moods, while their miserable brethren get on with the job.
The boffins studied four groups of people building circuit boards on a production line. The grumpy gits didn't work any faster, but they made half as many mistakes as the happy chappies.
One explanation is that miserable people use work to take their minds of their bad moods.
So welcome to the 21st century, where black is the new grey, cloudy is the new sunny and having a face like a wet weekend in Bognor means you're a well-oiled cog in the corporate wheel.
One question: were the psychologists happy in their jobs? If so, it's just possible they made a mistake...
Talking of mistakes, a few hundred web users took what was supposed to be a joke a tad too seriously. The owner of a Joke-a-Day website posted a spoof story warning people to delete the "insidious aol.exe virus which has already effected close to 30m computers". The file is of course the executable which boots up the AOL application.
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#32479
06/15/2001 3:17 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 218 |
The owner of a Joke-a-Day website posted a spoof story warning people to delete the "insidious aol.exe virus which has already effected close to 30m computers".
I feel much better now that I've rid myself of that aol.exe virus. I'm getting ready to blast that Iexplorer.exe virus, too.
Brandon
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#32480
06/15/2001 3:24 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
"insidious aol.exe virus which has already effected close to 30m computers".
I had no idea that the america(!) on line (ha!) software was so effective!
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#32481
06/15/2001 3:30 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
30m computers
Is that thirty thousandths of a computer?
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#32482
06/15/2001 4:46 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
I thought it was only the big computers, 30 m (98.43 ft) long! 
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#32483
06/15/2001 5:18 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
and did you notice the sly way this works, this wicked viral worm - it creeps up on the computers (large and small) and effects them! 
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#32484
06/15/2001 5:55 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
>and effects them!
::sigh::
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#32485
06/15/2001 6:10 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
effects them
Maybe it has something to do with turning them into 30 meter computers.
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#32486
06/15/2001 7:58 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
::sigh::
It's OK, tsuwm. *I saw you got there first.
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#32487
06/15/2001 8:46 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 544
addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 544 |
*I saw you got there first
As did I, but mav seemed so pleased to have spotted it. (Not that *I spotted it...)
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#32488
06/16/2001 3:42 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Another Rule-Of-Thumb from my media days ... works most of the time ...
Effect = result
Affect = influence
Sigh back atcha' tsuwm!
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#32489
06/18/2001 10:46 AM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 393 |
Another rule of thumb, possibly better because you don't have to think about shades of meaning, is
effect = noun
affect = verb
You seldom need to use the verb 'effect' (in fact you never need to, as 'cause' or 'stage' or some such clearer synonym is always at hand), and the noun 'affect' is so rare that I barely know what it means even when I think about it.
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#32490
06/18/2001 11:33 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Respect to tsuwm, but don't get grumpy, gramps! I wasn't remarking on the effect/affect split, because that (I think) is not what has happened here. I would take any odds the happless hack has fallen into this affectation through groping for the alternative and more effective description: infected.
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