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Digging in the dirt since 2004

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No End In Sight For Pronoun Drought

Six months after the last pronoun was used in the cosmetics editorial of Cosmopolitan magazine, experts are no closer to determining when the pronoun drought will end. Experts quashed spurious ... more >>

Botched 'Real Boy' Operation Leaves Pinocchio Fighting For Life

Star of the classic Disney film and worldwide children's favourite Pinocchio was today in a "stable but highly critical condition" at the Santobono Hospital, Naples, after serious complications during an ... more >>

Funnier, Happier, More Productive

Radiohead's lead singer Thom Yorke, generally perceived as an intense, serious and introspective character, shocked the music press this week when he announced the launch of *Thom's 500 Giggles*, a ... more >>

Internet Subsidence Could Worsen, Experts Warn

A Cisco 2500-series router exhibiting almost 3 degrees of Internet Subsidence

The Internet, which is already listing at an angle of about 3 degrees to the horizontal, could subside even more, experts have warned at the Annual W3C Convention in San Francisco last week.

"The rate of slippage is imperceptible to most home users," explained Cisco Strategies Manager Henry Wo, "but that does not mean it's not happening. Though it is difficult to make projections far into the future, it is possible that the Internet could be tilted by up to 10 degrees by early 2008. This would result in severe packet loss, server stress and widespread data corruption."

Internet subsidence is caused by so-called 'heavy bytes', which carry up to 5 extraneous binary digits of information as well as the 8 they are designed to transmit. Because of their additional 'weight', heavy bytes tend to accumulate in the lower memory registries and storage devices of network servers, destabilising them and causing the 3-degree tilt.

Wo went on to inform the 3,000-strong audience at San Francisco's Moscone Center that while his company, whose routers form the 'backbone' of the web, has taken action to retrofit their devices to compensate for the subsidence, Internet users also have a responsibility to be vigilant for heavy bytes, and to install the free software packages designed to discover and neutralise them when they become available later this month.