Last Mile: First day data center jitters; SPAM--the board game; Otherworldly feedback.

Top 11 things you don't want to hear on your first day in the data center

11)"Our UPS is so efficient, it actually makes power. See, the load is at 107 percent."

10)"There's no smoking in the data center until we receive replacement fire extinguishers."

9)"We use plenum cable; the rats tend not to chew through it."

8)"Can you stop by the CEO's house

on the way home? His daughter can't get Yahoo Messenger to work."7)"The code to enter the data center? It's the first 20 digits of pi."

6)"Have you ever organized punch cards?"

5)"There is another server. We're just not sure where it is."

4)"Welcome. My handle is ByteWrangler. What's yours?"

3)"Documentation? The switches and routers are the documentation."2)"All I know is that when that little line stays near 100, I'm supposed to call this number, quickly."

1)"Wait. Do you smell halon?"

Thanks to Michael Brenneman, DeWayne Cartee, Ty Hunt, Michael Johnson, Cindy Kryszak, Dan Kwitchen, Wayne Maurer, Claude Roloff, Amy Segowski, Gene Stillman and Kristopher Ting for their submissions. See more reader submissions.

Otherworldly Feedback
We strive to provide accurate data on the Web, but there's just no pleasing some people.To: Feedback

Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 20:08:23 -0500

From: B-Ob1

Subject: Feedback

I see two or three WWW sites proclaiming KNOWLEDGE of the Galactic Federation, yet they have no connection worth mentioning, as data is both imaginary and misinterpreted second-hand info. There is a long history, including four wars fought in our solar system alone since September 1996. The last battle was fought in our skies Sept. 3, 2001. Many losses to the Galactic Federation to SAVE our worthless cabooses. Thousands of "Chosen" people are "implanted" (four implants per person). Get it RIGHT, people. Do the JOB right or get the hell OFF the WWW.--Dr. B-0b1, Ph.D.

Have Spam-Anxiety? Learn How to Conquer It
If the best way to conquer your fears is to face them, we highly recommend that everyone in our reading audience start playing "Spammers," a satirical card game from Atlas Games. Each player takes on the role of an Internet mogul who devises scams to send junk mail out to mailing lists. With each turn, the cards offer the player different ways to cultivate his or her own scams to turn a profit, while attacking opponents' proprietary lists, hardware and card hands. The winner is the mogul whose strategies result in becoming the wealthiest Internet entrepreneur.

www.atlas-games.com/spammers_index.html

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