Think of this as end-of-year house cleaning. An attempt to de-cobweb the information technology field of its most persistent and ludicrous urban legends. From a couple of myth-busting sources, here are five plus a link to more.
Take This Job and…
I’m here to defend the honor of fellow information technology professional in Germany, where prostitution is legal. She was forced to take a job a sex-industry job, the story goes, or lose her unemployment benefits. Just not true. More likely is the reaction of a German gentleman visiting the US when he saw a gaggle of female American office workers smoking just outside the front doors of a downtown office building. “What a great idea! Prostitutes at the entrance.” MORE
iPods Attract Lightning
Not true. The false alarm comes from the fact that a few people, struck by lightning, were wearing iPods at the time they were hit. They also suffered ear damage and fried headphones. Show me a lightning-strike survivor without some kind of ear damage. MORE
Hold Computer Six
Back in the pre-PC days of 1943, Thomas Watson, the father of IBM, is purported to have predicted, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” At least! Watson was a bit of a bastard but he wasn’t stupid. A Watson biography claims he once had a tree trunk hauled into the lobby of his Dayton, Ohio, headquarters one morning. According to the story, he then watched employees enter the lobby from a secret vantage point and fired anyone who did not make some attempt to have the tree removed. I’d call that stupid. In any case, no one has shown the quote source. MORE
Stamp Out Free Email
With Bill 602P the US Post Office supports legislation to charge five-cents for every email message we send or receive or some such nonsense. Naturally spammers would get better rates the same way drek-mail purveyors do. Untrue. MORE
Microsoft’s iLoo
Across the pond in the UK, folks got word back in 2003 of the impending launch of the iLoo, a portable toilet with wireless keyboard to be used as a Hotmail spot. Not true. Just another example of Microsoft promising more than it would ever deliver. MORE
To read about Y2K, Sadaam’s Playstations, Crytography, Rand’s 1954 PC, and more, see They couldn’t have done that! IT urban legends exposed.
Happy New Year!
