The Weekly Round-Up: 09.01.04

Well Happy New Year to you all, the Round-Up hopes you had a great Christmas and an appropriately celebratory New Year.

The highlight of the Round-Up's Christmas was spending two hours in accident an emergency having a tube of Pringles removed from the end of its arm.

OK that's a lie... but it almost came to that. Why do they make the tubes so narrow that only a small child can reach more than the top five crisps?

As inventions go you'd have to say the mouth of a tube of Pringles very much deserves a 'back to the drawing board' write-up.

More impressive on the invention front is Tim Berners-Lee's brainchild - the World Wide Web - which ensured he saw in the New Year as a Sir when he picked up a knighthood for an innovation which has changed the way we think, work and book holidays.

So Arise, Sir Tim and well done you - not least because you've beaten off all those other pretenders to the crown who'd have us believe they invented the web. (Yes the Round-Up is talking about you Al Gore. Perhaps you'd have been better off inventing a device for counting votes correctly... eh?).

We may not be able to land a craft on Mars at less than twice the speed of sound (Beagle 2 is probably even now still ploughing on through the core of the Red Planet and the Round-Up predicts it will burst out the other side in about three days time having drilled a perfect tunnel) but you can't take this one away from us Brits - Sir Tim's one of our own, and very proud we are of him too (putting aside the fact that he lives and works in the States...splitter).

However, there may be times when Berners-Lee looks at his invention and thinks 'what have I done... oh the horror' (though possibly not in the same way as Oppenheimer or Pete Waterman).

One such 'head-in-hands' moment might have occurred as he surveyed exactly what his invention is used for. The greatest academic tool of our age was last year used to search for more pictures of Britney Spears than any other online item.

Other popular searches during 2003 included Paris Hilton (apparently not the hotel, but the socialite queen of DIY smut), Harry Potter, The Matrix, David Beckham and gangster rapper 50 Cent.

Imagine Tim's pride when he explains to the Queen just what he's given the world.

In fact you have to get down as far as seventh place in the unique social barometer which is Google's top 10 search terms of 2003 to find something which might be deemed a worthwhile pursuit of knowledge - 'war in Iraq'.

With typically British reserve Berners-Lee wrote off his invention as "just another programme" and voiced surprise that he should have received such an accolade.

Berners-Lee told the BBC: "The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information. The idea was that by writing something together, and as people worked on it, they could iron out misunderstanding."

So presumably there is now a unified understanding of just how low Britney's trousers can ride before you see arse-crack.

And who said science had nothing more to offer the world.

Speaking of arses... how's your boss been treating you lately? (Look at that for a link.)

It turns out that angry emails from our superiors (like the one the Round-Up will be getting for using the word 'arse' twice...make that three times... in this week's email) can have serious effects on our health.

High blood pressure is the problem. Angry emails raise our blood pressure, as do emails from our superiors and angry emails from our superiors, the marriage of the two, sends it through the roof, according to a study from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College presented at the British Psychological Society Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Who would have thought that getting a telling off from your boss raises the ire of even the most even-tempered employee?

Groundbreaking indeed... people don't like being told off by their boss - go spread the word.

The conclusion was that it is "counterproductive" for managers to write aggressive, chastising emails to their staff. So there you go... Next time you get told off via email just tell your boss that it's 'counterproductive' and everything should be fine.

They'll (probably) understand. Or they just may sack you for gross insubordination, but at least they might think about doing it in a more polite email.

If anybody needs a stern telling off it’s the parents who have apparently taken to naming their children after technology brands.

If you thought Brooklyn Beckham was unusual, wait until you meet Motorola Masterson and Bluetooth Ramsbottom.

Apparently a psychology professor by the name of Cleveland Evans (himself no stranger to unusual names) who works at Bellevue University in Nebraska analysed the names of four million babies born in the US in 2000 and discovered the trend of parents naming their children after technology products.

But joking aside it would seem it is fast becoming a status symbol. Apparently it says a lot about you if you give you child a fashionable name.

Yeah, like "we value image more than our child's happiness" and "our child is going to grow up hating us". That's what it says about you... so think on and don't let the UK fall victim to this awful trend. (You'll have to trust the seventies-born Round-Up - real name Spacehopper Fondue Smith - that fad names date very quickly.)

However, an interesting take on this trend is offered by 'memory guru' Benjamin Levy who has bemoaned the fact that most names are a random jumble of nonsensical syllables, which makes them hard to remember.

Levy claims the pilgrims of America had the right idea in giving people names such as Temperance and Chastity after values they held dear. (Good luck finding somebody who would fit the names Temperance and Chastity in this day and age Mr Levy.)

Levy says even Native Americans had a more sensible naming system than our current Janet and John-based model, using distinguishing characteristics, such as Dances With Wolves (...admittedly he'd be hard to forget if he did that in the silicon.com offices).

"Who's that over in the corner?"

"What, Andy...?"

"No next to Andy, dancing with those big dogs..."

"Oh that's the new chap, Dances with Wolves..."

"Of course."

Perhaps we could be onto something here... it would enable everybody to have a unique moniker... looking around now, the Round-Up can see 'Never Makes the Tea' hard at work. 'Working from Home' is working from home (apparently), 'Turns up Late' isn't in yet and the Round-Up isn't sure where 'Always in the Pub' is... perhaps she's just popped out to the shops.

Moving on. McDonalds - that highly litigious purveyor of fine fast foods - has announced a deal with BT Openzone to install Wi-Fi access in 500 'restaurants' (a word the Round-Up uses with a level of malapropism-based discomfort not felt since hearing Keanu Reeves recently described as an 'actor').

While a number of flagship stores on Oxford Street, The Strand and Liverpool Street are going to benefit from the hot-spots they are intended primarily for use at Drive-Thrus (sic) which are clearly to be renamed, drive-in-park-log-on-and-access-the-internets.

Although McDonalds has been trialling Wi-Fi access in its 'restaurants' for the past year, this latest move suggests the company has finally got to grips with the notion that the average McDonalds customers is unlikely to be the sort of person with much need for wireless networking.

"Oi! Darren do you want to go and graffiti some bus shelters?" "In a minute mate, I've just got to access the VPN and check back at the office to see whether those contracts are in."

It's just not likely is it? Instead this latest move would seem to target the 'secret Lemonade drinker' demographic - those who eat McDonalds but would balk at the idea of ever stepping foot in one. These are the middle classes, unprepared to rub denim and sportswear-clad shoulders with the riff-raff, but who may just be tempted to log on while parked up outside in the comfort of their five-door Mundano.

And then there's the reps, the travelling salesmen and the assorted 'road warriors' who may be able to make some use of these services, perhaps even preferring McDonalds food to a five mile tail-back on the M25 (assuming they had eaten the chamois leather in their glove box the previous day).

And finally, the bizarre legal case of a man who sold his own urine online looks set to run and run, with the defendant Kenneth Curtis and 'number one' suspect losing his latest appeal against a custodial sentence.

Curtis was selling $69 kits which offered clean urine and a mechanism which would have enabled users to convincingly take and pass drugs tests, but he claims he's done nothing wrong, despite being banned from trading out of South Carolina in 1999 and subsequently being arrested and sentenced to a six month prison sentence.

However, Curtis' claims of innocence, which were based around the argument that he was merely selling a natural product and had no control over how it was used, were undermined somewhat by his own marketing.

The controversial kits boasted that they would help sportsmen and women "Pass Any Drug Test". They also shipped with the claim that they would "allow anyone, regardless of substance intake, to pass any urinalysis within minutes".

So apart from those bold claims Kenneth, you had no intention of facilitating the cheating of drugs tests?

However, Curtis and his lawyers appear set to continue their fight despite this latest setback at the hands of the South Carolina Supreme Court. Curtis is even threatening to take his case to the US Supreme Court.

Sorry, Kenneth but it would seem urine trouble. Your case would appear to be heading down the toilet unless you're prepared to spend a penny or two on your lawyers.* (*The Round-Up would like to apologise unreservedly for the awfulness of that previous sentence.)

Until next week, the Round-Up is now off to ask Dances With Wolves to start using the phone and email like the rest of us, before he sets off the sprinklers.

But before you go, here's some news:

Amazon.co.uk investigates 'grey import' book error

Fiorina, Dre and The Edge on stage slamming piracy

Homeless hacker admits Times attack

Emails from your boss damage your health

Mini iPod heads downmarket