The Weekly Round-Up: 17.04.09

Q: How many computer programmers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None, it's a hardware problem.

Ahem.

Technology and humour are strange bedfellows - something the Round-Up has to wrestle with on a weekly basis with wildly varying degrees of success.

There are Friday mornings when the word count is lingering around the 80-word mark and the words 'And finally' seem a long, long way away.

However, sitting down in front of a computer and writing technology-related gags is one thing. Getting up on stage and reading them out is entirely another - but that's exactly what Thea Montgomerie-Anderson has gone and done.

Who's she? Glad you asked. Thea is a 32-year-old former BPM software saleswomen who used to sell risk management and quality management software packages to the financial and insurance sectors.

She's traded in her pinstripe suit for the stand-up comic's microphone. Given the state of the financial sector it's probably a wise move. And who said a career in technology was a joke?

So what are her top tech gags?

She told silicon.com: "I've got a little routine that's based on the IT guys that I dealt with who had this pseudo life online… In Second Life they'd have a rippling six pack and all look like James Dean and in reality they've got a pot belly and a bald head and they've always got these hot chick girlfriends online and they drive Harleys…"

As Homer Simpson once said: "It's funny because it's true."

She added: "My humour is more observational and the absurd and it's not really gags," and described another tech scenario she has recounted on stage involving an IT director who thought 'going green' meant wearing a Celtic jersey rather than serious investment in environmentally friendly tech kit.

Any tips for other beleaguered techies considering a switch of career to comedy?

Get a "very small notebook" and keep a record of anything funny you say or hear.

There are more tips for DBAs aspiring to be the next Eddie Izzard here.

Good luck to Thea in her new adventure.

Actually, the Round-Up reckons there is one pretty good computing gag floating around and here it is:

"There are only 10 types of people in the world - those who understand binary, and those who don't."

Ahem...

Think you can do better? Have your own very small notebook (or netbook) full of top technology gags? You know what to do, email editorial@silicon.com...

After more um-ing and ah-ing than a consumer pondering which version of Windows Vista not to buy, Microsoft has decided it will open a pub on its premises after all.

Less than a week after pulling the plug on plans to have a bar as part of an expansion of its Redmond campus, Microsoft has reversed its decision.

Microsoft last week cited the "sensitive business environment" as reason for cancelling plans for the pub, which was planned as part of a collection of restaurants and stores due to open this week at the company's new Entertainment and Devices unit headquarters. Boo!

But wait, there's some better news for the hard-drinking denizens of Planet Microsoft.

A compromise decision allows beer and wine to be served at the 'Spitfire' pub after 15:00 but only for scheduled and catered events. The pub, which is now expected to open by the end of the month, will also be open for lunch but alcohol will not be served.

Goodness it sounds like a place for hard-drinking hell raisers, alright.

Social networking has a habit of dividing opinion. Some people think the technology opens up social and business opportunities that we could but dream of five years ago.

Others think it's just a load of people wasting time online in lieu of going down the pub or getting some proper work done.

The dichotomy also carries over into research into the technology.

First up is some research out of Ohio State University that found Facebook users are lazy and a bit dense when it comes to academic study.

The researchers surveyed 219 students at the university: 102 undergraduates and 117 post-graduate students. Of those, 148 had a Facebook account.

What may be more impressive than the conclusions of the report is the fact they managed to find more than 70 students on one campus without a Facebook account.

The study found that the Facebook users in the study had Grade Point Averages between 3.0 and 3.5, while non-users' GPAs ranged from 3.5 to 4.0. The research pair also found that Facebook users said they averaged one to five hours per week studying, while non-users said they studied 11 to 15 hours.

According to the owners of the research: "There's a disconnect between students' claim that Facebook use doesn't impact their studies, and our findings showing they had lower grades and spent less time studying."

Another way of looking at this is thinking of social networking as just another mirror onto reality. The Round-Up would suggest people who use Facebook might be people with long lists of friends, some of them real and some of them distant and superficial.

Those people are more likely to be socially active and may miss lectures due to hangovers or romantic conquests.

People without much Facebook activity or even accounts, may have less friends, real or otherwise, but better grades due to the fact they spend their college evenings studying rather than drinking huge quantities of beer, chatting each other up or being sick in flower beds.

And the researchers admitted the results didn't necessarily mean using social networking sites led to lower grades.

"There may be other factors involved, such as personality traits, that link Facebook use and lower grades," she said.

"It may be that if it wasn't for Facebook, some students would still find other ways to avoid studying, and would still get lower grades."

So pretty conclusive stuff then.

But wait, what's that emanating from the other side of the world? It's only some Australian research that reckons that using social networking sites can make you a bit sharper than your peers.

How so? The University of Melbourne study showed that people who use the internet for personal reasons at work are about nine per cent more productive than those who do not.

You may want to bookmark that page in case your boss demands to know what the hell you think you're doing looking at your mate's girlfriend's summer holiday photographs when there's work to be done.

The study's author Brent Coker said "workplace internet leisure browsing", or 'WILB' sharpened workers' concentration.

God help us, another acronym.

"People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration," Coker said on the university's website.

"Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a day's work, and as a result, increased productivity," he said.

According to the study of 300 workers, 70 per cent of people who use the internet at work engage in WILB.

Urgh... The Round-Up promises it won't mention that acronym again in this column.

"Those who behave with internet addiction tendencies will have a lower productivity than those without," he added helpfully, in case some readers were incapable of realising the absolutely bloody obvious.

So is Facebook good or bad for us? Do we need a break from work with a little virtual socialising or should we just eschew frivolous twittering and microblogging and get down to work and study?

Who knows? The Round-Up certainly doesn't. After a week of technology news it's just pleased at last to have reached:

And finally... In other breaking news this week:

Bad Phorm. Amazon blocks the controversial advertising technology from scanning its pages and the EC gets involved too. Hoo ya!

Stroky-beard arty types tell you exactly what to think about art on your iPod.

Very small notebooks get another mention: We love our netbooks and they're boosting global PC sales. Find out more and discover who's socked one to Dell here.

And of course, don't forget the caption competition and the excellent links below…