Brief Banter By Ben

(Passing requires 4 correct answers)

1) How long did the Hundred Years' War last?

2) Which country makes Panama hats?

3) From which animal do we get cat gut?

4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?

5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?

6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?

7) What was King George VI's first name?

8) What color is a purple finch?

9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?

10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?


Remember, you need 4 correct answers to pass.


Check your answers below ...














ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ

1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years

2) Which country makes Panama hats? Ecuador

3) From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and Horses

4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November

5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? Squirrel fur

6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs

7) What was King George VI's first name? Albert

8) What color is a purple finch ? Crimson

9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from? New Zealand

10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane? Orange (of course)


What do you mean, you failed? Me, too.
(Don't try to tell me you passed, LOL) It's a wonder I made it out of school !

Pass this on to some brilliant friends. Have fun.

 

Artery.......................... The study of paintings.
Bacteria....................... Back door to cafeteria.
Barium........................ What doctors do when patients die.
Benign..........................What you be, after you be eight.
Caesarean Section..........A neighbourhood in Rome .
Catscan........................ Searching for Kitty.
Cauterize...................... Made eye contact with her.
Colic............................. A sheep dog.
Coma............................ A punctuation mark.
Dilate........................... To live long.
Enema.......................... Not a friend.
Fester.......................... Quicker than someone else.
Fibula........................... A small lie.
Impotent...................... Distinguished, well known.
Labour Pain................... Getting hurt at work.
Medical Staff................. A Doctor's cane.
Morbid.......................... A higher offer.
Nitrates......................... Cheaper than day rates.
Node............................. I knew it.
Outpatient..................... A person who has fainted.
Pelvis............................ Second cousin to Elvis.
Post Operative............... A letter carrier.
Recovery Room.............. Place to do upholstery.
Rectum......................... Nearly killed him.
Secretion...................... Hiding something.
Seizure......................... Roman emperor.
Tablet........................... A small table.
Terminal Illness.............Getting sick at the airport.
Tumour......................... One plus one more.
Urine............................ Opposite of you're out.
2xCondoms....................To be sure, to be sure

Photos of a recent trip to Hereford

The Conficker botnet has stirred to life, using its peer-to-peer communication system to update itself and download scareware (fake anti-virus programs) to millions of infected Windows machines.

The Conficker update comes a week after a heavily-hyped April 1st activation date and provides the first sign of the motivation behind this malware threat — financially motivated cybercrime.

Full Conficker Article

Conficker Removal Tool

I usually have a pretty good idea of how widespread a particular piece of malware is by the number of incidents of infection (or reports of infection) that I come across. But when it comes to the Conficker worm (aka Downadup or Kido), I get the feeling that while there’s a lot of hype surrounding this latest bit of malware, actual infections are much lower than some would want you to believe. However, over the past few days the number of enquires I’m getting in relation to Conficker has skyrocketed, so to try to answer people’s questions, and calm people’s fears, I’ve put together a quick “no bull” guide to Conficker.

Some antivirus companies love to hype malware because it’s a great way to sell security products. While Conficker isn’t new (it’s been around since November last year), the April 1st trigger date gives security firms the opportunity to ratchet up the hype a couple of more notches (and help drive concerned users straight into the hands of cybercriminals). However, it’s important to note that it’s unclear right now as to what will happen come the trigger date. However, what is clear is that you will need to be infected to be at risk of anything happening at all.

The Conficker malware is programmed to generate thousands of domain names a day and, on April 1st, infected machines will start calling home to the authors for further instructions. However, as Joe Stewart explains, this does not mean there will be a computer meltdown on April 1.

Here’s why you shouldn’t fear the worm’s activation date:

Conficker.C is already able to receive updates via its P2P protocol today, so focusing on the April 1st date is misguided.

Don’t underestimate the reach of the Conficker Working Group. These are the security industry’s heavy-hitters, and you can be sure they are working diligently to mitigate the domain issue.

Even though there are 50,000 domains to look at, they are being closely monitored, and if any malicious servers do appear, they will likely be taken down or null-routed very quickly.

If the author(s) of Conficker planned some massive update of malicious code, they certainly wouldn’t do it on the one day everyone is watching for it.
For the best analysis of what Conficker is — and isn’t — read this detailed analysis by SRI International.

Copyright Daily Telegraph

Telegraph Article


Guardian Article

..... hard to believe!!!

It's time again for the annual 'Stella Awards'!

For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 79-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued the McDonald's in New Mexico where she purchased the coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right?

That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head... So keep your head scratcher handy.

Here are the Stella's for the past year:

7th PLACE :

Kathleen Robertson of Austin , Texas

Was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son!

6th PLACE :

Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California

Won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps!

Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

5th PLACE :

Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania ,

Was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut. Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming undue mental anguish.

Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of anguish.

Keep scratching. There are more...

4th PLACE :

Jerry Williams, of Little Rock , Arkansas ,

Garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard.

Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun..

Grrrrr. Scratch, scratch.

3rd PLACE :

Amber Carson of Lancaster , Pennsylvania

Because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor - Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. Whatever happened to people being responsible for their own actions?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there; there are only two more Stellas to go...

2nd PLACE:

Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware

Sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000 - oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.. Go figure.

1st PLACE :

(May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please?)

This year's runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , who purchased a new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich..

Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set.

The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.

Are we, as a society, getting more stupid?

Ya think??!!

Some of these are good jokes even if you doubt their origin!!

The following questions and answers were collected from last year's Junior Cert exam results. These are genuine responses!!
(from 16year olds)! classics

Geography
Q: Name the four seasons.
A: Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.

Q: Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink.
A: Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutant like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.

Q: How is dew formed?
A: The sun shines down on the leaves and makes them perspire.



Sociology
Q: What guarantees may a mortgage company insist on?
A: If you are buying a house, they will insist you are well endowed.


Q: In a democratic society, how important are elections?
A: Very important. Sex can only happen when a male gets an election.


Q: What are steroids?
A: Things for keeping carpets still on the stairs.

Biology

Q: What happens to your body as you age?
A: When you get old, so do your bowels and you get intercontinental.

Q: What happens to a boy when he reaches puberty?
A: He says goodbye to his boyhood and looks forward to his adultery.

Q: Name a major disease associated with cigarettes.
A: Premature death.

Q: What is artificial insemination?
A: When the farmer does it to the bull instead of the cow.

Q: How can you delay milk turning sour?
A: Keep it in the cow. [He got an A]

Q: How are the main parts of the body categorised? (e. g. abdomen)
A: The body is consisted into three parts - the brainium, the borax theabdominal cavity.
The branium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abdominal cavity contains the five bowels, A, E, I, O and U.


Q: What is the Fibula?
A: A small lie.

Q: What does 'varicose' mean?
A: Nearby.

Q: What is the most common form of birth control?
A: Most people prevent contraception by wearing a condominium.

Q: Give the meaning of the term 'Caesarean Section.'
A: The caesarean section is a district in Rome.

Q: What is a seizure?
A: A Roman emperor.

Q: What is a terminal illness?
A: When you are sick at the airport.


Q: Give an example of a fungus. What is a characteristic feature?
A: Mushrooms. They always grow in damp places and they look like umbrellas.


English Q: Use the word 'judicious' in a sentence to show you understand its meaning.
A: Hands that judicious can be soft as your face.


Q: What does the word 'benign' mean?
A: Benign is what you will be after you be eight.


Technology
Q: What is a turbine?
A: Something an Arab or Sheik wears on his head.

An award should go to the Virgin Airlines desk attendant in Sydney some months ago for being smart and funny, while making her point, when confronted with a passenger who probably deserved to fly as cargo.

A crowded Virgin flight was cancelled after Virgin's 767s had been withdrawn from service. A single attendant was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travellers. Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, 'I HAVE to be on this flight and it HAS to be FIRST CLASS'.

The attendant replied, 'I'm sorry, sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these people first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out.'

The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, 'DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?'

Without hesitating, the attendant smiled and grabbed her public address microphone: 'May I have your attention please, may I have your attention please,' she began - her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal.

'We have a passenger here at Desk 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to Desk 14.'

With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the Virgin attendant, gritted his teeth and said, 'F... You!'

Without flinching, she smiled and said, 'I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to get in line for that too.

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.

'We'd like to see the president,' the man said softly.

'He'll be busy all day,' the secretary snapped.

'We'll wait,' the lady replied.

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted.

'Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave,' she said to him!

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.

The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple. The lady told him, 'We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard.. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.' The president wasn't touched. He was shocked. 'Madam,' he said, gruffly, 'we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.' 'Oh, no,' the lady explained quickly. 'We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.' The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, 'A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.'

For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, 'Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?' Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.

................................A TRUE STORY By Malcolm Forbes

I received what looked like a genuine hallmark greeting card. All looked right, barring the main link which clicked to a virus. If you get e-cards, first check they’re from someone you know – don’t open any that aren’t.

Then hover your mouse over the link to check it goes to a legitimate site, before clicking. And always ensure your virus checker is switched on.


Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert.
Please note, answers don't constitute financial advice, it is based on generalised journalistic research. Always ensure any decision is made with regards to your own individual circumstance.

Don't miss out on urgent MoneySaving, get my weekly e-mail at www.moneysavingexpert.com/tips.

NewPost
12:31 AM
Heinz
Fantastically Fervent MoneySaving Super Fan

Not to be confused with the hoax email about a Hallmark postcard currently doing the rounds again:

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/postcard-virus-hoax.shtml

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked Readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the Person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consumingonly things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn a after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. Coffee , n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted , adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate , v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade , v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly , adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent , adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph , v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle , n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence , n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash , n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle , n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude , n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon , n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster , n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism , n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent , n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

As if we didn't have enough patching emergencies to deal with this week, a recent update of AVG's antivirus software knocked out some people's Internet connection. AVG's support page indicates that after upgrading to AVG version 8.0.196, your network link may fail.

If rebooting your PC doesn't fix the problem, follow the instructions on AVG's support page to download the fixfiles.zip file to your computer. Double-click the .zip file to open it, and then double-click fixfiles.exe in the resulting folder to run the utility.

If the glitch persists, the company recommends that you run a repair installation of your AVG app. If reinstalling your antivirus software doesn't get you back online, AVG advises that you contact the company's support desk for further instructions.

I became aware of the AVG update glitch when the program began to interfere with the collection and distribution of e-mail on my Small Business Server 2003 test system.