Monday 3 April 2000

Pic of the day: The family that paints together, faints together? The topic of my first SimScribbles page is about how to run a sim family with many sim kids. Did you know the tykes can actually pay their way? You should think twice before applying this to real life, though ...

It did snow last night, a sparse layer of heavy wet snow that was already melting to slush as I left home in the morning. There was a light rain falling, or perhaps it was still melting snow, only it melted the moment it touched anything solid. The fragile web of ice crystals dissolving on impact. Even the flowers seem okay.

We had a tiny bit of excitement at work today. An otherwise fairly intelligent woman got an e-mail with a virus warning. You know the type: "If you get an email named [something], don't open it! It contains a dangerous new virus that will wipe your hard disk and throttle your pet. Microsoft said so! Forward this mail to all your friends, relatives, church members and all the kings horses and all the kings men. Don't stop and think, just do it." Or words to that effect.

Big surprise, the poor femme forwarded the mail to the whole office. She just wanted to help, she said when I contacted her. I believe her. But we have a standard procedure for these, namely to forward them to a national admin that will check them out. So far there has never been anything in them. I suppose they are made by people who get a kick out of fooling thousands of people. It probably makes them feel important, which they otherwise are not. Presumably they feel that there is something unsatisfied in their lives, a longing for being something more than a wandering faeces factory. Sadly, this is hardly the way to self improvement.

There is also the remote possibilities, since they tend to cite Microsoft as an authority, that they are disgruntled Windows users who want revenge on the successful company. Or perhaps they are just plain envious. If so, they can take heart: In recent news, Microsoft has failed to reach a settlement with the various American governments that had sued it. A rash of new lawsuits may follow; MS stock did tumble on the news. Perhaps this will contribute to the bursting of the "new economy" bubble on the stockmarkets?

American and, even more, Norwegian companies with some relationship to Internet have been ridiculously overpriced for some months now. I'm happy to say that they took a beating last week, and one can only hope that it will continue until they arrive at a level where real investors are interested in buying, rather than gamblers. Real investors want their fair part of the company's profit. Companies that don't turn a profit are not very interesting for an investor. But I already said a lot about that in the past.

I'm a little bit sorry for those of you who have received some of your pay in shares or share options and expected a tidy profit, only to now see it evaporate before your eyes. I can imagine that this must be a blow to your wellbeing. On the other hand, this is a risk that follows from taking part in pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing and other such games. As long as you depend on fools to make your rich, there is always the risk that you may become the fool. Hopefully you have not spent the money before you got it. And there's always credit cards to tide you over. When the bills come due, there are other credit cards...