1/21/2004: Different approach to anti-virus
 

http://cellar.org/2004/purifylaptops.jpg

These Japanese businessmen are holding a service aimed at fending off viruses and glitches for their computers. It's a purification ceremony conducted by a Shinto priest according to Shinto rituals.

Oh, for a minute I thought you were going to suggest abstinence.

:)

Why not. It's at least as effective as calling tech support.

I was a tech for Gateway for a while. It seems that my coworkers had 2 favorite solutions. Format and reload for any technical problem. Suspected virus: wipe hard drive, then format and reload. Seriously, many of them could have been replaced with a recording.

I can't help but notice that there's an iBook in that lineup.

Computers are pure evil.

Blessing it is just going to make it angry.


And exorcising it is going to make the little demon inside go away thus causing the thing to stop working.

Same as the priest blessing the fishing fleet.

Don't you mean "daemon"?

I do this. Not a Shinto Ceremony, but I got an arrangement with the gods of communications regarding my computer and other bits of necessary technology.

(I keep a big-ass piece of jet on top of the tower to keep it happy, in fact).

A friend of mine used to keep her car running with magick. Stuff would break on it and start working again with the proper magickal encouragment.

Jump leads of starting +1?

-- Timeless.

Rabbi Offers Prayer for Web Porn Browsers

Wed Jan 21, 8:25 AM ET

Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo!

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli rabbi has composed a prayer to help devout Jews overcome guilt after visiting porn web sites while browsing the Internet.


"Please God, help me cleanse the computer of viruses and evil photographs which disturb and ruin my work..., so that I shall be able to cleanse myself (of sin)," reads the benediction by Shlomo Eliahu, chief rabbi in the northern town of Safed.

Eliahu, quoted by Israel's largest daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, said he had responded to a deluge of queries from Orthodox Jews worried that the lure of Internet sex sites was putting family relationships at risk.

The rabbi recommends that Jews recite the prayer when they log on to the Internet or even program it to flash up on their computer screens so they are spiritually covered whether they enter a porn site intentionally or by mistake.

Judaeo-christian morality at work: it's ok to do pretty much anything as long as you cover your ass by telling God how sorry you are :rolleyes:
(I'm a catholic myself, so I know what I'm talking about ;) )

I fixed 3 different car headlights by tapping them with my ice scraper/wand. I have wittnesses.

Jet?:confused:

Saint Isidore of Seville, patron of computer users, computer technicians, computers, and the Internet... This sixth century clergyman is credited with creating one of the world's first data bases- a 20 volume encyclopedia. Saint Isidroe was an 'indefatigable compiler of all existing knowledge' of his time.

Funny, some websites I find say he is the proposed patron saint of the Internet, others say he already is.

One site had the recommended prayer...
"Saint Isadore to you we pray, please make Windows go away."

Since when is it tech support's job to remove viruses? That's like taking your car to a mechanic because a bunch of mice made a nest in the seats.

On an aside, tech support is supposed to do the usually as quickly as possible, because there is no money (for the company) in tech support. Thus, if the hardware is fine, wipe it clean and reinstall. Now your OS is fine too. Sure, you could hack the registry apart, pulling out all the lines that a virus has inserted. You could reextract all of the files one at a time by hand, to recover from the damage it's done. You could then hunt down whatever it's executable is called and delete it.

This takes hours. Or you could simply wipe the drive and use your recovery CD. Much much faster.

Most people don't care if their drive is wiped, so long as they don't have to spend eons on the phone dealing with it.

Quzah.