Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Gnome has a screensaver called 'Apple' in which commands are typed at the ][ prompt, producing some graphics output like sine curves and so on. There are also random comments like 'I had a lease on an Oedipus Complex in 1981...'. Pretty cool.

Speaking of screensavers, my company has a policy of dictating which screensaver is permitted on a corporate drone's desktop. No, we are not issued a white list of screensavers that we can have; instead, all the desktops are controlled by the admins, leaving us no choice in the matter. I would have been happy if this had resulted in a golden sunset or a breathtaking vista of mountains being displayed. Instead, what we have is 'corporate policy' beaten into our heads by means of 'innovative methods'

One such innovation is an exhortation to not share our hard disks with any other employee comrade. Probably a sensible piece of advice, what with virus threats and all. But it's the way this is implemented that gets my goat: a caricature of two computers (one male and one female) joined at the back through a (RJ45?) cable, with the slogan 'Do not share your data!' (or something to that effect; since I am typing this from home, I don't recall the exact words). I might have even let this go, but for the utterly stupid and blissful look on the female computer's face (as if she is enjoying a forbidden pleasure). Somebody please tell me whether this falls under toon porn so that I can sic someone on these folks.