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You people have the good folks at Bytes Document Solutions to thank for bringing this self labelled "viral" film, I Hate Printers, to our attention. Ignoring the fact that they've labelled this film a "viral" themselves, without even giving it the chance to "circulate rapidly on the internet" (the words of Dictionary.com, not just Downtime), this film is basically just people smashing up printers and then having a paint fight. It's like an outdoor, even tackier, version of Fun House. But even Pat Sharp couldn't help this lot. 

London has been celebrating the milestone of a year to go to the start of the 2012 Olympic Games, and as such, current and former athletes are focusing on their top priorities.

To prove the point, Roger Black, the British Olympic 400m silver medallist in the Atlanta Games in 1996, has had a busy week. On the one year to go anniversary, he took part in the first race in the new swimming pool in the Aquatic Centre in London's Olympic Park.

But that wasn't enough for him. Eager for more excitement and to take his pre-Olympic preparations to another level, the next day he visited Computer Weekly, to deliver our team with lots of Olympic goodies and, more importantly, doughnuts.

 

 

Black is an ambassador for Cisco, the official networking partner of the 2012 Olympics, who had a bit of a hand in bringing him to CW Towers, but let's face it - he didn't need much convincing.

So, lucky reader, feel the privilege of being part of our elite Olympian audience.

Bees, apart from being very good at making honey, have also been proved to be computing whiz-kids.They solve regularly (or have solved and shared the solution) what scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London call the "travelling salesman problem", or how to find the most efficient route between all the points you need to visit - for the bees that's the best pollen bearing flowers.

This jolly achievement, which undoubtedly makes the bees very happy, led to a recent headline, "Bees tiny brains beat computers", atop an article insisting that we must find out how they do it. 


This all reminded Downtime of Terry Pratchett's magnificent interpretation of how computers work, with the concept of the "Anthill inside".  Perhaps the great storyteller was closer to the truth than we - or even he - suspected. Right idea, just wrong insect.

In light of yesterday's budget pain, Downtime is moved to wonder whether Liverpool Council was trying to get the jump on the chancellor, George Osborne, by inventing daft expenses so that it has things to cut that won't actually hurt too much when the public spending cuts are spelled out. This is, after all, a story Downtime wouldn't have believed if it had not been reported on the Beeb.

"Liverpool residents are being offered a free text messaging service to remind them to put out their bins."

Now the multiplicity of bins demanded of the humble rate-payer could lead to some confusion: paper and card fortnightly, alternating with 'other' waste; garden waste fortnightly, but which week? And now a weekly collection of 'food waste' which is supposed to hang around in a special lockable bin getting smelly in the summer sun. But really, who needs a text reminder every week? People who really can't remember just need to invest in a permanent marker and write it on the bin.

Downtime wonders how many more nutty ideas councils have been stockpiling just so that they can add them to the "cuts" when the time comes.

In the days of old when knights were bold and computers hadn't been invented, squires - wannabe knights - would practice swordsmanship using wooden swords, to minimise the risk of injury and also to protect the valuable ironmongery from damage.

It is entirely possible that many infant school teachers can see the point of the latter reasoning, and would gladly not submit the school's Wi-Fi laptops to the grubby little fingers and hayfever driven sneezes of a class of 20 six-year-olds.

But according to recent reports one  psychologist is now suggesting that children should not be introduced to the joys of IT until they are nine years old.

No doubt schools will in due course be issued with wooden models of the latest lap-tops, with the letters of the keyboard painted on to wooden buttons. They will sit in their little rows and all hum the Microsoft start-up tone at assembly every morning, before "logging" (emphasis on the log) on to their treemail accounts - oh you get the picture.

In which case this kit, created by French artist Dimitri Tskalov, could suddenly be in demand.

While Rupert Murdoch's News International tries to persuade us all that we should be happy to part with cash to read news online, and publishers of daily and weekly newspapers in the UK assure us that it's impossible to make money in publishing right now, far away in China the latest fashion is for 3D newspapers. Readers, apparently, can't get enough of them since they were launched in April.

In March a European paper, La Derniere Heure, issued what is probably Europe's first 3D paper, but found it to be a costly experiment, unlikely to be repeated any time soon.

The super-soaraway-Sun, not to be left behind, soon followed up with a promise of a 3D edition on 5 June. And here it is, or at least the online version of the front page (in case it should slip behind the pay wall).



Fuzzy babes and fuzzy elephants. So much for that. Surely by the time they get the technology for this sorted out, your 3D news will already be popping up from your iPad like Princess Leia out of R2D2, and you won't need silly glasses.

Downtime was pleased to see a local railway station use the Blue Peter approach to fixing IT. When bright sunshine made its ticket machine screens impossible to read, a bit of sticky back plastic and card worked wonders. We can't wait to see the solution this inventive station manager has for signalling failure. Take three sweet wrappers, green, red and amber, and some double-sided sticky tape...

Cecil, Austin and Muriel are snails on a mission to deliver email at a snails' pace..... equipped with electronic equipment allowing them to send emails on behalf of visitors to the website RealSnailMail.