Through a rare but infrequent case of cross-mutation, your zip code and DNA will be transformed, and you will be seized with an overwhelming urge to open fire on your coworkers. By wetting your finger and pressing it onto an electric socket, you can transfer the effects of that mutation into an urge to dress like Lady GaGa.
Web Founder, Tim Berners-Lee, Finally Admits He Misspelled Worldwide
Mar 15, 2009, 08:28
GENEVA – Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the world wide web, finally has admitted that he misspelling “worldwide” when he created the web twenty years ago.
Mr. Berners-Lee was employed as a junior programmer at a nuclear research center near Geneva, Switzerland, when he wrote a proposal that led eventually to the creation of the world wide web. He told an audience at the twentieth-anniversary party for that proposal on Friday that if he could “re-jigger” anything about the web, the spelling of “worldwide” would be it.
“Obviously I wrote the code for the web at a time when spelling checkers weren’t as trustworthy as they are today,” said Mr. Berners-Lee.
“I’ve never been able to spell for shite, myself,” he laughed, “and the spelling checker I used wasn’t for shite either, so I spelled “worldwide” as two words instead of one.”
Mr. Berners-Lee, a British software engineer who is now a physical education instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that if he had a Euro (ˆ) for every time somebody pointed out his mistake to him, “I’d be a rich bastard today.”
Next on Mr. Berners-Lee’s list of regrets was his decision to begin web addresses with “http://.”
“The double slashes following ‘http:’ are obviously redundant,” he said, “and that has led to billions of wasted keystrokes at who knows what cost to the environment.
“Obviously keyboards weren’t as trustworthy when I wrote the code for the web as they are today,” said Mr. Berners-Lee, “and even though I could have sworn I hit the forward-slash key only once, it registered two slashes every time instead.”
In related news, Mr. Berners-Lee said he was concerned that the world wide web “will become a giant eavesdropping device” that will allow "corrupt institutions like the Recording Industry Association of America" to spy on innocent file-sharing activities, “which is why I created the web in the first place—to allow scientists to exchange music and pictures of their grandkids more easily.”
Through a rare but infrequent case of cross-mutation, your zip code and DNA will be transformed, and you will be seized with an overwhelming urge to open fire on your coworkers. By wetting your finger and pressing it onto an electric socket, you can transfer the effects of that mutation into an urge to dress like Lady GaGa.
