We've all heard the classic IT support helpline recording of the guy who thought his mouse was a parmesan grater, and who could forget the young woman who couldn't understand why her laptop wouldn't function underwater? Well this week saw the addition of yet another wondrous entry to the tech support hall of fame. The call starts off sounding fairly ordinary, the caller explains that he's having a problem with email. The support engineer goes through the usual questions, then things start to get weird. After trying without much success to find out what email client the caller is using, the technician starts explaining the steps to find out. As the call transpires, and the caller is unable to carry out the clicks, double clicks and keystrokes the technician describes, it gradually becomes clear that the caller's computer doesn't have a mouse, keyboard or monitor attached. Long story short it turns out it wasn't a computer at all, but a crate of Brazilian mandarin oranges.

Research has revealed that a startling 89% of UK computer users have no idea how to perform a rudimentary system refresh and propositional reinstatement on their PC in either auxiliary or comprehensively stable mode. The news flies in the face of many recent claims regarding the assumed improvement of the average person's technical skills. It seems people are still as thick as ever, they just point and click like spider monkeys toying with a 1980's era handheld tilting Lando flexiWizard, without the illuminated wand...

Marketing inside-geeks are putting it about that a new technology is being utilised on ad-bearing websites. The state of the art marketing system performs an analysis on the person browsing the site based on the speed and pattern of their keystrokes. This information is then fed back to a database application, and the user is matched to a specific personality category. This category is then used as the basis for targeted adverts on the website pages. Critics of the system claim that it's at best tricky to categorise an individual based on the way they type on a keyboard, and leaked reports of testing from back when the system was under initial development showed that it categorised anyone with a typing speed over 40 words per minute as a sociopath with a tendency to impulse-buy dairy produce.

Excited about wearable computing? Get with the programmable interface for Christ's sake, that's yesterday's hard-off. The next big thing in portable technology? Transforming parts of your body into technological components. Skin grafts that function as mobile devices. Having your eyeballs replaced by screen implants so that all of your friends can enjoy watching their favourite episodes of Friends while pretending to listen to your appalling drivel. And now there's the new iPad that you get tattooed on your body and control by poking your fingers up your nose and arse. Sound scary? I've already had every strand of hair on my entire body coated in an LCD substance capable of rendering images in RGB colour and am currently displaying a still from Spliced Pleasure - The Vampyr Directives VIII as my scalpsaver.

Apple have responded to reports of the total inability of the latest iPhone to carry out successful phone calls with the claim that the fault lies within the minds of disgruntled customers. In an alleged irate email to the editor of a publication which had reported the story, Steve Jobs is said to have exclaimed: "if you must know we've been including a feature since the very first iPhone that prevents the phone from functioning correctly if it's being held by someone who either sweats profusely or has bad skin - frankly I have no interest in retaining their custom so they can fuck right off".

TableLeg Inc. co-founder Stevin Plaster is becoming known more for his somewhat baffling development projects than for the universally lauded productivity software that made him famous. PlumpMyApps is his latest release, and has been accompanied by the usual unquestioning rejoicements on the TL fanboards. Only thing is, no-one seems to know what it's for. The following is an excerpt from an interview with the man himself in Pliableware Review:

"It's basically a kind of programming yeast for applications lacking the requisite thrust in either data, structure or both. It's particularly well suited to companies who adopt any of the Nubile development models, and who don't mind a little excess gravy in among their variables."

Well? Answers on an e-card...

A Web service is helping new parents to choose search engine friendly names for their children. ConnectaChild offer a number of Internet services to expectant parents who want to make a head start on their offspring's social networking efforts. These days it's difficult for young people to get noticed, and of course we all want the best for our kids. To this end prospective parents are accumulating huge numbers of friends for their unborn babies on Facebook and other networks, with child protection agencies becoming increasingly worried that the parents of newborns with only few friends at the time of birth may be more likely to consider giving the children up for adoption, after all who wants a friendless child?

A controversial site has recently begun showcasing in-utero ultrasound images and videos, with visitors being given the chance to vote and comment on the best (and worst) on show. In a trial version of the site, the comments on one nearly-child's video read 'what a total fucking loser' and 'you make me want to vomit my own internal organs you useless little shit', prompting fears that the practise may be potentially damaging to the self-perception of the pre-born involved.

Last month a notorious website was closed down by police after complaints triggered an investigation. The site allowed visitors to vote on whether or not fetuses should be aborted, based on pictures of them. Expectant (and undecided) mothers posted the ultrasound images and signed a contract binding them to the decision made by voters, with the termination procedures paid for by the website. Authorities were alerted by reports of disgruntled site users pursuing legal action against mothers who had failed to abide by the public vote.

Maz Lantek has been affording us tech people a glimpse of life at the ultimate forefront of aspirational geekery for not one but three consecutive years through his blogish postings on the web-facias of varying media outlets. This week he's publishing an exclusive diary entry on BrainDeadAir, right here, right fuckering now.

Tue 8 Jun, approaching dusk
Tried the new lickable version of the iPad today, tastes like pure unadulterated coolness.
mL x

Industry insiders believe Apple is developing a new computing device that will be completely unable to browse traditional websites. The device will instead allow users the significantly more fulfilling experience of viewing a set of specially designed iSites, which will be of a superior quality to normal websites, in every way that matters, according to the recently compiled Appleness Constitution, that is. The move is being read as an exploratory measure in establishing the level of participation that might be expected for the reported upcoming development of the iSland, a tropical paradise nation to which selected consumers will be able, at a small cost, to emigrate. The state is expected to comprise a benevolent dictatorship of gadgets, and citizens will be given free cosmetic surgery on arrival to make them appear quirkily creative while approachable, and of course shit-staggeringly gorgeous.

Following last month's appallingly successful run down of those must-hack Yank-drop extensions, we've decided to let you in on our top picks for the Big Boy Collective's upcoming developmentalist protocol tracking tools.
1. Lice Mat pinholdings
2. Wanx
3. Fixup temp by Darn Satchelson
4. TipMaster II (with optional Torque Combs)
5. The Moon
But hey, what the fuck would we know? We just code ourselves to within an inch of our lives on a daily basis...