Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for February 19, 2025

Didn’t work for me. I want my little pong game!

“Easter eggs” are commonplace in software, but not ubiquitous. The thing I eventually began to realize: If the programmers are willing to spend time writing a little pong game or whatever “on their own time”… how likely is it that something nefarious is going on. Like sending your data to the mothership… or just stealing your passwords.

These gestures are really well drawn!

In the summer, one of the boss’s daughters would “work” in the office. Her job was to play Mah Jong on the PC, it seems.

I remember fondly the hidden flight simulator in Microsoft Excel, and the pinball game in Microsoft Word. Microsoft stopped allowing this in 2002. Spoilsports!

Alix is smart!

So already by this time period, the kids can work the technology better than the adults.

uhoh

Do not get caught by the boss not doing work.

Serendipity. Found a pong game in Messenger yesterday on my iPad. Put a face emoji in the comment box and send. Then click on the ‘sent’ emoji. Pong launches with the emoji as the ball. Not certain whether all emojis work. Have only played with faces.