[ Sorry, but I couldn't resist these excerpts from The mini-Annals of ] [ Improbable Research ("mini-AIR" Issue #1996-02, Feb, 1996) --dave ] ................................. cut here ................................. ----------------------------------------------------------- 1996-02-05 Paranormal Spoon Incident In the last issue of mini-AIR, we offered, free of charge, to test any reader who wished to know if he or she has paranormal powers. Testees were instructed to sit in a quiet corner and mentally send us their names and addresses. Alas, we had to terminate the testing program after readers in England and Israel reported a rash of bent spoons and then mentally lodged police complaints against us. We are now engaged in extra-cognitively presenting evidence to demonstrate that, whatever is bent or twisted, it is not the spoons. ----------------------------------------------------------- 1996-02-06 PGP-Y Our paranormal testing program has already had one commercial spin-off. Our engineers have developed a truly foolproof data security protocol. It is called PGP-Y -- "Pretty Good Parasychology." The mechanism is simple. You imagine that you have transmitted data to someone; that person then imagines that he has received it. Using PGP-Y, any type of information can be transmitted over the Internet with complete security. The key is that the data is transmitted high over the net -- so high that the data actually travels above the net rather than within it. The data is transmitted telepathically (and for those who distrust electronic funds, we also have a scheme for transmitting cash and gold plate telekinetically.) ................................. cut here ................................. -- dave _______________________________________________________________ "OK, now everybody who believes in Telekinesis, raise my hand."