Yesterday a Texas farmer reported the first case of computer infected by swine flu.
One of his pigs, Porkytron, is a well known nerd among the Java Pig User Group of Houston. Porkytron spent most of his time playing on-line video-games, which is his favourite hobby (in the picture on the right: Porkytron playing Mafia Wars on Facebook). When his veterinarian diagnosed the swine flu, it was too late for his computer, which ran Windows Home Edition and was not updated with a recent anti-virus list. Apparently, the swine flu virus has quickly propagated to all computers of Porkytron’s Facebook friends. Now the risk is that the virus passes from the computers to the users through the keyboards. According to some rumours, there is the name of Gianpaolo Tarantini among Porkytron’s friends list, and this is bringing panic to some well known Italian escorts.
In the meanwhile, the Houston Department of Health and Human Service published some recommendations to reduce the infection among computer users:
- make sure your computer runs at least an anti-virus program, with an up-to-date anti-virus list
- clean your keyboard with alcohol
- wash your hands frequently
- avoid to chat with pigs, when possible
