Unfeasibly vast amphibian found croaked on video card

As a postscript to last week's Ventblockers II shocker, we felt we had to share a final image with you, giving a pretty good idea as to why this particular video card croaked it: Mummified frog on video card A shaken Richard Boyle explains that he and his colleagues down at Sneakers Computers in Courtenay, British Columbia …

[Warren 2]

Amphibipun

As to how the frog got in their, I haven't the froggiest idea.

[Paul Rogers]

Isn't it obvious?

meta-material croaking device

[Pete 2]

Someone's gotta say it

> so we don't know how it got in.

Kermit protocol? (multi-hop, of course)

[Tanuki]

Not bugs but...

I wish I'd taken pics of the failed H-P LaserJet-II I once had to strip.

It lived somewhere damp. And was regularly used to print envelopes. Seems it had become home to a family of snails, who had developed an envelope-glue-eating habit as well as dying in interesting ways in the mechanism.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, a Transporter...

Was the Video card used for developing SciFi video?

[HollyHopDrive]

There is always one...

Are you sure thats not just a configuration jumper on the board?

Sorry, I'll leave quietly......

[CD001]

You sir,

... can have the gold star for best frog/PC related pun - ever.

[Disco-Legend-Zeke]

Maybe...

...it was a lot smaller when it entered.

[Uncle Slacky]

Probably

This is the same theory used to explain how frogs come to be found entombed (sometimes alive) in coal or rocks (or building foundations*) - it's possible that they entered when small and fed on insects which also entered through small holes.

*"Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal..."

[sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD]

*"Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal...

Oh my god...I thought I was old. You remember that one. You must be ancient! :P

[Annihilator]

Maybe..

But what did it live off in order to grow that big?

[Yesnomaybe]

Hmmm..

Bugs?

[sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD]

It lived off memory leaks...

..And then it tried to eat off page zero...

*WALLOP*

*SPLAT*

[Rob - Denmark]

Living off ... what?

Yeha, it has probably grown by eating bugs in the computer.

[Fluffykins]

Yeah, it was probably a Windows machine

Wouldn't have grown as big in a Ubuntu box - fewer bugs.

[Neil Hoskins]

yup

You get the same thing with some kind of crevice-dwelling toad in Canada IIRC. They just crawl into a little cave whilst small, then just wait for the prey to come to them, and get bigger, and bigger...

[Colin McKinnon]

Maybe it was smaller...

..then ate all the bugs?

[Efros]

Where's

Angela Lansbury when you need her?

[Asgard]

Mystery solved

"Where's Angela Lansbury when you need her"

She is doing time for multiple murders and framing people to sell her books.

As for the video nasty croaked carcass cadaver, thats the new must have graphics card technology leap forward.

[Anonymous Coward]

Frog != Toad

It's a toad, doofuses.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Frog != Toad

You can tell from that? I'm impressed.

I saved a toad from getting squashed in the road recently. It was definitely a toad rather than a frog, but I could only tell because it wasn't dessicated and stuck to a bit of a PC. I picked it up with my bare hands because I am well 'ard.

[Alan 6]

I'm willing to bet

you kissed it just in case...

[I'm Brian and so's my wife]

Plural of doofus?

Doofii, shirley?

[JDB]

RIP Mr. Nielsen

It's Doofi, and don't call me Shirley.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Big Dumb Guy 555

> It's a toad, doofuses.

The plural is 'doofi'

:)

[I'm Brian and so's my wife]

Doofi

It's doofii, but that's not important right now.

[Anonymous Coward]

The plural

of English words ending in -us is often problematic, as evidenced by the common disagreement over whether a word should become pluralised by adding -es or by removing the -us and adding -i or even -ii.

Obviously, what is right is what is in common usage, so in a sense, everyone who uses one of the above is 'right', if enough other people use it.

But tempers get heated and there is a desire among us grammar nazis to see mere normal people use the 'right' form.

What should guide people into forming correct plurals of -us ending words is a knowledge of how the word is derived from Greek or Latin.

This knowledge is increasingly rare these days. Its absence is a sure sign of State rather than Private education.

Contrary to common belief, many -us ending words do not pluralise 'correctly' by replacing the -us with -i, but simply by adding -es:

Octopus - derivation Greek. Plural Octopuses.

Bus - derivation Greek. Plural buses.

Virus - derivation Latin. No Latin plural. English plural viruses

Syllabus - derivation Latin. Plural syllabuses

However,

Prospectus - derivation Latin. Plural prospecti

Ignoramus - derivation Latin. Technically already a plural (of ignoro).

Whatever you do here to pluralise, ignorami is incorrect.

As readers of Register are all geniuses, they will be pleased to know that the correct plural of genius is not genii, but as I have indicated, geniuses.

When in doubt, google authoritative sources, do not put what you believe to be right as it is so often wrong

Have a nice day

Hippopotamus

Doofus - derivation the American gutter. Plural - whatever you like

[Mostor Astrakan]

Chuckle

"Bus - derivation Greek. Plural buses."

You spend ages waiting for a bus, and then all of a sudden loads of bi come by!

[Mr Grumblefish]

Yes,

but do you really want to admit to getting on a bi.

[Michael Chester]

Bus != Greek

It's a shortened form of omnibus (for everyone) in Latin.

And the -ii form is wrong for everything (it happens when replacing the -us with -i in a word ending -ius e.g. radius-radii)

Also, technically octopus/platypus - octopodes/platypodes since these come from the Greek, but hardly anyone uses those.

I half-remember a poem about the plural of rhinoceros, but cant find a link to it

/pendant

[Cameron Colley]

@Big Dumb Guy 555

Since there is no actual difference between a "Frog" and a "Toad" you can call it either.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: @Big Dumb Guy 555

It's an honour to have you here, Mr Attenborough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Differences :

Toads and frogs have many similarities, including the way they look. But there are some basic differences between them. Toads have dry, warty skin, while frogs have smooth, wet skin. Frogs have tiny teeth on both upper and lower jaws, while toads lack any teeth. Frogs have longer hind legs than toads. So frogs jump, while toads hop. Female toads lay there eggs them in long, parallel strings, while female frogs lay their eggs singly, in small or large clumps, on the water surface.

[Nasorenga]

frog == toad

"A distinction between frogs and toads, though common in popular culture, is not made in taxonomy."

- Wikipedia article on "Toad"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of...

All toads are frogs, but there is a taxonomic distinction in that true toads are all members of the bufonidae family. By either measure its a frog. I call Rana pipiens.

[Anonymous Coward]

taxonomy

Moron ! you say that there is no distinction in taxonomy as in the wiki article , you don't understand taxonomy .

Saying there is no distinction made in taxonomy between frogs and toads is irrelevant as this is like saying a domestic cat is no different than a lion.

As I said before frogs and toads are different in response to a post saying they are the same , I know I'm correct so why don't you go and educate yourself .

[Anonymous Coward]

title

Things get bigger when heated? Graphics cards get hot..

[Lottie]

giving a pretty good idea as to why this particular video card croaked it

Because the frog wasn't DirectX 9 certified?

[Graham Bartlett]

Frog jokes

Wow, toadally mummified. Incidentally...

Little Johnny is out playing in the garden when the vicar comes past.

"What are you doing there, Johnny?"

"Stuffing a firework up a frog's arse, vicar."

"That's 'rectum', Johnny."

<BANG>

"Damn right it did, vicar!"

[Disco-Legend-Zeke]

Alternate Punchline...

...was:

Rectum, hell, killedem.

[Graham Bartlett]

Never mind the frogs

When you've got Miss Piggy mummified in your PC case, be worried!

[Sceptic Tank]

Frogger is dead.

Apparently you can judge the health of an environment by the condition of its frog population.

[Anonymous Coward]

How did it get in?

Perhaps with help from Tadpole Technology?

[Natalie Gritpants]

Getting in was easy

It simply pressed the cdrom button, jumped on board and went for a ride.

Once inside it realized it had forgotten the USB to serial port adapter so it couldn't log in with it's smartphone.

Once it had finished eating all the bugs and spiders inside it croaked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Frogs have form for this sort of thing...

This sort of thing has been going on since the 1800's...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/harrypotts/4600824357/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/harrypotts/4601441926/

[Dick Pountain]

VFrog

Obvious, someone virtualised a tadpole and sent in its virtual image over Ethernet.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Dried frog?

Bursar! Those pills don't work on PCs not even the extra-strength ones!

It's the octarine one with the other dimension in a pocket.

[JeffyPooh]

Known science

It was the same way that Douglas Adams got the sofa up the stairs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Swam in

as a tadpol, then lived on flies until it finally croaked due to old age.

[Andy 115]

Trying to escape...

...from the advances of an amorous monkey?

[Glitterball]

deadfro9

Hmmm, another dead animal found in a PC in Canada?

Is he about to launch a music career?

[Alan Esworthy]

plural

the plural of doofus is "committee"

[Dangermouse]

plural #2

I personally always thought the plural of doofus was "Parliament"...

[Martin Kirk]

Me too

About 8 years ago I too found a dead frog in one of the servers in my lounge. Somehow it must have got in through a missing blanking plate. I can only assume it was trying to get away from my cat!

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely a toad

They can squish themselves very thin if necessary.

[Scott A. Brown]

Necessary?

Is there nothing more necessary in the life of a toad than for that toad to squeeze into a PC?

[andrewoid]

Naughty user

...spent too long on various spawn sites.

[stucs201]

How did it die?

Did it kermit suicide?

[HooHah!]

I couldn't put the article down

It was ribbiting.

[Graham Newton]

Dead frogs

We have a pond with frogs in it. When then die they do tend to bloat and then float to the surface presumably because of gases being created and held inside the frog. Really nice to remove -- not!

So I suspect that is what happened in this case and was probably aided by the heat as a previous commenter has noticed.

[TeeCee]

Re: Dead frogs

"....I suspect that is what happened in this case..."

What? It was already in the graphics card when the machine was assembled and when it died it floated to the surface?

[RollinPowell]

Good VGA card

Too bad the VGA card died, it had over 4 teraHOPS of power.

[liontaur]

Perhaps...

It got in the case before the build was complete and then managed to hide during the build and then was overclocked.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Presidents of the United States of America

Ha!

Anyone else remember the song Body by the above band?

"Little killer froggy,

Where did you hop?

Under the entertainment center

Realize you just couldn't stop

Worms found a hole in your booty they could enter and

I can't get your body out of my mind

I can't get your body out of my mind"

Linky:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbVz3rnSMmA

[Stuart Duel]

gecko & roach catcher

Computer and other electronic gear are the favourite hiding places for geckos and roaches so the frog probably had a meal ticket in its metal cage until it croaked.

[yeehaw....]

Climate Change Business Opportunity

ok, I'll play...

Picture this folks! A large factory in Buildanythingyouwant, China with six, that's SIX! assembly lines with THREE SHIFTS worth of smiling young workers! So you see we can handle as many orders as need be and can add capacity at 300MPH!

THINK OF THE SAVINGS! We can add value with our product as well as increase YOUR sales by GOING GREEN and SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT!!

Now how many Green Frog Fanless Heatsinks© can I anticipate for your first order of video cards?

;)

Running for the door.....

[MarkM]

Boring suggestion, but ....

Has the notion that this is a prank not been considered?

Looks like a variation on the anchovy-in-the-aircon trick. I'd be looking, with some suspicion, at anyone else who had physical access to that machine.

[Stuart Halliday]

Looks like a Hymenochirus boettgeri

DAF or Dwarf African Frog - Hymenochirus boettgeri are common aquatic pets sold by the likes of your local aquarium shop.

If your tank top is not secured, they often jump out and move towards dark places.

It can't survive more than 20 mins out of water however...

They grow to about 2.5" long

See http://theaquariumwiki.com/DAF

I keep a few myself in an aquarium next to my computer.

[Lover of Taxon]

Actually...

Common names of animals often do not reflect their taxonomic status. It's what happens when you name things before you find out how they're related. Thus, saying that there is no taxonomic difference between frogs and toads is sort of true. There are many named 'toads' that are not true toads (belonging to family bufonidae). Just like not all 'bugs' are true bugs (belonging to Hemiptera). Pill bugs, for example, are actually crustaceans.

This seems to me extremely different from saying a domestic cat (Felis catus) is the same thing as a lion (Panthera leo), which are two distinct lineages of a larger family, Felidea. True toads, on the other hand, branch off within the Anurans (frogs), and therefore the term "frog" must either mean nothing scientifically or include the toads. I suppose we could say that toads are specialized frogs. Just like we can say that birds are specialized reptiles. (More specifically, specialized dinosaurs!)

Anyway, stop being such a jerk.

[Anonymous Coward]

a lesson for all of us

this is why water cooling your PC is never a good idea.

[Chris Hunt]

Simple

Somebody must've installed Kermit on that machine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Be glad it wasn't the back of a CRT... or an ancient tube.

My oldish 13" TV (a Telefunken, google that!) had been working for 20 years without a hitch, except a gecko entered its premises and touched the high voltage circuitry / flyback...

...while I was watching it. The reason I know? A 3 foot spark leaped of it, and it caused a black strip just as long in the wall. I leave to you how it caused a scorched mark in the wall, or what was the (previous) composition of the resulting black soot in the said wall.

Suffice to say the tech only found half of gecko inside the TV.

Yeeewwww gross.

[ahkiwi]

Frog or Hamster?

So ... is the frog an upgrade to the hamster powered server or are the hamsters an upgrade to the frog powered server?

Which came first ?!