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### "Dear Uncle Nerditude.." A short word of explanation here, and it had better be a short word, with a postage stamp's worth of textual legroom to play with. Simply put, I'm your agony uncle bravely attempting to answer the most, erm, esoteric questions that you computer nerds and demosceners can throw at me! Our first missive comes from a deeply committed, nay, sectioned desktop publishing fan who sent me a beautifully printed paper email with the following query. Dear Uncle Nerditude, I am a desktop publishing (DTP) fan of many years standing and I wish to share a fascinating DTP mystery with you. I'm writing with reference to a specific part of the Lady Gaga video for 'Bad Romance' which piqued my interest. If you care to look at the second minute and forty fourth second, you will see a miscellany of laptop screens, each displaying the bidding for Lady Gaga's sex slave services. Now these use a large green font which I've not been able to match to any within my extensive collection. Could it be that I am witnessing, for the first time in public, a specially developed font for the unique use of the Russian Mafiya? I have been watching this video over and over again, desperately seeking the answer (and not for Lady G's underwear BTW!) Yours, with heated and baited breath, Bernard Grabiron BsC. Uncle Nerditude responds thus! Dear DTP Nerd, Congratulations for the inspired guess. It is indeed the case that you have alertly spotted something which ordinary people, encumbered with time- consuming "sex lives", have failed to spot. There is indeed a custom font that the Russian Mafiya uses on all its laptops, desktop computers, smartphones and iPads. It is called "Ugelgorsk" and looks best at sixteen or twenty-four points, although it can be engorged safely. If you are lucky enough to have a close family member kidnapped, you may get to see it on a printed ransom note or email. With your powers of deduction, you have earned five gold nerd stars which you can collect in person from the awards bin, the next time you are in our neck of the woods. Best wishes and thing. Uncle Nerditude. Our next letter on a pretend papery substance comes from a historical re-enactor nerd, who likes to mix up ancient times with retro office equipment. Go for it, let the drums roll! Dear Uncle Nerditude, I'm giving lots of serious thought to the ancient Egyptian's hieroglyphic language. Given the choice and a middling budget for a broad selection of new IT frippery, do you think that the pyramid botherers would have bypassed the command line interface and DOS prompts of the early eighties and gone straight for the Mac Classic? Its graphical GUI and abilities to handle bitmapped symbols and get them down onto printed papyrus would have been greatly cherished, don't you think? Kind regards, Neil, (aged too young to be talking to strange men.) The inevitable response creeps out of my keyboard.. Dearest darling Neil, Stop what you are doing right now. Put it down! Now it is a little appreciated fact that the ancient Egyptians had a problematic relationship with new technology. This culminated in the rebel Pharaoh Amenhotep III forcing a blind devotion towards daisywheel printers, which, lets face it, were never ever going to work properly in the Middle Kingdom for a lot of reasons. Once he had gone to the heavenly kingdom place, his enraged subjects burnt all their office equipment and forbade further mention of it, preferring to manage their urges by hand. As I suspect you will have to, when you get a bit older. Looking wistfully out of the corner of my eye Uncle Nerditude. Finally, for this session, an actual demoscener writes in with a question about a particularly revered folk-myth of the demo scene. Dear Uncle Nerditude, It is said that there is a colony of Nosfe's which live around the Hartwall Areena. Their existence is cherished and protected by the Finnish people in a similar fashion to the ravens of the Tower of London. For it is said that if the last Nosfe dies out, then an unspecified bad thing will happen to Helsinki, like it will explode or something? Is this true, or is this just another salmiakki story? Coolshock to the Demoscene braincells! Rasterman Grubbly-Plank. This one will get the answer it deserves! You foolish thing, The 'bad thing' already happened. Have you forgotten that the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest was held there! Which I guess means that the hunting to extinction by inconsiderate outsiders of the Nosfe colony, had already taken place before then? With sadness and regret, Uncle Nerditude Well that's enough letters for me today, I'm off to lie down and have a pee! See you some other time children, curse that restraining order! Sad and sorry excuse for a funny article - CiH - August 2011. Back to Humour.