An Air Force Airmen at Langley AFB Believes His Excel Spreadsheet Has Become Self Aware
SSgt Scott McCoy, from Chicago IL, believes his excel spreadsheet has become self aware. SSgt McCoy said that he started noticing a change when his squadron updated their computers to Windows 7.
“Coming from an Air Force base that was still using Windows XP, I was blown away by all the new features in Windows 7. “ recalled SSgt McCoy.
“I was really amazed by the speed at which the system loaded. I used to be able to count to well over 1,000 Mississippis before I got to the Home Screen. But not with this Ferrari, in just over 700, I was in!”
And that’s where things got strange. As SSgt McCoy started to manually type in his maintenance data for the month, he was shocked to discover that he could exceed the normal 65,536 row limit he was used to. Not wanting to test he luck, he continued to input his data manually….. for 7 weeks straight.
“I just got kind of into a rhythm. And at a certain point just lost track of time. I had a lot of friends who dropped off food and stuff, I just hadn’t had a working computer on station for so long, that I wanted to get as far ahead in my work as possible”
And then seemingly the impossible happened. The excel document became self aware.
“I was just about to get past my millionth line of data, and I was typing an equation into excel. At this point I was very tired and remember typing an “I” and then an “M” and then I just stared at the screen in disbelief.”
Staring right back at SSgt McCoy was what can only be described as a sentient being….. the excel document had auto filled and extended the letters IM into IMREAL
“I’ve never had that much data in one place before. Like actually MB of data! I’m sure that had to play a role. Normally my files are like 200–300KB tops.“
DEFCrunch spoke briefly with SSgt McCoy’s commander and head of IT, Col Rick Everett, a former fighter pilot. “Back when I was a fighter pilot, we used to have all these fancy machines try to tell us what to do too. I didn’t believe any of them. A fighter pilot knows in his gut what to do and what not to do.”
When questioned what his story had to do with SSgt McCoy’s excel document becoming self aware, Col Everett responded “Who’s SSgt McCoy?”
Additional reports out of Langley AFB have reported that all computers have been removed from the majority of office locations and communication across base is levering what they all refer to as “E-mail”.
“I decided that we were better off just doing things the old way and not relying upon technology so much.” said Col Everett. “A few people started to put the letter “E” for Everett on all the letters I sent out, and the word E-mail started to stick. I kind of like it.”
So what ever happened to SSgt McCoy and his sentient excel document?
“My system crashed when I tried to save the file and I ended up losing all my data and weeks worth of work. When the blue screen of death showed up, I felt like I had lost a dear friend.”
