Thiotimoline.dll

Some years ago (back in 1999 apparently - whatever happened to Moonbase Alpha?) I sent an email to Xircom's technical support service and received the surprising response that my message was received "tomorrow" (I sent it to New Scientist's Feedback column- the original item is here)

Eight years on and I am (partially) delighted to announce that whatever the underlying technology was/is/will be it has been/is being/will be developed to undreamed of heights of sophistication by none other than Microsoft and has been implemented as some sort of precognition extension to Windows Explorer.

Last night, I thought I was editing some photos - but I suspect now that this was merely paramnesia: when I looked at my photo folder I found this...


Not only did Vista know that I would be editing these images, it knew precisely how I would edit them - and most helpfully actually provided the resulting files, which could have saved me considerable effort if I had only known about this feature beforehand.

Unless of course, now that I have seen these files I do in fact modify them myself and Vista didn't do the work for me and is merely telling me that I am going to do some more editing...

Suddenly I realise that I can now test one of the good-old-fashioned paradoxes of time-travel (without the aid of a black-hole): now that I know I am going to edit these files today, what will happen if I don't?

Apologies if, as some fear, this results in the complete collapse of space and time as we know it and the banishment of the entire universe into neverness.

Actually, this is now a "very real" (as opposed to merely slightly real) fear: using the Windows "Start"button search I typed "modified: today" and, as expected, received a list of all the files I have worked on today... but searching instead for "modified: tomorrow" there is... nothing.

Oops!

Woah! The two files that were, yesterday, to be modified "tomorrow" are listed as modified "today" even though I haven't touched them - so there's no fiddling with time after all! I am truly impressed! Vista was right all along!

And on the further-up-side, if Vista seems not to keep your files where you think they are, let it search more widely - it may tell you where they will be, and then of course you can look them up there.

PS You can read more about Thiotimoline here. It makes a very good screen cleaner in solution - effectively removing tomorrow's grubby finger marks today! (Reapply every 24 hours for optimum results)