Do you like Easter eggs?

Apart from the paraphernalia associated with a major Christian holiday, I've understood the term "Easter egg" as denoting an amusing goodie that is secretly embedded inside of software. When you perform a particular series of actions, the Easter egg reveals itself. There are several such "eggs" buried in the PalmOS operating system on PalmPilots, resulting in behavior such as the display of an animated taxi cab or a hula-dancing palm tree, among others. Among development tools, I recall there being a particularly obscure set of keystrokes and mouse actions that would cause the names of the Borland C++ 3.0 development team to scroll up the screen for the edification and amusement of the user. (I recall that the sequence is arcane, but do not recall the sequence itself!)

Well, it turns out there is a site devoted to Easter eggs, except that the concept has been expanded to include coverage of amusing tidbits and inside jokes that are hidden in movies, music, art, books, or even your watch.

In browsing the site, I was intrigued by the list of Easter eggs in books, but disappointed in the result. The entry for A Clockwork Orange, for example, notes that the movie did not end the way the book did, because the movie was based on the American version of the book, which in turn did not include the 21st chapter of the British edition. Big deal. Another entry reveals that George Orwell’s real name was Eric Blair. Wow, and similar sentiments.

Me, I prefer to limit the concept of the "Easter egg" to software (and the holiday). Here's a classic example of the former (useful for all of you with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0):

1. Click Help
2. Click About
3. Hold Control and drag the "E" over the world
4. Continue to drag, and ram the E into the text that reads "Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0"
5. Click "Unlock"
6. Hold down Control again, and drag the E over the world, and let go
7. Enjoy!

Cheers...