Do you know the name of the first computer game? I confess I didn't and I learned programming on a Univac 1100/62 so I am a lot closer to the origination date of computer games than most people who will read this.

The idea is that you wrap saran wrap around the mouth in several layers, and poke a hole in the mouth area, and then waterboard away. . . . So far I would categorize waterboarding as simply unpleasant rather than torture, but I've come this far so I might as well go on. . . It took me ten minutes to recover my senses once I tried this. I was shuddering in a corner, convinced I narrowly escaped killing myself.

Here's what happened:

The water fills the hole in the saran wrap so that there is either water or vacuum in your mouth. The water pours into your sinuses and throat. You struggle to expel water periodically by building enough pressure in your lungs. With the saran wrap though each time I expelled water, I was able to draw in less air. Finally the lungs can no longer expel water and you begin to draw it up into your respiratory tract.

It seems that there is a point that is hardwired in us. When we draw water into our respiratory tract to this point we are no longer in control. All hell breaks loose. Instinct tells us we are dying.

I have never been more panicked in my whole life. Once your lungs are empty and collapsed and they start to draw fluid it is simply all over. You [b]know[/b] you are dead and it's too late. Involuntary and total panic.

There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It would be like telling you not to blink while I stuck a hot needle in your eye. . . I never felt anything like it, and this was self-inflicted with a watering can, where I was in total control and never in any danger. And I understood.

Waterboarding gets you to the point where you draw water up your respiratory tract triggering the drowning reflex.

Penn State researchers did a study and found that web searchers who evaluated identical search-engine results preferred Yahoo first and Google second even though more claimed to use Google regularly. These results, they say, provide evidence that branding matters as much on the Internet as off and that there is "carry over" branding in effect too.

Here is their method — they copied identical Google results pages ("camping Mexico," "laser removal," "manufactured home" and "techno music") and attributed them to four different search engines — Google, MSN Live Search, Yahoo! and an in-house engine they created for the study.

Then the researchers showed the faked results to 32 participants who were asked to evaluate the engines' performance in returning relevant results.

Despite the results being identical in content and presentation, participants indicated that Yahoo! and Google outperformed MSN Live Search and the in-house search engine.