Dear Answer Guy,

Every time I boot the Internet, it says "You've got mail." So I go outside to check my mail box, but it's empty. What's the deal?

-Fatigued in Falmouth

Dear Fatigued,

Computer programmers use a method to determine if certain events have happened in the program. This method is called "flagging" and is in quite common practice. With this method, the programmer sets a particular variable to a particular value. When certain events occur, the variable is checked to see if the value has been changed by some other event. If so, the event is "flagged" and something special needs to be done.

When looking at your mailbox problem, it would seem that you are forgetting to put the flag down on the mailbox. The computer checks the state of this flag, as discussed, to determine if it should send you a "You have received mail" notification. Try changing the state of the flag to see if you get different results. Also, it is possible to disable the flag with a screwdriver, for debugging purposes.

This first appeared in the now defunct website segfault.org