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I see blatant plagiarism gets you a +5 funny on /. these days.

A computer worm that spreads through Flash and PDFs on PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users blitheringly stupid enough to still think Windows is not ridiculously and unfixably insecure by design.

Despite many years' warnings that Microsoft regards security as a marketing problem and has only ever done the absolute minimum it can get away with, millions of users who click on any rubbish they see in the hope of pictures of female tennis stars having wardrobe malfunctions still fail to believe that taking Windows out on the Internet is like standing bent over in the street in downtown Gomorrah, naked, arse greased up and carrying a flashing neon sign saying "COME AND GET IT."

Millions of smug Mac users and the four hundred smug Linux users pointed and laughed, having long given up trying to convince their Windows-using friends to see sense. "There's a reason the Unix system on Mac OS X is called Darwin," said appallingly smug Mac user Arty Phagge.

"It can't be stupid if everyone else runs it," said Windows user Joe Beleaguered, who had lost all his email, business files, MP3s and porn again. "Macs cost more than Windows PCs."

"Yes," said Phagge. "Yes, they do."

Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy frantically tried to get our attention about something or other, but we can't say we care.

Sergey Brin of Google is âoedeeply rattledâ by the launch of Microsoft's Bob Hope search engine, whose market share has surged from 9% in its previous incarnation as Live Search to a stunning 9% in its new garb.

"New search engines have come and gone in the past ten years, but Bob Hope really has Sergey just crapping himself," said one anonymous insider, "Steve B." "The ad clickthrough is huge, because we, I mean they, make it so you can't tell ads from results. Innovation!"

"It's clear that Google is headed down, down, down," said another anonymous source, "Rupert M." "Particularly the news operation. Print that or I fire you."

Bob Hope has been warmly greeted by analysts, critics, tech journalists and others on Microsoft and News Corporation's payrolls. Early statistics show Bob Hope increasing Microsoft's market share by two percentage points, to about 11 percent! Before dropping back to statistical noise a few hours after the launch was over.

Google's credibility was shot to pieces by its blatant pro-Obama bias, noted by Fox News analysts when they couldn't find evidence of Obamaâ(TM)s French citizenship and gay marriage on the search engine in the days before the 2008 Presidential election. "Their far-left liberal search algorithms will lead to their utter defeat by the business-friendly Microsoft Bob Hope," said swivel_eyed_loon_643 in the New York Post comments section.

A spokesman for Google, asked about the threat of Microsoft Bob Hope, said "what??", put the phone down and laughed for five minutes before the line cut out, obviously overcome with hysterical horror.

Humanity: LOLbot! How can we reverse entropy?
LOLbot: i dunno lol

Barry Diller stated today that "the Internet free access model is clearly malfunctioning, as I don't make enough money from it. We have to educate people that free doesn't work, particularly for us."

Publishers hold that it is natural for readers to pay what advertisers once did, just as cows have to make up the difference out of their own pockets when the price of milk falls. "Without content companies, there would be nothing on the internet! Just as without pimps, sex would never have been invented."

Media commentators fear for the future of investigative journalism. "How can we hold governments' feet to the fire without money to pay our great reporters? Where would you get your recycled wire feeds, your Garfield cartoons?" Newspapers have suffered badly since the collapse of their previous business model of selling readers to advertisers on a local monopoly basis. The replacement models appear to involve phlogiston, caloric and luminiferous aether.

Publishers have also explored the notion of getting Google to pay its "fair share" for so parasitically leading people to newspapers' websites. The Wikimedia Foundation promptly started billing journalists for their reprints from Wikipedia. "We feel this is completely unfair," said Tom Curley of the Associated Press, "as real news stories spring forth from the heads of accredited reporters in an immaculate creation from nothingness. My preciousss." Maurice Jarre was unavailable for comment.

I blame that scientific genius Steven Fielding. Bloody balance of power.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that the Australian government will build a new $43 billion national broadband network, connecting 90% of homes to 100-megabit fibre internet. "We believe that fast broadband is absolutely essential for our nation's future," he said.

"Telstra has raised issues with the amount of bandwidth usage this will produce, given we're still hooked to America by tin cans and string, but our Great Firewall of Australia Internet filtering project should keep usage down to reasonable levels at near-dialup speeds. We promise you won't go over your download cap."

The Great Firewall will reliably block all illegal material, child pornography, terrorism and unAustralian thoughts.

"Not only are the contents of the list illegal," said Senator Stephen Conroy, "but revealing the list is also illegal, and so is linking to someone linking to someone claiming to reveal the list. So we're blocking Google Search. Having to use Anzwers should keep usage right down."

Calling it the "single largest infrastructure decision in Australia's history," Mr Rudd said the project would employ up to 37,000 people a year monitoring citizens' net access, reading their email and correcting spelling errors in their football forum posts.

A consultative process will determine the regulatory framework for the network. "We're considering getting Senator Fielding to do it personally," said Senator Conroy, "since he's the dickhead who demanded the censorship in return for his votes. Hopefully it'll melt his brain. Bloody balance of power. At least Xenophon's bloody sane."

Microsoft has said it may ditch Vista the moment Windows 7 comes out! They've since backtracked - but we need to make sure they know our feelings.

Windows 7 is CASTRATED APPEASEMENT to soy latte-sipping girly-men who wish they owned a Mac. We want a REAL operating system. An operating system that PERSONIFIES America's INDUSTRIAL MIGHT. That makes you feel AWE at the MAJESTY of the progress of its operation. VISTA is a monument to everything that makes us the country we are!

Like Chrysler, like Hummer, like Edsel - "Vista" is a name that will be remembered as the greatest operating system in Microsoft's history.

Just Say "No" To Seven -

SAVE VISTA!

Original blog post - Facebook group

"I fully support this initiative. My computer business employs 200 people; the best possible thing for it is to make sure Vista continues and goes forward." - M. Shuttleworth, London

"I can't tell you how much Vista has done for my business. So many people depend on it." - S. Jobs, Cupertino

"Vista is the one thing that will keep people seeking out and using systems that are at the forefront of technology. It's been the best thing for all of us." - L. Torvalds, Portland.

"I'm ... I'm touched. *sob* I didn't think anyone cared. You guys. Developers! *sob*" - S. Ballmer, Seattle.

Steve Ballmer's happy face at the news

REAL VIRTUALITY, Seattle, Thursday 2099 -- Microsoft Corporation has announced a limited one-off extension of availability of its Windows XP operating system to April 2101 after criticism from large customers and analysts. This is the fifty-sixth extension of XP's availability since 2008.

Through successive releases of Microsoft's flagship Windows operating system, demand for XP has remained an important factor for businesses relying on stable XP-specific software and installations, who have pushed back strongly against the software company's attempts to move them to later versions. Windows administration skills have become rare in recent years and consultants have demanded high fees. Reviving Windows administrators from cryogenic freezing has proven insufficient to fill the market gap, as almost all begged to work on COBOL instead.

"Windows XP is currently in the extremely very prolonged super-extended support phase and Microsoft encourages customers to migrate to Windows for Neurons 2097 as soon as feasible," said William Gates V, CEO and great-grandson of the company founder. "Spare change?"

Microsoft Corporation, along with Monsanto Corporation and the RIAA, exists as a protected species in the Seattle Memorial Glass Crater Bad Ideas And Warnings To The Future National Park in north-west Washington on the radioactive remains of what was once the planet Earth, under the protection of our Linux-based superintelligent robot artificial intelligence overlords. Company revenues for 2098 were over $15.

Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, has confirmed reports of his younger brother Kim Jong-un succeeding his father, in an interview with Japanese NTV.

"The appointment of a successor is totally my father's decision. Jong-un is certainly the man for the job. Chip off the old block, he is. Who wouldn't want to inherit somewhere in as good shape as North Korea? Fantastic past, fantastic present, fantastic future. Who wouldn't choose military parades and announcing a 30% increase in mud pie production over drinking, whoring and gambling? I'm sure there'll be no war crimes trials for the lucky fellow in the hot seat when the hollow shell collapses. Because it won't, of course. And isn't hollow. We just feel the rest of the world isn't ready to share the bountiful socialist wealth flowing from our policy of Juche. Of course!"

Kim Jong-nam denied reports he had defected or was living in exile. "Macau and China are just great places. Not as great as North Korea, of course! No, no. I just like it here."

There has been much speculation over who would follow Mr Kim, who is thought to have suffered a stroke last year. North Korean officials were reportedly told to support Kim Jong-un after the North's 25 May nuclear test. "Certainly I haven't heard of any purges or midnight executions of perceived supporters of mine. Because I'm not seeking any. Or the job. No, no, Jong-un's your fellow. Fabulous bloke. 'Scuse me, just got to look up departure times for planes to Xinjiang, or perhaps deepest Siberia. Lovely to catch you, must do lunch, love ya babe!"

The entire Internet melted last night as Michael Jackson wreaked celebrity revenge upon it, with Wikipedia, LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter giving "service unavailable" errors.

Mr Jackson also got his own back on the media, with TMZ getting the scoop on his death and everyone else reporting it second-hand in a manner that showed they didn't quite believe them.

"We are utterly distraught and inconsolable about Mr Jackson's death," said Sony-BMG, as Michael Jackson albums occupied the top fifteen positions on the Amazon CD sales chart.

The O2 Arena will be running a thirty-night Michael Jackson tribute, with only fifteen minutes' less Michael Jackson each night than was originally contracted. "People may wish to hold on to the tickets as absolutely irreplaceable final souvenirs," said a spokesweasel, "rather than returning them for a refund or anything foolish like that."

The Twitter and Facebook websites were rendered particularly crippled under a flood of Michael Jackson jokes:

• Why did Michael Jackson cross the road? He didn't, he was dead.
• What did Michael Jackson say to the children? Nothing, he was dead.
• How does Michael Jackson pick his nose? He doesn't, he's dead.
• What did Farrah Fawcett say when she heard Michael Jackson had died straight after her? Nothing, she was dead.

"I'm appalled at the fuss over Michael Jackson," said Canberra taxi driver Peter Mackay. "So he died. Get over it. He'll be back on Sunday, yeah?"

Email filtering company MessageLabs reports that Egham, Surrey, on the suburban outskirts of London, is the town that receives the most spam in Britain.

"It's not like there's much else to do," said Boris Busybody, 77 (IQ), of Egham Hythe, idly whirling his four-foot penis around his head in a desultory fashion. "Expanding your manhood, growing your breasts, increasing your sperm ... the Lib Dem phone calls get a bit much. That's Doctor Busybody, by the way. My Ph.D arrived last week."

Spam has revitalised the local economy. Busybody has given up cab driving and is now working a lucrative job processing payments from home after he sent them his bank details in response to an urgent security message. "I had that King Otumfuo Opoku Ware II in the back of my cab once. Very generous and helpful fellow."

The Egham Tourist Board has seized the day, with plans for a 50 foot tall penis sculpture at Junction 13 of the M25 on the exit ramp to the town. The sculpture will be encircled by a genuine imitation Rolex and spray a fountain of Spermamax, obtained at a very reasonable rate from a Canadian pharmacy. "You will search an hour for your underwear in the ocean of our spam!" is to become the new town motto.

"I did get a good one the other day," says Busybody. "Barrister Matthew Sergeant Busybody of MessageLabs said we could promote our town to millions of people just by sending them an advance fee to process our incoming email. The stuff they try! 'Scuse me, V!k@grk@ kicking in, got to go have sex again. Sorry."

:-D

I think "flawless horror" may be the picture I ended up making. *shudder*

(to be posted on NotN tomorrow, probably)

The American Super-Society of Composers and Performers has filed a brief in a lawsuit against AT&T arguing that its members deserve payment every time a mobile phone rings.

The owners of the musical compositions are already paid for each ringtone download, but this does not cover ASSCAP public performance royalties.

"The musicians and songwriters are the true creators of objective value in society," said ASSCAP spokesdroid Ayn Rand. "They deserve your support. How would civilisation survive without Crazy Frog or the Nokia Tune?

"To this end, we are bringing suits against those individuals who, having purchased RIAA-licensed ringtones, do not then silence them when in public. Statutory damages of $80,000 should have a salutary effect on our coffers and, of course, our public image."

Further lawsuits will then be brought against those who silence their mobile phones. "4'33' by John Cage is a copyrighted work. Without the money going to his estate, he may never write another measured piece of silence again."

A future without batteries -- no need to charge phones or MP3 players, or even electric cars. No lost phone chargers, no running out of power sockets. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the annual Intel developers forum in San Francisco yesterday.

Rattner demonstrated this by causing his ears to light up at 60 watts of power a yard from a power transmitter operated by his assistant Igor. Only four journalists were incinerated when the power earthed through them from his fingertips.

Rattner reassured us that pumping kilowatts of power around the home through magnetic induction power is absolutely harmless. "The human body is not affected by magnetic fields," he said as one journalist with a pacemaker collapsed and another with a knee replacement watched his leg catch fire. "There's no danger whatsoever from it, any more than there is from mobile phones cooking your brain, microwave leakage blinding you, chemical waste unraveling all the DNA in your balls or statistical clusters of kids with cancer wherever high-tension power lines run overhead. Asbestos and thalidomide were horribly slandered in their day too."

"Of course, Nikola Tesla did it first in 1899," said enthusiast Albert Tedious-Anorak, 54, of Little Boring. "I detailed this at length on Wikipedia, but they refused to believe the value of my revelations on this matter due to a conspiracy of Edison fans amongst the site administrators."

Steve Jobs, visionary leader of Apple Computer, has died -- and come back, better and stronger.

"They don't call it the Jesus Phone for nothing," Jobs laughed with reporters, before eating their tasty, tasty brains.

Jobs' new cyborg arsenal includes wifi, 3G, laser cannons, a flame thrower and a can opener, all running on Mac OS X Robosteve. Bundled applications include an enhanced hypnotic force field based on the one he uses at MacWorld keynotes. "I can't wait to try it on Bill," he said.

Disney, in which Jobs is the single largest shareholder, remained unaffected. "Steve's just working with the way we do things here," said the disembodied computer-hosted soul of Walt Disney, who was decanted to a computer in 1966 to avoid being declared legally dead, so that copyright in his works would never, ever run out.

BIG BONE LICK, Kentucky, Wednesday — Microsoft today heeded the lessons of technological history, taking the popular "preview porn videos in the search engine" feature and turning its Bob Hope "decision engine" into a porn finder at the address explicit.bobhope.microsoft.com, and a new IE8 "Get the F*cked" campaign.

"It worked for VHS over Beta, porn sites were leading innovators in online payments. It's a natural synergy," said Steve Ballmer, looking somewhat sweaty and flushed.

Porn sites are some of the keenest users of Microsoft technologies, using the undocumented interfaces in Internet Explorer to install helpful toolbars and bulk email tools on users' systems. "It's all about tools. Our tools have amazed people for decades. Microsoft are famous for the biggest and best tools ever. Developers! Developers! Developers! DEVELOPEEERS!"

Internet Explorer 8 is also part of the promotion. After a competition that advertises IE8's superior standards compliance with a site that deliberately breaks all other browsers, a programme to donate eight free meals for the poor for every IE8 download (with the cost of the meals being 10% of the spend on promoting them) and a string of free porn sites requiring a Silverlight download to watch the smut, IE8 Service Pack 1 will include a "boot straight into porn" mode. "We found that was what users really wanted in an operating system. I mean, browser." It will include the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets as standard. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." The system will also set up automatic deductions from your bank account and credit card.

Mr Ballmer promised that Microsoft will, as always, deliver. "Unlike porn sites, we don't just tease — we really will fuck you. Now bend over."

As well as attempting to give the major record companies whatever they want until the end of time, Lord Carter's Digital Britain report includes tax breaks for "culturally British" computer game development.

Planned games include Couch Warrior ("the goal is to sit playing a game. The graphics are truly horrifying and needed us to go to 3.5-dimensional to fit the player's avatar on the screen"), CCTV Panopticon ("take pictures of the CCTV cameras in your high street until arrested under the Terrorism Act for having your own camera in public"), Bottled Tan Snorter ("get into celebrity magazines and shag footballers, lose points for any sign of intelligence or words of two syllables") and Cynical Apathist ("write outraged blog comments with amusing satires of events of the day while working a job directly keeping the hideous machinery alive and running"). A committee will also form a group to do a study concerning a team to write a ZX Spectrum emulator for the iPhone.

The games industry has warned in the past that developers are being lured away to other countries by the prospect of being paid more than shit. Conservative Shadow Arts Minister, Ed Vaizey, has leapt upon the opportunity, with promises of incentives for talented developers to stay in Britain and not be lured away by better pay in America. "We'll keep their passports from them until they reach 'Achievement Unlocked.'"

Having finally released Digital Britain, Lord Carter has resigned from the government and is returning to private industry. "Of course, Digital Britain remains a completely objective assessment of the way forward for the nation in the twenty-first century, and should in no way be thought of as my CV for a series of lucrative consultancies with the large media companies I've just given everything they've ever asked for. And a pony."

Microsoft today heeded the lessons of technological history, taking the popular "preview porn videos in the search engine" feature and turning its Bob Hope search engine into a porn finder at the address explicit.bobhope.microsoft.com.

"It worked for VHS over Beta, porn sites were leading innovators in online payments. It's a natural synergy," said Steve Ballmer, looking somewhat sweaty and flushed.

Porn sites are some of the keenest users of Microsoft technologies, using the undocumented interfaces in Internet Explorer to install helpful toolbars and bulk email tools on users' systems. "It's all about tools. Developers, developers, developers, developers!"

Windows 7 final will include a "boot straight into porn" mode. "We found that was what users really wanted in an operating system." It will include the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets as standard. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Mr Ballmer promised that Microsoft will, as always, deliver. "Unlike porn sites, we don't just tease — we really will fuck you. Totally."

This morning, our dear leader Steve Ballmer is unveiling our completely new search service, that has Google absolutely shitting its pants, unrelated to anything we at Microsoft have ever done before: Bob Hope.

We spent lots of time listening to you, except when you told us how much MSN Search^W^WLive Search^W^WKumo sucked 'cause youâ(TM)re just wrong about that, to learn which buzzwordy Web 2.0 thingies you use search for today. Finding a webpage that has anything to do with the search terms you entered is so passe, dahling.

So today we're introducing a new kind of search, that goes beyond traditional search engines that do tedious things like find stuff, to instead help you make faster, more informed decisions. (Windows 7 is peachy keen, by the way.) We think of Bob Hope as a Decision Engine. We've sued Stephen Wolfram into atomic dust using our patents on FAT and Mono, co-opted the Wolfram Alpha engine and swapped Mathematica for Visual Basic and Wolfram's brain for the exhumed corpse of Bob Hope.

So why did we pick Bob Hope as the new core of our search? We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world.

And just look at these results!

What do we want?
Braaains.
When do we want them?
Braaains.
What do I need to run Windows 7?
Braaains.
What's Bill Gates got that means you should buy everything you can from the company he founded?
Braaains.
What's the final proof of Steve Ballmer's equal genius to Steve Jobs?
Vistaaa.

This is something new, something improved! You need to try it! It'll give so much more betterer results than that other search engine we can't name because Steve will wedge another chair up our butts! Please, come and try our new and improved service! FOR GOD'S SAKE TRY THE DAMN SERVICE. OR THE PUPPY GETS IT. We're Microsoft. We're serious as a heart attack on this one.

Mr Ahmadinejad credits his win to democratic methods perfected by George W. Bush. "We fully understand the international community's desires to see that Iran's democracy transparently works to the highest standards found in other nations. Mr Bush's work has been exemplary."

The "hanging chad" technique has been particularly effective. "Rounding up opposition voters, politicians and journalists named Chad and hanging them. In those cases where the opposition insurgent was not named Chad, we of course took care to change their names to Chad posthumously. Democratic procedures must not only be observed, they must be seen to be observed."

"I stand one hundred per cent behind my brother Mahmoud," said Supreme Leader Ali Khameini Rove of the Project for a New Iranian Century. "Occasionally with his mouth moving in time with the movements of my hand. Clever, isn't it?"

Mr Ahmadinejad has been condemned by some as a "lunatic redneck" and "a gibbering madman perilously close to the nuclear button." "These charges are most unfair. When I declaimed the necessity of obliterating and deleting the unnameable Zionist entity with cleansing atomic fire, it was implicit in these statements that we would need to reach a resolution to undertake such action through proper procedures of international diplomacy. Mr Bush's excellent work in decapitating Saddam Hussein's odious regime shows the way forward in this regard."

"We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people," said President-in-Exile Al Gore from his cave high in the mountains of Afghanistan. "For my own part, I will never give up the fight to take back America and Iran from the Republican counterrevolutionaries and will not rest until all Americans and Iranians breathe the free air of socialism ... what? Democrats elected? Huh, next you'll try telling me the President's black. You can't fool me! Back where you came from!"

Microsoft today announced the release of version 3.0 of its world-beating Silverlight multimedia platform for the Web. As a replacement for Adobe's Flash, it is widely considered utterly superfluous and of no interest to anyone who could be found.

"We have a fabulous selection of content partners for Silverlight," announced Microsoft marketer Scott Guthrie on his blog today. "NBC for the Olympics, which delivered millions of new users to BitTorrent. The Democrat National Convention, which is fine because those Linux users are all Ron Paul weirdos anyway. Major League Baseball, uh, scratch that ... It comes with rich frameworks, rich controls, rich networking support, a rich base class library, rich media support, oh God kill me now. My options are underwater, my resume's a car crash, Google won't call me back. My life is an exercise in futility. I'm the walking dead, man. The walking dead."

Silverlight was created by Microsoft to leverage its desktop monopoly on Windows, to work off the tremendous sales and popularity of Vista. Flash is present on a pathetic 96% of all computers connected to the Internet, whereas Silverlight downloads are into the triple figures.

"But it's got DRM!" cried Guthrie. "Netflix loved it! And web developers love us too, after all we did for them with IE 6. Wait, come back! We'll put porn on it! Free porn!"

Similar Microsoft initiatives include its XPS replacement for Adobe PDF, its HD Photo replacement for JPEG photographs and its earlier Liquid Motion attempt to replace Flash. Also, that CD-ROM format Vista defaults to which no other computers can read.

In a Microsoft internal security sweep, Guthrie's own desktop was found to still be running Windows XP.

A computer worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users blitheringly stupid enough to still think Windows is not ridiculously and unfixably insecure by design.

Despite many years' warnings that Microsoft regards security as a marketing problem and has only ever done the absolute minimum it can get away with, millions of users who click on any rubbish they see in the hope of pictures of female tennis stars having wardrobe malfunctions still fail to believe that taking Windows out on the Internet is like standing bent over in the street in downtown Gomorrah, naked, arse greased up and carrying a flashing neon sign saying "COME AND GET IT."

Microsoft cannot believe people have not applied the patch for the problem, just because they keep trying to use Windows Genuine Advantage to break legally-bought systems."Don't they trust us?" asked marketing marketer Steve Ballmer.

Millions of smug Mac users and the four hundred smug Linux users pointed and laughed, having long given up trying to convince their Windows-using friends to see sense. "There's a reason the Unix system on Mac OS X is called Darwin," said appallingly smug Mac user Arty Phagge.

"It can't be stupid if everyone else runs it," said Windows user Joe Beleaguered, who had lost all his email, business files, MP3s and porn again. "Macs cost more than Windows PCs."

"Yes," said Phagge. "Yes, they do."

Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy frantically tried to get our attention about something or other, but we can't say we care.

BT, Britain's biggest broadband supplier, has thoughtfully averted complete congestion of the Internet by throttling all use of the Internet on its cheapest broadband package, blaming the BBC iPlayer, everyone else on the Internet and magical pixies.

Customers on the I Can't Believe It's Eight Megabits package have all Internet data flow cut off entirely under its "fair use" clause during "peak periods," defined as being between the hours of 12:00 midnight and 11:59pm. "However," said a customer service telephone voice menu, "the connection itself runs at the full eight megabits the entire time. That we guarantee absolutely."

BT has recently sold the technology to China, where it was put into operation today, blocking Twitter, Blogger, Microsoft Bob Hope and the live webcam of the coffee pot at Cambridge University. "We will not put up with the drop in productivity social networking sites cause," said a spokesrivercrab. "After the terrible onslaught of blue screens at the Olympics, we will stop at nothing to protect patriotic citizens from the influence of Microsoft. And they love us for it. Just find one who doesn't!"

"Besides," said the BT phone menu, "we're still better than Virgin. A high bar to aim for, I know. But you get such better fail whales over a phone line than a cable."

"We have buttiduously canvbutted the industry, buttessed what is available and buttembled the finest selection of contractors chosen in a completely open manner for this buttignment. Butterting free speech is one thing, but a triparbreaste committee considers that that does not justify mere pbuttive breastillation at the expense of others. The filters will buttociatively clbuttify all communications and filter then, I can butture you, rebuttemble them with surpbutting exacbreastude in any quanbreasty. Consbreastuents can be rebuttured that a mulbreastude of industry compebreastors will butture quality and keep our clbuttrooms safe. Green Dam will not embarbutt us!"

The Mayan Long Count Calendar turns over in 2012. Mayan date 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the fourteenth cycle, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21st.

The event was first flagged by megalith scientist Terence McKenna. The end of the thirteenth cycle would break many megalith calculations — which conventionally use only the last four numbers to save on standing stones — with fears of spiritual collapse, disruption of ley lines, Ben Goldacre driving the chiropractors back into the sea and the return of the great god Quetzalcoatl and the consequent destruction of all life on earth.

Megalith programmers from 4000 years ago are being dredged up from peat bogs and pressed into service to get the henges updated to handle the turnover in the date. "It could be worse," said one. "I could still be programming COBOL."

It's the newest social networking fad, a place of unparalleled delights and frightening possibilities. It's First Life, a new Massively Multiplayer Offline Reality Playing Game, produced by Jehovah Labs six thousand years ago and only accelerating in popularity.

While First Life is referred to as a game, it does not have points, scores, fixed levels or an end-strategy. The environment is known to players as "The Real World." As of June 2009, over six billion users are in the World at any one time. It is famous for its ultra-realistic play and its amazing high-resolution 3-D graphics, framerate and physics engine.

In First Life, you are assigned a body type. You cannot trade it up or easily change its basic characteristics, though you can outfit it in various ways.

"It's weird," said one player. "You can hardly buy cool replacement penises anywhere. But sex in First Life is amazing. It's really hard to level up to, though, and it cost me a fortune."

Many now suggest that First Life could be a passing fad, with the World being all but abandoned after a few decades. But nearly half of all Americans who belong to the First Life community claim that it is almost as important as the virtual world.

Some worry about the apparently addictive nature of First Life. The huge growth in reality gaming in the last century means a sharp increase in the numbers of people who take their passion for the hobby too far. "I know of people who are spending their week's holiday from EverQuest playing First Life. An addiction to a game like this is far more costly in time than any substance. Keep track of time, make sure your Eve Online characters don't go stale."

In the game, you can buy accessories for your character with an exchange mechanism called "money." People have started working in First Life to earn "money." Part of the addiction problem is "jobs" - in which players have to perform long-winded, mindless tasks, up to forty hours a week or even more, to bring up their levels and gain access to more adventure.

Stories of gamers spending ten to fifteen hours a day in First Life are becoming more frequent. And the impact that is having on their families is quite distressing for some. "He said that if he could spend 24 hours a day in the World, he would," sobbed the avatar of one player's mother. "His Kingdom of Loathing character's died of neglect. An Adventurer isn't Him any more."

The Archbishop of Alphaville condemned First Life's moral integrity. "Whoever designed First Life has watched too much EastEnders and read too much Tom Clancy. It's a psychosexual nightmare given virtual form, where giant flying penises are nowhere to be seen and disturbed people fail to wear even slightly less disgusting forms when having repulsive intercourse."

No, I write for another one!

Though I'm an avid Daily Mash reader and like it a lot. And curse when Daily Mash or NewsBiscuit get a good idea before I do.

This morning, our dear leader Steve Ballmer is unveiling our completely new search service, unrelated to anything we at Microsoft have ever done before: Bob Hope.

We spent lots of time listening to you, except when you told us how much MSN Search^W^W Live Search^W^W Kumo sucked 'cause you're just wrong about that, to learn which buzzwordy Web 2.0 thingies you use search for today. Finding a webpage that has anything to do with the search terms you entered is so passe, dahling.

So today we're introducing a new kind of search, that goes beyond traditional search engines that do tedious things like find stuff, to instead help you make faster, more informed decisions. (Windows 7 is peachy keen, by the way.) We think of Bob Hope as a Decision Engine. We've sued Stephen Wolfram into atomic dust using our patents on FAT and Mono, co-opted the Wolfram Alpha engine and swapped Mathematica for Visual Basic and Wolfram's brain for the exhumed corpse of Bob Hope.

So why did we pick Bob Hope as the new core of our search? We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world.

And just look at these results!

What do we want?
Braaains.
When do we want them?
Braaains.
What do I need to run Windows 7?
Braaains.
What's Bill Gates got that means you should buy everything you can from the company he founded?
Braaains.
What's the final proof of Steve Ballmer's equal genius to Steve Jobs?
Vistaaa.

This is something new, something improved! You need to try it! It'll give so much more betterer results than that other search engine we can't name because Steve will wedge another chair up our butts! Please, come and try our new and improved service! FOR GOD'S SAKE TRY THE DAMN SERVICE. OR THE PUPPY GETS IT. We're Microsoft. We're serious as a heart attack on this one.

Exactly - this is basically the parable of the broken window. Also see: http://notnews.today.com/2009/06/06/downloading-keeping-billions-inside-the-uk/ .

Of course, I'm not surprised that the RIAA twist the truth, but to hear Government advisers falling for the fallacy? Either they are ignorant of basic economics, or they are intentionally being deceitful on economic matters. Either way, it's no wonder the economy is going down the tubes.

Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy said the report brought home the impact illegal downloads had on the UK economy as a whole. "If we take as read the music industry's assumption that every download is a lost sale, then billions of pounds are freed up for ordinary people to spend of things of actual economic substance to keep local businesses healthy, rather than chasing phantom pseudo-value from things that have an inherent cost of production of zero. This makes the whole economy more efficient and lets money go where it is actually useful, rather than to Bono's numbered account in the Virgin Islands."

The government says it will be hard to change attitudes to free downloading, particularly from the entrenched old media parasites. "Studies consistently show that downloaders buy more music. We have to stop this and get them downloading dodgy rips from BitTorrent, rather than official high-quality versions from iTunes."

The report also noted that new, faster broadband services could increase file-sharing, which was already more than half of net traffic in the UK. The ISPs modestly declined credit for their part in helping Britain's financial future, noting that it was their customers, the great British public, who had voted with their browsers to do the hard work of keeping the country afloat.

UK police are asking for a "breathalyser"-style tool for computers that could instantly flag up illegal activity on any PC it is attached to.

Detective Superintendent Charlie McMurdie, who is what passes for a computer expert in the police force, said such a tool could run on suspects' machines, instantly read and analyse their email, web browsing and chat logs, identify credit card fraud or selling stolen goods online, reliably detect and assess images containing children on the five-level child porn scale and create a handy log of relevant evidence. And a pony.

"It's surely just a simple matter of programming," said McMurdie. "We're seizing so many computers from people with a copy of Virgin Killer that frontline police need a digital forensic tool as easy to use as the breathalyser, to magically flash up 'HONEST UPSTANDING CITIZEN' or ''E'S A NONCE, GUV'. Do we need to seize five computers, all their mobile phones, their CD and DVD collection and basically everything that runs on electricity, or could we use a magical police gadget with impressive flashy lights and stuff? I thought computers were supposed to make life easier!"

The eventual development of such a tool could help ease a backlog of digital forensic work that has officers waiting up to a year for evidence to be recovered from seized machines, though threatening to destroy people's livelihoods has proven very efficient in extracting confessions.

EDS Capita Goatse have promised they can "absolutely, definitely, certainly, probably" produce such a tool with only an ironclad GBP100m five year contract, and also reliably determine whether a computer program halts or not. The Internet Watch Foundation also demanded to be involved, and were told their details would be kept on file.

"It was so much simpler in the old days," sighed McMurdie. "People asking you what time it was, burglars with domino masks and striped jumpers and bags marked 'SWAG,' chirpy Cockney sparrow second-hand car dealers wiv a heart of gold ... you just can't get the wood, you know."

GRASS MUD HORSE, Tiananmen, Tuesday (NNN) — BT, Britain's biggest broadband supplier, has thoughtfully averted complete congestion of the Internet by throttling all use of the Internet on its cheapest broadband package.

Customers on the I Can't Believe It's Eight Megabits package have all Internet data flow cut off entirely under its "fair use" clause during "peak periods," defined as being between the hours of 12:00 midnight and 11:59pm. "However," said a customer service telephone voice menu, "the connection itself runs at the full eight megabits. That we guarantee absolutely."

BT has recently sold the technology to China, where it was put into operation toda, blocking Twitter, Blogger, Microsoft Bob Hope and the live webcam of the coffee pot at Cambridge University. "We will not put up with the drop in productivity social networking sites cause," said a spokesrivercrab. "After the terrible onslaught of blue screens at the Olympics, we will stop at nothing to protect patriotic citizens from the influence of Microsoft. And they love us for it. Just find one who doesn't!"

"Besides," said the BT phone menu, "we're still better than Virgin. A high bar to aim for, I know. You get so much better fail whales over a phone line than a cable."

Controversy has erupted over incandescent light bulbs being phased out to be replaced with horrible expensive yellow things that look like robot marital aids.

The switch to compact fluorescent lamps is expected to save households two-thirds of their monthly income, singlehandedly save the world from climate change and bring about world peace, harmony and a top 10 chart not filled with rubbish.

However, many people find the low-energy bulbs ugly, slow to warm up and much more expensive, and the harsher light they give off akin to that of a police cell or McDonald's. Their rapid flicker contains coded messages designed to hypnotise independent-minded citizens and turn them into gibberish-spouting socialist cultists. The bulbs are made entirely of mercury, polonium and ebola. Scientists have proven that Hitler used low-energy bulbs for illumination when writing Mein Kampf, and paedophiles prefer internet images of dear innocent children taken under their unforgiving glare.

The Daily Mail has come out strongly against the compact fluorescents. "British cowed by tin pot marxists maddest flights from reality political class bizarre gesture Bliar take away liberty march on Westminster revolt against Europe IF YOU LIKE IT SO MUCH WHY DON'T YOU LIVE THERE." To this end, the paper is giving away five thousand incandescent bulbs free!!! when you spend a pound calling an 0900 number.

"We can't be having this com-pack fluoro Euro rubbish," said Brenda Busybody, 77 (IQ) of East Cheam. "They just don't have the same warm glow to them. It's so cold this week! We need more gas lamps and burning torches, they go well with the pitchforks."

This morning, our dear leader Steve Ballmer is unveiling our completely new search service, unrelated to anything we at Microsoft have ever done before: Bob Hope.

We spent lots of time listening to you, except when you told us how much MSN Search^W^W Live Search^W^W Kumo sucked ’cause you're just wrong about that, to learn which buzzwordy Web 2.0 thingies you use search for today. Finding a webpage that has anything to do with the search terms you entered is so passé, dahling.

So today we're introducing a new kind of search, that goes beyond traditional search engines that do tedious things like find stuff, to instead help you make faster, more informed decisions. (Windows 7 is peachy keen, by the way.) We think of Bob Hope as a Decision Engine. We've sued Stephen Wolfram into atomic dust using our patents on FAT and Mono, co-opted the Wolfram Alpha engine and swapped Mathematica for Visual Basic and Wolfram's brain for the exhumed corpse of Bob Hope.

So why did we pick Bob Hope as the new core of our search? We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. It needed to be like the product: optimized for the Internet. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world.

And just look at these results!

What do we want?
Braaains.
When do we want them?
Braaains.
What do I need to run Windows 7?
Braaains.
What's Bill Gates got that means you should buy everything you can from the company he founded?
Braaains.
What's the final proof of Steve Ballmer's equal genius to Steve Jobs?
Vistaaa.

This is something new, something improved! You need to try it! It'll give so much more betterer results than that other search engine we can't name because Steve will wedge another chair up our butts! Please, come and try our new and improved service! FOR GOD'S SAKE TRY THE DAMN SERVICE. OR THE PUPPY GETS IT. We're Microsoft. We're serious as a heart attack on this one.

After a minor shipping delay, flying cars have arrived for all. As of today, all major cities also feature moving pavements and weather control and commuter flights to the Moon will be commencing tomorrow.

Earth President Barack Obama welcomed the representatives of the Galactic Brotherhood to Washington, assuring them that the many wars on Earth were now to be conducted entirely by robots, though the robots would be carefully monitored and pulled out of battle and granted citizenship the moment they achieved sentience. He also offered the galactics free access to Google, with only the requirement for tasteful contextually-attuned text advertising to be imprinted on their DNA.

The reactionary forces of the twentieth-century United States finally conceded defeat and shut down the Five-Year Plan Tractor Plants of Detroit, where ridiculous oversized transport was bashed together by semi-literate peasants between fifths of vodka from the nerve gas factory next door, and the Five-Year Plan Software Plants of Redmond, where ridiculous oversized operating systems were bashed together by semi-numerate fresh graduates between fifths of Red Bull. The record and movie company back catalogues have been placed into the public domain for the preservation of human culture and the comic-book capitalists of Wall Street have been sent to calming, soothing, humanistic re-education facilities. "We'll teach them to love again," said Mr Obama.

Robot housecleaners are now universally available at quite reasonable prices. The robot companion for your child, designed to say "I LOVE YOU" while the child hits it repeatedly, was an early release for Christmas 2007. The new model features the voice of Justin Fletcher from CBeebies and is designed for parents to hit repeatedly.

Future innovations for the century include the rise of the Great Old Ones from their eternal sleep to take back the Earth and consume the souls of all humanity, first driving them slowly insane. The citizenry is being prepared for this eventuality using repeated broadcasts of In The Night Garden.

Windows 7 wants to be KDE 4 when it grows up. Bob, on the other hand, evolved into GNOME.

Windows 7 betas have been greeted with remarkable positive press. "Of course," says Ballmer, "the betas preview the 'champagne and hookers' edition, which would be way too much for netbooks and explode users' brains. Imagine thinking those little things are computers! So we're releasing what we call Windows 7 Dumbass Edition(tm). It lets you log in and look at the shiny. Even Spider Solitaire has the ribbon toolbar! And you can buy an upgrade to the version that runs programs! It lets you do that!"

Dumbass Edition(tm) comes with pre-installed viruses to make the computer part of the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Rupert Murdoch, speaking out on the news business, stated today that "the Internet free access model is clearly malfunctioning, as I don't make enough money from it. We have to educate people that free doesn't work, particularly for us."

Media commentators fear for the future of investigative journalism. "How can we hold governments' feet to the fire without money to pay our great reporters? Where would you get your recycled wire feeds, your Garfield cartoons?" Publishers hold that it is natural for readers to pay what advertisers once did, just as cows have to make up the difference out of their own pockets when the price of milk falls.

Newspapers have suffered badly since the collapse of their previous business model of selling readers to advertisers on a local monopoly basis. The replacement models appear to involve phlogiston, caloric and luminiferous aether.

Publishers have also explored the notion of getting Google to pay its "fair share" for so parasitically leading people to newspapers' websites. The Wikimedia Foundation promptly started billing journalists for their reprints from Wikipedia. "We feel this is completely unfair," said Tom Curley of the Associated Press, "as real news stories spring forth from the heads of accredited reporters in an immaculate creation from nothingness. My preciousss." Maurice Jarre was unavailable for comment.

A computer worm that spreads through low security networks, memory sticks, and PCs without the latest security updates is posing a growing threat to users blitheringly stupid enough to still think Windows is not ridiculously and unfixably insecure by design.

Despite many years' warnings that Microsoft regards security as a marketing problem and has only ever done the absolute minimum it can get away with, millions of users who click on any rubbish they see in the hope of pictures of female tennis stars having wardrobe malfunctions still fail to believe that taking Windows out on the Internet is like standing bent over in the street in downtown Gomorrah, naked, arse greased up and carrying a flashing neon sign saying "COME AND GET IT."

Microsoft cannot believe people have not applied the patch for the problem, just because they keep trying to use Windows Genuine Advantage to break legally-bought systems. "Don't they trust us?" asked marketing marketer Steve Ballmer.

Millions of smug Mac users and the four hundred smug Linux users pointed and laughed, having long given up trying to convince their Windows-using friends to see sense. "There's a reason the Unix system on Mac OS X is called Darwin," said appallingly smug Mac user Arty Phagge.

"It can't be stupid if everyone else runs it," said Windows user Joe Beleaguered, who had lost all his email, business files, MP3s and porn again. "Macs cost more than Windows PCs."

"Yes," said Phagge. "Yes, they do."

Ubuntu Linux developer Hiram Nerdboy frantically tried to get our attention about something or other, but we can't say we care.

Annual reports from Whitehall departments show that the government has lost all data it ever held on anyone.

Losses have occurred through couriered unencrypted disks, misplaced memory sticks, lost laptops, briefcases left on trains and files falling down the side of the tea machine. "The real scandal is that a train was running for them to lose a case on," said a source whose name has been lost.

Treasury minister Jane Kennedy said the HM Revenue and Customs breaches did not necessarily result in data losses, or at least any that they have records of. HMRC said it takes data losses and security breaches "very seriously" and thoroughly investigates any breach that it does not lose track of.

Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has served enforcement notices on various departments for their data losses, but the departments in question could not find their office addresses to accept the notices. They noted, however, that Mr Thomas' call was very important to them, and that he had been placed in a queue.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith reassured citizens that plans for an all-encompassing ID card linked to biometric passports and a universal medical record with the NHS would not change because of these losses. "We won't even be thinking about them."

US Air Force General Kevin Chilton, head of US Strategic Command, has said that attacks on the United States via the Internet could merit a conventional military response.

"I don't think you take anything off the table. We're particularly looking toward one group in Seattle."

The Seattle-based insurgent group is thought to have seeded American government and military computers with millions of copies of malware that allows attackers easy access to any data stored on the computer, or indeed to take complete control of the computer and use it for their own ends as part of a massive "botnet" to mount further attacks. The malware, "Windows," makes securing a computer running it almost impossible.

"Turning Seattle into a glass crater would only be undertaken strictly as the minimum required surgical military action," emphasised Chilton, "and not in any way out of twenty-five years' bitter resentment and frustration at computing machinery."

Chilton stressed that members of the US military must begin to think of their computers as the front lines. "Do you realize that in addition to adding Windows to computers, why, there are studies underway to Windowsize salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk ... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream! I can no longer sit back and allow Windows infiltration, Windows indoctrination, Windows subversion and the international enterprise licensing conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids!"

The Obama administration is currently reviewing the United States' cyberspace defense policy. "We're considering all options thoroughly," said the President, closing his MacBook and looking lingeringly at the red button on his desk.

I'm sure the Army can retaliate appropriately.

"Turning Seattle into a glass crater would only be undertaken strictly as the minimum required surgical military action," emphasised Chilton, "and not in any way out of twenty-five years' bitter resentment and frustration at computing machinery."

No CHEESE-EATING SURRENDER OS for OUR boys! They know the MILITARY MIGHT of VISTA is what the world needs! FREEDOM ISN'T FREE and VISTA IS FREEDOOM!

Join SAVE VISTA on Facebook! (Original blog post.) We want ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE to tell Microsoft to abandon their Windows 7 foolishness and go back to Vista! We have 89 so far. Only 99,911 to go!

Like Chrysler, like Hummer, like Edsel - "Vista" is a name that will be remembered as the greatest operating system in Microsoft's history.

Just Say "No" To Seven -

SAVE VISTA!

The long-awaited sequel Ghostbusters III is in preproduction, said the dribbling ass of Dan Aykroyd's career.

"All the original cast have signed back up," said Aykroyd. "Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Annie Potts, Ernie Hudson and of course Bill Murray. ... When I say signed up, I don't mean on paper, in any committed sense. But, you know. They've 'signed up,'" he said, making air quotes.

"Bill was a little reluctant. Something about 'rather drink crossed streams of my own piss.' But a few dumptrucks full of cash backed up to his house should see him fully committed. Hopefully."

Murray, who owns a controlling interest in the franchise, has thrown out Aykroyd's original script, insisting one by Charlie Kaufman be used instead, in which failed parapsychologists in their sixties chasing emotion-absorbing slime controlled by the Sumerian god of destruction through the existential caverns of their own minds as they attempt to reconstruct their lives and careers. And fail.

"This is the best and most original idea in Hollywood this year," said Aykroyd. "It'll leave Blues Brothers 2000 in the dust."

The great thing is that the Metro is taking out the Sun. If you're pushing complete fluff , free is the right price point.

Media commentators fear for the future of investigative journalism. "How can we hold governments' feet to the fire without money to pay our great reporters? Where would you get your recycled wire feeds, your Garfield cartoons?"

Newspapers have suffered badly since the collapse of their previous business model of selling readers to advertisers on a local monopoly basis. The replacement models appear to involve phlogiston, caloric and luminiferous aether.

Publishers hold that it is natural for readers to pay what advertisers once did, just as cows have to make up the difference out of their own pockets when the price of milk falls.

"We have to educate people that free doesn't work, particularly for us," said Vanessa Thorpe of the Guardian Media Group. "I tried an advertorial repeating several times that nothing will be free any more, to magic it into happening. I also subtly implied the Pirate Bay were Nazis -- HITLER! HITLER! HITLER! -- so we'll see if we can make that one fly too."

Publishers have also explored the notion of getting Google to pay its "fair share" for so parasitically leading people to newspapers' websites. The Wikimedia Foundation promptly started billing journalists for their reprints from Wikipedia. "We feel this is completely unfair," said Tom Curley of the Associated Press, "as real news stories spring forth from the heads of accredited reporters in an immaculate creation from nothingness. My preciousss ." Maurice Jarre was unavailable for comment.

Media commentators fear for the future of investigative journalism. "How can we hold governments' feet to the fire without money to pay our great reporters? Where would you get your recycled wire feeds, your Garfield cartoons?"

Newspapers have suffered badly since the collapse of their previous business model of selling readers to advertisers on a local monopoly basis. The replacement models appear to involve phlogiston, caloric and luminiferous aether.

Publishers hold that it is natural for readers to pay what advertisers once did, just as cows have to make up the difference out of their own pockets when the price of milk falls.

"We have to educate people that free doesn't work, particularly for us," said Vanessa Thorpe of the Guardian Media Group. "I tried an advertorial repeating several times that nothing will be free any more, to magic it into happening. I also subtly implied the Pirate Bay were Nazis -- HITLER! HITLER! HITLER! -- so we'll see if we can make that one fly too."

Publishers have also explored the notion of getting Google to pay its "fair share" for so parasitically leading people to newspapers' websites. The Wikimedia Foundation promptly started billing journalists for their reprints from Wikipedia. "We feel this is completely unfair," said Tom Curley of the Associated Press, "as real news stories spring forth from the heads of accredited reporters in an immaculate creation from nothingness. My preciousss ." Maurice Jarre was unavailable for comment.

Remember BT's catchphrase: "At least we're better than Virgin."