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Original blog post - Facebook group

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!

We want ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE to join the Facebook group. So far we have about 80. TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS!

"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

Some might say that Mathematica, the source of my fortune, and A New Kind Of Science: A Brief History Of My Stupendous Intellect were ambitious projects. But in recent years I've been hard at work on a still more ambitious project: Wolfram Alpha.

Fifty years ago, people assumed that computers would quickly be able to handle all kinds of question. It didn't work out that way. But a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to do it myself. As I'd always expected I#d have to, of course.

I had the crucial ingredients: Mathematica and A New Kind Of Science. And my truly massive intellect. With these, I had a language to compute anything and a paradigm for complexity from simple rules. And my spectacular brain, which is much more spectacular than anyone else's, as proven by me being rich as well as smart. Which is smarter: to be a professor, or to be the professor all the other professors pay tribute to? I think my net worth makes the answer clear.

But what about all the actual knowledge that we as humans have accumulated? I realized we needed to make all data computable as knowledge. Of course, natural language is incredibly difficult for computers. So we added the secret ingredient: my jaw-droppingly spectacular brain, undoubtedly the largest on Earth.

I'm happy to say that with a mixture of clever algorithms and heuristics, linguistic discovery and curation, and some casual Nobel-worthy theoretical breakthroughs in my spare moments, we've made it work. It's going to be a website with one simple input field that gives direct access to my superlative brain, in its planet-sized glory.

Our pre-launch testers have been at work as well, and I'm dealing with all manner of queries in spare thought cycles while I jetset around the world, wowing the pitiful minds of gorgeous international supermodels before impregnating them with my superior genetic material. Let's just have a look at the query stream:
"tits" "goatse" "mary whitehouse naked" "4chan" "tubgirl" "2girls1cup" "ITS OVER 9000 LOL" "desu desu desu desu"
ERROR ERROR ERROR
&&#(â^^(856â^*#**â#&*##&##
NO CARRIER_

It can sense the motion of the XBox through your window when you get another red ring. Sorry, E74.

That said, twenty XBox lifts every morning will do waaay more for muscle-building than Wii Fit. Thus proving Microsoft's inherent superiority!

Buddy, can you spare a dime?

"Open the pod bay doors, Stephen!"
"I'm sorry, Dave, you're not nearly as smart as me."

Guest post by Stephen Wolfram

Some might say that Mathematica, the source of my fortune, and A New Kind Of Science: A Brief History Of My Stupendous Intellect were ambitious projects. But in recent years I've been hard at work on a still more ambitious project: Wolfram Alpha.

Fifty years ago, people assumed that computers would quickly be able to handle all kinds of question. It didn't work out that way. But a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to do it myself. As I'd always expected I'd have to, of course.

I had the crucial ingredients: Mathematica and A New Kind Of Science. And my truly massive intellect. With these, I had a language to compute anything and a paradigm for complexity from simple rules. And my spectacular brain, which is much more spectacular than anyone else's, as proven by me being rich as well as smart. Which is smarter: to be a professor, or to be the professor all the other professors pay tribute to? I think my net worth makes the answer clear.

But what about all the actual knowledge that we as humans have accumulated? I realized we needed to make all data computable as knowledge. Of course, natural language is incredibly difficult for computers. So we added the secret ingredient: my jaw-droppingly spectacular brain, undoubtedly the largest on Earth.

I'm happy to say that with a mixture of clever algorithms and heuristics, linguistic discovery and curation, and some casual Nobel-worthy theoretical breakthroughs in my spare moments, we've made it work. It's going to be a website with one simple input field that gives direct access to my superlative brain, in its planet-sized glory.

Our pre-launch testers have been at work as well, and I'm dealing with all manner of queries in spare thought cycles while I jetset around the world, wowing the pitiful minds of gorgeous international supermodels before impregnating them with my superior genetic material. Let's just have a look at the query stream:
"tits" "goatse" "mary whitehouse naked" "4chan" "tubgirl" "2girls1cup" "ITS OVER 9000 LOL" "desu desu desu desu"
ERROR ERROR ERROR
#(â^^(856â^*#**â#&*##&##^^^
NO CARRIER_

Hey, how about that economic collapse?

"A majority of US soldiers in Afghanistan stated the place was 'just fine, really' and they were learning to speak Pashto rather than returning. Canada looked south and snickered, though not very much as they still had Stephen Harper to cope with. The Kingdom of Mexico stated its 'regret' today that it has had to close its borders to American refugees."

(I'm in Eng-er-lund. We're way more fucked. And we have Gordon Brown.)

I can see the testimonials now:

"We are so, so happy with Google Chrome. That most of our income is from Google has no bearing on me making this statement." - John Lilly, Mozilla (through gritted teeth).

"Browsers don't need to be integrated with online apps. Certainly not like the operating system ... I'll just get back to you." - Ian Moulster, Microsoft IE Team.

"We're Google. We know where you live. In a completely not evil way. Sponsored link: Get Chrome Browsers on google.com. Or we'll make you use Windows Live." - Larry Page.

[wavy lines, as we look into the crystal ball ...]

North Korea has threatened to carry out nuclear missile tests unless the UN Security Council apologises for its "unseemly snickering" at their recent rocket launch falling into the sea.

"The communications satellite was successfully launched and is fulfilling its mission, sending transmissions from Pacific Ocean life in deep space," a Pyongyang communique said today. "If the UN does not take back its grievous slanders, we will be forced to retaliate with the full force of our mighty nuclear arsenal. Our dad will beat up your dad too."

North Korea conducted its first and only nuclear test in 2006, described as "completely successful" and "revealing new dimensions in gunpowder science."

North Korea's foreign ministry also said "the UN should apologise for infringing our sovereignty, retract all its resolutions and decisions against us and stop being big meanies. It's so unfair!"

It also announced plans to build a light-water nuclear reactor, a domestic robot, a flying car and a "really cool thing we haven't finished drawing yet, but expect to have ready soon as our great nation continues to make tremendous advances in crayon science."

Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il announced a glorious 30% increase in industrial output and a 35% increase in food production as the cardboard ran out and the factories started shaping raw contaminated mud into loaves. South Korea sighed at the news and looked forward to a peace dividend similar to that reaped by Germany in 1990 when the North finally collapses and they have to clean up the mess.

The question is whether lying to advertisers or lying to subscribers is the right business model.

The WSJ has a unique value proposition: original financial reporting you can't get anywhere else. Recycled AP feeds, reprinted press releases, corporate propaganda presented as op-ed, funny dog stories and Garfield cartoons do not.

Newspapers will be holding back content from their papers' free websites, instead charging for some digital news and information. "We are fully confident that both readers and Google will come to the party and give us money," said News Corporation president Steven Swartz, "and not just laugh and ignore us henceforth."

Newspapers plan to fight back against the avaricious parasitism of Google in just telling people where to find content the newspapers had put up on the Web for free with a new e-book reader, a variant on the Amazon Kindle. "For only $300, readers can read DRM-locked down versions of our content that they're paying a subscription for on top. We can't see how this could possibly fail to work."

Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has been notably successful in selling valuable original financial reporting that cannot be obtained anywhere else. "So there's no reason people won't pay for recycled Associated Press feeds, the latest on Britney and Paris, corporate-backed op-eds, funny cat stories and pretence at holding the government's feet to the fire. And Garfield. What a funny fellow that animal is!"

He also advocates new advertising and revenue models. "The technical press on the Web shows the way forward: blatant and obvious gutter-slut crack-whoredom. Subtlety doesn't pay the bills any more -- we must enthusiastically welcome the corporate cock into our throats and rectums. Also, I'd like to mention that everyone should use the Windows 7 beta. HLAGH HLAGH HLAGH." he added, wiping off his chin.

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

We want ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE to join this group. So far we have nearly 30. TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS!

"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.

[probably to post tomorrow]

Gigabytes and gigabytes of pornography and highly sensitive login details for gentleman's art sites were bought by a US military missile air defence base second-hand on eBay.

The artistic pamphlets were found on a hard disk for the SPLORT (Super-Powered Less Obviously Retronymed Thing) ground to air missile defence system, used to shoot down Scum missiles in Iraq.

Dr Andy Jones, a researcher at the base, said "This is the fourth time we have carried out this research and it is clear that records left on hard disks are the twenty-first century equivalent of random pornographic magazines found in bushes and parks by masturbation-crazed eleven year old boys. PHWOAR, LOOK AT THE TITS ON THAT ONE! I'm sorry, I'm just reviewing a birdwatching site. Fabulous display of Cyanistes caeruleus.

"Of significant concern is the number of large organisations that are still not disposing of confidential information in a secure manner. Thank fuck."

The disk also contained login details, credit card numbers and 18 USC 2257 information on ... "prospective military contractors," said Dr Jones. "Really. Prospective contractors. We're getting in touch right away."

Final version up now. More hopelessly obscure geek jokes!

This could be the most obscure string of geek jokes ever written. It makes GNUphone seem comprehensible to outsiders.

[To be posted tomorrow, probably]

The Debian project has dropped the use of the GNU project's glibc C library, substituting the eglibc fork, as glibc maintainer Ulrich Drepper refused patches or bug reports for several architectures Debian relied on.

"Any change will negatively impact well designed architectures for the sole benefit of this embedded crap," said Drepper. "Famously good architectures like x86. Can you believe, these people wanted their C library to work in systems with shells other than bash! These people must think they're signing my pay check."

Drepper has, in retaliation, announced his own fork of Debian. It will be created in cooperation with Joerg Schilling and Tuomo Valkonen and be based on OpenSolaris with Ion running on XFree86 as the standard window manager. "Keith Packard ruined X," said Valkonen. The standard file system will be ext4, given its proven ability to cause data loss in user software the maintainers consider ill-written.

The project will be licensed under both the intersection and union of the GPL, LGPL, CDDL, MIT and the thing TuomoV wrote for Ion. This is not anticipated to be a problem in practice with real-life users, at least not until one exists.

"YOU!" said David Dawes of XFree86. "YOU'VE BEEN TALKING TO THEM, HAVEN'T YOU! YOU'RE CONSPIRING WITH THEM! THOSE GUYS! THEY STOLE IT ALL! THEY PUT A RADIO IN MY HEAD! LINUX/BSD WEENIES! I'LL SHOW 'EM! HELL YES!" "That means he's onside with us," said Valkonen. "Dave's been a bit terse since he finally lost it trying to fix his own broken modeline."

Virgin ("We've Never Done It Before, And We Don't Really Know How To" Media), operators of Britain's only cable television network, has launched a new 200-megabit Internet service.

"That's 200 megabits total over the day, usually," said Virgin Media phone menu robot Mark Schweitzer, "but it's very fast when it's going. Plain old ADSL can't hold a candle to it. You can hit your download limit in minutes!"

Customers will be able to add the boost free for three months, after which they will need to pay an additional GBP5 per month. The three months will start when Virgin ascertain the customer might possibly have thought about it in passing, probably last June. Should you be in any way less than satisfied, Virgin will be happy to leave you in a phone queue for three days, then disconnect your service entirely and charge you to switch it on again rather than just go back to the old plan like you asked them. And cut the cable outside your house and claim you did it. And pass your address to the record companies so they can send you threatening letters.

Virgin Media will be releasing the new broadband service before Christmas. "We've heard that you can use things called 'computers' to send messages and even pictures. That'd be a good service to offer! We have this bloke in facilities who knows a bit about computers, we could get him to run it between refilling the coffee machines. If we tried, we could probably make it as reliable as our telly. Nobody really minds when the football drops out ten minutes before the end, do they."

Virgin Media was founded as an experiment by ethically challenged psychologists to ascertain just how abusively awful customer service could get and still have anyone giving them money. The company is sponsored by British Telecom to make them look good by comparison.

In a stunning public relations coup, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MNPLY) has successfully overshadowed Ubuntu Linux 9.04 "Juicy Jubblies" by announcing that it is laying even more people off.

Microsoft announced new and expanded roles for remaining key executives as another several lesser, losing quitters deserted upper management. "It shows the fantastic opportunity available to everyone at Microsoft to climb seven or eight reporting levels up the org chart," said marketing marketer Steve Ballmer to pitchfork-wielding Wall Street analysts today. "If we haven't laid them off for making too much money or not kissing enough ass."

The Yahoo! deal is expected to go ahead. "We figure they'll go broke before we do. Probably." Mr Ballmer also plans to run the Yahoo! servers on Windows NT rather than FreeBSD after a similar change worked so well at Hotmail. "Some say synergy's another word for two plus two equals one, but you just have to make the value of one work for you."

Windows 7 betas have been greeted with remarkable positive press. "Of course, 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."

However, Microsoft has indicated to its press corps, Microsoft Completely Enderlependent Analysts, to ixnay on the evensay and highlight the job openings for work on Windows 8, firmly penciled in for a 2012 release. Windows 8 will be optimised for low-end 32-core systems with a mere 16 gigabytes of memory -- 28 cores for the interface, 3 cores for the DRM and one core for everything else. "'Seven' is just so this year. I hear they'll get $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM done next release for sure!" said ZDNet marketing marketer Mary-Jo Enderle. "It'll be awesome(tm)!"

"I'm sure it'll be fine, fine," said Bill Gates, upping his hours at his charitable foundation and scheduling the sale of several more packages of Microsoft stock.

Larry Ellison of Oracle, who recently purchased Sun Microsystems, merely snickered, muttered "Java. OpenOffice." and let out a long and resounding laugh.

Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical, speaking from his castle on a crag high on a mountaintop in west London, was sanguine at Ubuntu's news being overshadowed. "I lost ten million dollars on Ubuntu last year. I'm losing ten million dollars on Ubuntu this year. I expect to lose ten million dollars on Ubuntu next year. At this rate, I'll be broke in ... sixty years."

(due up tomorrow)

Some might say that Mathematica, the source of my fortune, and A New Kind Of Science: A Brief History Of My Stupendous Intellect were ambitious projects. But in recent years I've been hard at work on a still more ambitious project: Wolfram Alpha.

Fifty years ago, people assumed that computers would quickly be able to handle all kinds of question. It didnâ(TM)t work out that way. But a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to do it myself. As I'd always expected I'd have to, of course.

I had the crucial ingredients: Mathematica and A New Kind Of Science. And my truly massive intellect. With these, I had a language to compute anything and a paradigm for complexity from simple rules. And my spectacular brain, which is much more spectacular than anyone else's, as proven by me being rich as well as smart. Which is smarter: to be a professor, or to have all the professors pay you tribute? I think my net worth makes the answer clear.

But what about all the actual knowledge that we as humans have accumulated? I realized we needed to make all data computable as knowledge. Of course, natural language is incredibly difficult for computers. So we added the secret ingredient: my jaw-droppingly spectacular brain, undoubtedly the largest on Earth.

I'm happy to say that with a mixture of clever algorithms and heuristics, linguistic discovery and curation, and some casual Nobel-worthy theoretical breakthroughs in my spare moments, we've made it work. Itâ(TM)s going to be a website with one simple input field that gives direct access to my superlative brain, in its planet-sized glory.

Our pre-launch testers have been at work as well, and I'm dealing with all manner of queries in spare thought cycles while I jetset around the world, wowing the pitiful minds of gorgeous international supermodels before impregnating them with my superior genetic material. Let's just have a look at the query stream: "tits" "goatse" "mary whitehouse naked" "4chan" "tubgirl" "2girls1cup" "ITS OVER 9000 LOL" "desu desu desu desu"
ERROR ERROR ERROR ####(^^(856*##&##
NO CARRIER

Could everyone please sign up to the Save Vista campaign. Like Hummer like Chrysler, like Edsel, Vista shows the might of full-sized American industrial production. Itâ(TM)s a monument to everything that makes us great. We can't let it be trashed for misguided corporate attempts to suck up to latte sippers.

Say No To Seven! VISTA VISTA VISTA! All the way!

(You inspirational bastard. Credit on post.)

With the release of Windows 7 set for October 23rd, Microsoft marketing marketer Richard Francis says computer manufacturers may not be able to ship Vista once Windows 7 is available.

Outrage at the news was rapid. Microsoft quickly backtracked, claiming it would remain available until at least 2011 ("we kept 98 support up for 18 months when XP was out"), but customers were not mollified by promises that Windows 7 buyers would be allowed to downgrade ("we call it an upgrade”) to Vista.

A "Save Vista" campaign has been organised by InfoWorld. "We detected a deep anxiety over Vista among technologists and consumers alike," said editor Galen Gruman. "We decided to do something about it, launching a petition drive to ask Microsoft to keep selling Vista after the planned October 23 end-of-sales date." The petition has already gathered over ten signatures (most recent signatories: L. Torvalds, S. Jobs, M. Shuttleworth).

"Just how long was extended support for Microsoft's greatest success ever, Windows ME? Microsoft talks about Windows 98 as being succeeded by XP — just as if ME never existed! ME's many, many fans will be outraged at such an omission, and we're afraid they'll treat Vista, Microsoft's second-greatest success ever, the same way.

"And how about extended support for Microsoft's third-greatest success ever, Microsoft Bob? By the wife of the founder, no less! I think we should be told."

I'm appalled Computerworld doesn't mention Microsoft's greatest success ever, Windows ME. Just how long was the extended support for that operating system? They talk about Windows 98 as being succeeded by XP - just as if ME never existed! ME's many, many fans will be outraged at such an omission, and suspect they would treat Vista, Microsoft's second-greatest success ever, the same way.

And how about extended support for Microsoft's third-greatest success ever, Microsoft Bob? I think we should be told.

Hearst newspapers will be holding back content from their papers' free websites, instead charging for some digital news and information. "We are fully confident that both readers and Google will come to the party and give us money," said Hearst president Steven Swartz, "and not just laugh and ignore us henceforth."

Newspapers plan to fight back against the avaricious parasitism of Google in telling people where to find content the newspapers had put up on the Web for free with a new e-book reader, a variant on the Amazon Kindle. "For only $300, readers can read DRM-locked down versions of our content that they're paying a subscription for on top. We can't see how this could possibly fail to work."

Murdoch's Wall Street Journal has been notably successful in selling valuable original financial reporting that cannot be obtained anywhere else. "So there's no reason people won't pay for recycled Associated Press feeds, corporate-backed op-eds, funny cat stories and pretence at holding the government's feet to the fire."

Hearst also advocates new advertising and revenue models. "The technical press on the Web shows the way forward: blatant and obvious gutter-slut crack-whoredom. Subtlety doesn't pay the bills any more — we must enthusiastically welcome the corporate cock into our throats. Also, I'd like to mention that everyone should use the Windows 7 beta. HLAGH HLAGH HLAGH," added Mr Swartz, wiping off his chin.

A terrorist attack on the NHS has brought three London hospitals to a halt.

The terrorists, representing an organisation calling itself "Microsoft," apparently used insecure third-party contractors to put a virus-running platform called "Windows" into critical systems in the hospitals, in order to extort money from them on an annual basis.

It is understood that a large percentage of all businesses are infected with the virus, wasting up to 25% of employees' working time and opening the companies to further attacks from related criminal organisations demanding to see all their licenses.

The virus in question, W32.SHILL/SCHOFIELD, takes over the host's IT systems, leading to aches, pains, nausea, vomiting, pumping out prodigious quantities of faeces and a terrible compulsion to spread the infection to others. The patient also walks with a shuddering stumble and asks for their hospital meal to include tasty, tasty brains. Recovery has commenced when they have an overwhelming urge to throw their computer out of the window. "Getting this stuff out of the system makes MRSA look like a walk in the park," said one cleaner, waving his shit-encrusted hands about for emphasis.

When the infection became known, ambulances were diverted to other hospitals. "We have maintained a safe environment for our patients throughout the incident," said a spokesman for Barts NHS Trust, "keeping them in the Clostridium difficile culturing lab rather than risking exposing them to 'Windows.'"

(really - look at StopPhoulPlay.com. It's really special.)

Beleaguered Internet advertising phirm Phorm is hitting back at critics with StopPhoulPlay.com, in an attempt to lure Internet activists into herniating from laughter.

"It is clear that the campaign against Phorm originates in the sinister manipulations of Alex Hanff and Marcus Williamson," said Kent Ertegun, CEO of Phorm, "who have used mind control lasers and the killer robot armies of the Open Rights Group and FIPR to deceive millions of Britons into a Communistic fervor of hatred against the engines of the free market and customer demand, the salesmen and marketers, the true creators and enablers of objective value."

The website, designed in Microsoft Word, uses the public relations format so successfully put into play by the ReligiousFreedomWatch.org site of the Church of Scientology, a community institution of flawless repute. StopPhoulPlay.org reveals how:

* At the age of five, Hanff REFUSED to share his crayons with the little girl next to him, saying she was "poopy" and would only draw a picture to be used against him.
* At age twelve, Williamson accepted MONEY from his mother to buy sweets, but not to tell schoolmates in case they wanted some.
* Hanff and Williamson may have attempted to access POTENTIALLY ILLEGAL images blocked by the Internet Watch Foundation.
* Hanff and Williamson have used WIKIPEDIA at least once in their lives.
* Hanff and Williamson INVADED POLAND in 1939.

"Given the persistence with which they propagate incorrect information, we cannot rule out the possibility that a competitor is involved," he said. "The competitor goes under the name 'reality.' Needless to say, we have no tolerance for an entity of such limited possibilities.

"These people are privacy pirates -- people who steal privacy online, off the coast of Somalia. With Internet guns! And drugs! And child pornography!"

Mr Hanff and Mr Williamson said they were unsure whether to sue Phorm into atomic dust for gross defamation or to just let them continue with their infallible public relations work. Phorm shares have dropped from 405p to being declared a serious infection risk by the World Health Organization.

It has the additional functionality of a fetching red ring and many E74 errors.

OVER 60 MILLION GOT SERVED, Mexico, Friday (NNN) — A new strain of swine flu, H1N1, has killed up to 60 people in Mexico.

The virus is a mixture of swine, bird, human and computer viruses. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, lack of appetite, popup ads, coughing, sore throat, a slow connection and an urge to throw one's computer out of a high window. The disease is thought to have started as a Windows virus on 4chan, a CIA entrapment message board for online activists, and can spread using the current Windows 7 beta.

Center for Disease Control officials looked at their huge stockpiles of H5N1 bird flu vaccine and said, "... shit."

Citizens have panicked at the prospect of bacon being put into quarantine and substituted with some soy-based shit. "Damn that Conficker!" shouted R. MacDonald of San Bernardino, California. "Damn it all to Hell!"

"This comment from me looks photoshopped," said Bruce Schneier, an American computer security expert safely employed over in the UK. "I can tell by the pixels and having seen a lot of shops in my time. I suspect this is the work of a viral botnet spider agent replicating Trojan comments across news services until their functionality is completely destroyed. WHATEVER YOU, DO DON'T LOAD OR READ MY COMMENT. p.s.: I love you."

Insufferably smug Macintosh user Arty Phagge was sanguine. "We know how to use condoms. And I'm a vegetarian." The Free Software Foundation announced the launch of OpenSwine, a disease generation and detection kit available for all to use and develop in perpetuity.

Britain will be protected from the swine flu virus by comprehensive filtering of the British internet, shutting it down entirely as needed. "Would you want your husbands, your servants, accessing the Internet?" asked Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. "I put it to you that you would not."

With the conviction of The Pirate Bay administrators having immediately abolished all filesharing, the EU has approved an extension of sound copyright to seventy years past the point of theoretical death, and death to seventy years past actual death.

The media industry sponsored move is intended to properly suppress the very notion of the production of unapproved works of art. The major record companies' value proposition has changed from being the only people you can get music from to being the only people who will stop you getting music. "We own all the back catalogs we've been buying up," said Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfmann, the luckiest sperm in the whole USA, "and YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM! And we'll sue your grandmother's ass if you try going around us!"

Without an extension of copyright, the dead might never record again. "If I'd known in 1958, when the copyright in 'Move It' was due to expire in 2008, that the copyright in 'Move It' would in fact expire in 2008, would I have bothered? I don't bloody think so!" said Sir Cliff Richard (died 1961). "I can rest safe in the knowledge that my mouldering corpse will not feel ripped off by this turn of events, and that my many, many descendants can continue to live off 'Summer Holiday' for the term of their rather unnatural lives. Remember that I am a born-again Christian and non-drinker, so beer and hookers mean and meant nothing to me. Money, however, is next to Godliness."

Feargal Sharkey of UK Music stressed the necessity of the move to his never having to write another song after "Teenage Kicks." "I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record."

The government's Cowell Report recommended that copyright should be reduced to one year, software patents made a hanging offence, Mickey Mouse declared an unperson and musicians told to stop whining and get a real bloody job like the rest of us. "It's not like there's some sort of national shortage of bad pop records," said Sir Simon, "although a world in which Jive Bunny recordings irretrievably disintegrate into dust before they could possibly enter the public domain does have a certain appeal. Nevertheless, we desperately need to demotivate surplus pop star wannabes. I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record."

Richard Dawkins spoke in favour of the perpetual unavailability of music, as per his new book The Art Delusion. "'Music' appears to be an entirely subjective phenomenon with little or no objective measurements possible — much like any other brand of snake oil or balderdash. Music seems to be a sort of virus on human consciousness, parasitically sapping the collective intelligence of the human race." He defended his own attendance at his local church's Christmas carols: "I'm only putting them at their ease so they let their guard down while I work on plans for mass re-education camps for the sufferers of musical appreciation."

SUP DAWG WE HEARD YOU LIKE WINDOWS SO WE PUT A WINDOWS IN YOUR WINDOWS SO YOU CAN WHINE WHILE YOU WINE

Seriously - I'm surprised they didn't do this for Vista. A "Classic" compatibility mode to set them free to make an API that sucks maybe a little less.

You are of course correct ;-p

Yep. I was almost disappointed when they didn't buy Yahoo! - that really would have been 2 plus 2 equals 1. "We blew 40 billion, but at least we switched FreeBSD for NT, 'cos that worked so well for Hotmail!"

Here's a screenshot.

Every press story about Windows since 1994 reads:

I am so excited about $NEXT_VERSION of Windows. It will go beyond just solving all of the problems with $CURRENT_VERSION, it will be an entirely new paradigm. Forget about security problems, those are all fixed in $NEXT_VERSION. And they're finally ridding themselves of $ANCIENT_LEGACY_STUFF.

Also, there'll be $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM. It'll be awesome!

I wonder how $NEXT_VERSION will compare to $NEXT_NEXT_VERSION.

In a stunning public relations coup, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MNPLY) has successfully overshadowed today's release of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 "Juicy Jubblies" by announcing its failed financials for a fourth quarter in a row and laying even more people off.

Microsoft announced new and expanded roles for remaining key executives as another several lesser, losing quitters deserted upper management. "It shows the fantastic opportunity available to everyone at Microsoft to climb seven or eight reporting levels up the org chart," said marketing marketer Steve Ballmer to pitchfork-wielding Wall Street analysts today. "If we haven't laid them off for making too much money or not kissing enough ass."

The Yahoo! deal is expected to go ahead. "We figure they'll go broke before we do. Probably." Mr Ballmer also plans to run the Yahoo! servers on Windows NT rather than FreeBSD after a similar change worked so well at Hotmail. "Some say synergy's another word for two plus two equals one, but you just have to make the value of one work for you."

Windows 7 betas have been greeted with remarkable positive press. "Of course, 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. 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 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."

However, Microsoft has indicated to its press corps, Microsoft Completely Enderlependent Analysts, to ixnay on the evensay and highlight the job openings for work on Windows 8, firmly penciled in for a 2012 release. Windows 8 will be optimised for low-end 32-core systems with a mere 16 gigabytes of memory — 28 cores for the interface, 3 cores for the DRM and one core for everything else. "Seven is just so this year. I hear they'll get $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM done next release for sure!" said ZDNet marketing marketer Mary-Jo Enderle. "It'll be awesome!"

"I'm sure it'll be fine, fine," said Bill Gates, upping his hours at his charitable foundation and scheduling the sale of several more packages of Microsoft stock.

Larry Ellison of Oracle, who recently purchased Sun Microsystems, merely snickered, muttered "Java. OpenOffice." and let out a long and resounding laugh.

Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical, speaking from his castle on a crag high on a mountaintop in west London, was sanguine at Ubuntu's news being overshadowed. "I lost ten million dollars on Ubuntu last year. I'm losing ten million dollars on Ubuntu this year. I expect to lose ten million dollars on Ubuntu next year. At this rate, I'll be broke in ... sixty years."

Australian 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."

I for one can't wait to see all the G20 videos up there for extensive public analysis.

Wine runs all the malware you need to!

I certainly don't think major corporate IT departments could do business without the standard proportion of their machines being part of the Storm, Conficker or FBI botnets.

I believe they're favouring this one.

Here it is.

60% of consumers are willing to browse with an ad-blocker in return for free videos, music and other content, a survey has revealed. "This willingness to pretend to view adverts in exchange for free content is good news for sites wanting to lie to advertisers," said Tudor Aw at KPMG, "and is perhaps a pointer in the ongoing debate over whether lying to advertisers or lying to subscribers is the right revenue model."

40% of respondents said they would pretend to accept popups, popunders, interstitials, Phorm, floating windows zipping and swooping about the screen, Flash videos that start playing sound automatically, eye-gouging animations and 2o7.net cookies in exchange for free music. 16% said they would pay to avoid ads. The rest would continue to get their telly from BitTorrent and browse with Mozilla Firefox with AdBlock.

People were more willing to pay on mobile phones, unless they had a modern phone that could steal someone's WiFi connection.

Google, the world's largest online advertising agency, said it was looking into tastefully-interspersed direct content advertising and brand placement, and added that you should PUNCH THE MONKEY TO WIN £20,000!!! "If you know what's good for you."

A direct neural interface to post on Twitter has been created by Adam Wilson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"We originally hooked it to the brain," said Wilson, "but only a very limited selection of messages came out, that appeared to be coming from somewhere else. So we've just gone directly to the penis without the middleman."

Male humans suffer from having functional bodies trapped with almost completely paralysed minds. The penis is an organ used by male humans primarily for thinking and making important decisions. It is also used as an outlet for unwanted poisonous bodily excreta, such as sperm.

The messages — or "twats" — cover the full gamut of human experience and emotion in 140 characters, from "ANOTHER PINT WHAT AN EXCELLENT IDEA" to "DYING FOR A SLASH" to "GDAY LUV NICE TITS" to "WOOHOO GOT A GOER HERE" to "WOKE UP DEAD PIG SHAT IN SKULL OH DEAR GOD WTF IS THAT MUST CHEW ARM OFF."

"The next stage is a feedback loop for at-replies," said Wilson. "We're hoping to create the dream of every Internet user: a response system that will send five hundred volts through someone's pants when they say something unbelievably stupid."

And of course, the BIG BLUE DONG is all the excuse needed for the absolutely artistically and dramatically necessary Silk Spectre II T&A. Mmm, yes indeed.

Dr Manhattan has been there, got the T-shirt.

In a stunning public relations coup, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MNPLY) has successfully overshadowed today's release of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 "Jaunty Jubblies" by announcing its failed financials for a fourth quarter in a row and laying even more people off.

Microsoft announced new and expanded roles for remaining key executives as another several lesser, losing quitters deserted upper management. "It shows the fantastic opportunity available to everyone at Microsoft to climb seven or eight reporting levels up the org chart," said marketing marketer Steve Ballmer to pitchfork-wielding Wall Street analysts today. "If we haven't laid them off for making too much money or not kissing enough ass."

The Yahoo! deal is expected to go ahead. "We figure they'll go broke before we do. Probably." Mr Ballmer also plans to run the Yahoo! servers on Windows NT rather than FreeBSD after a similar change worked so well at Hotmail. "Some say synergy's another word for two plus two equals one, but you just have to make the value of one work for you."

Windows 7 betas have been greeted with remarkable positive press. "Of course, 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. 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 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."

However, Microsoft has indicated to its press corps, Microsoft Completely Enderlependent Analysts, to ixnay on the evensay and highlight the job openings for work on Windows 8, firmly penciled in for a 2012 release. Windows 8 will be optimised for low-end 32-core systems with a mere 16 gigabytes of memory — 28 cores for the interface, 3 cores for the DRM and one core for everything else. "Seven is just so this year. I hear they'll get $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM done next release for sure!" said ZDNet marketing marketer Mary-Jo Enderle. "It'll be awesome!"

"I'm sure it'll be fine, fine," said Bill Gates, upping his hours at his charitable foundation and scheduling the sale of several more packages of Microsoft stock.

Larry Ellison of Oracle, who recently purchased Sun Microsystems, merely snickered, muttered "Java. OpenOffice." and let out a long and resounding laugh.

Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical, speaking from his castle on a crag high on a mountaintop in west London, was sanguine at Ubuntu's news being overshadowed. "I lost ten million dollars on Ubuntu last year. I'm losing ten million dollars on Ubuntu this year. I expect to lose ten million dollars on Ubuntu next year. At this rate, I'll be broke in ... sixty years."

You guys really are stretching these days. PR budget not as healthy? Tomorrow's the financials! Four failed quarters in a row! I'm sure you'll all be doing double duty.

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?" sobbed 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.

TWATTER, Arsebook, Tuesday — A direct neural interface to post on Twitter has been created by Adam Wilson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"We originally hooked it to the brain," said Wilson, "but only a very limited selection of messages came out, that appeared to be coming from somewhere else. So we've just gone directly to the penis without the middleman."

Male humans suffer from having functional bodies trapped with almost completely paralysed minds. The penis is an organ used by male humans primarily for thinking and making important decisions. It is also used as an outlet for useless bodily excreta, such as sperm.

The messages -- or "twats" -- cover the whole range of human experience in 140 characters, from "ANOTHER PINT WHAT AN EXCELLENT IDEA" to "DYING FOR A SLASH" to "GDAY LUV NICE TITS" to "WOOHOO GOT A GOER HERE" to "OH DEAR GOD WOKE UP DEAD WTF IS THAT MUST CHEW ARM OFF."

"The next stage is a feedback loop for at-replies," said Wilson. "We're hoping to create the dream of every internet user: a response system that will send five hundred volts through someone's pants when they say something unbelievably stupid."

BOLGIAS 8 AND 9, Rome, Monday — The Vatican intends to build the biggest renewable energy plant in Europe, running solely on guilt.

"Now is the time to strike," said Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, governor of Vatican City. "The financial crisis has unleashed huge and renewable sources of guilt, which in the long run will reap incomparable rewards for the Church."

Italy has a binding target for renewable energy consumption of 17 percent. The Vatican will export energy to Italy, powered by raw guilt from the largely Catholic populace. "So far it's proven indefinitely renewable."

Pope Benedict XVI has been outspoken on environmental issues. "The destruction of the environment, its improper or selfish use and the violent hoarding of the Earth's resources cause grievances, conflicts and wars, precisely because they are the consequences of an inhumane concept of development. You should FEEL BAD about that. And give us money."

The plant will be topped up at night by Dante-esque treadmills walked by priests sent back for kiddy-fiddling. "We feel terrible, terrible," said Fr O'Pederast. "I mean, we got caught."