Ok, so I examined your email and I noticed that it is a.edu. I therefore assume that you're educated in both spelling and geography. Congrats. If you could examine my breath right now, you'd observe that I stayed up all last night drinking vodka and salad dressing. I think I can be excused for not being able to spell or punctuate correctly. If not, I'll just pass out now. Thanks, --Shoeboy
Dear Mr. Young and the Red Hat, Inc. Board of Directors,
Your recent, wildly successful, IPO has shown, to the joy of Linux fans everywhere, that Wall Street investors are smoking crack. Linux is destined to lower profit margins on software sales for everyone, but investors still see you as a potential gold mine. Now is the time to leverage your core buisness asset of crack smoking investors. As crack and glass pipe supplies have been drastically lowered during your IPO you need to invest in entities that will ensure an adequate supply of crack cocaine for future stock growth. Allow me to suggest the nation of Columbia.
Acquisitions: There are occasional rumors that Red Hat would consider buying a small european nation such as Luxembourg with its newfound wealth. Bad idea. Who owns Luxembourg? Who do you write the check to. Instead, and this is key: buy Columbia from the Medelin cartel. This will provide a sufficient amount of coca plants to fuel irrational investor exuberance into the next millenium. What does this bring you?
Equatorial climates and loads of coke. What better way to enjoy your wealth?
Columbia will also give you easy access to Peru's shining path guerillas. These rebels are brutal fanatics, just like linux users. Imagine unleashing a horde trained jungle warriors in the midst of Redmond. Instant coup de etat and you're the CEO of Microsoft! Then you can let your investors snort cocaine off the top of Steve Ballmers glistening scalp. What a way to build market enthusiasm.
Revenue. IPO money is great, but the real money is in narcotics smuggling. You currently only have 10 million in revenue. That's paltry compared to the amount you could make by cornering the market on coke.
CIA contacts. That's right, once you're a major player in the drug arena, the government will bend over backwards for you. They need the drugs for controling inner city unrest and will gladly charge mandrake and debian with antitrust suits just to keep the supply going.
Human capital. Linux programmers are cool to have around, but what company can afford to be without mules? You can use the cartel's drug runners to swallow encryption algorithms and smuggle them out of the country. This will allow you to be the only US software company with real encryption.
Buy Columbia from the drug lords, it just makes sense. --Shoeboy
No irony at all actually. NT is still highly portable. It runs on 486, pentium, pentium pro, pentium II and K-6 chips. What more portability could you ask for;-) --Shoeboy
Oracle on NT makes me retch. It doesn't belong there. CreateThread() vs. fork(), IO completion ports vs select() and poll. There are waaay too many differences for a single program to make efficient use of both types of systems. MSSQL7 will run rings around oracle on NT. (Actually MSSQL7 runs rings around just about everything on intel hardware - check www.tpc.org if you doubt this) Oracle on Tru64 unix outperforms oracle on NT. There's simply _no_ good reason to run oracle on NT. Ever. --Shoeboy
What happened to "NT is extremely portable." In theory, the only hardware specific component is supposed to be HAL.DLL. The rest of the NT code base is supposed to be highly portable C code. By replacing HAL.DLL and recompiling the rest of the system, it was supposed to be possible to port NT to whatever in a matter of weeks. Why did compaq need an NT development team in the first place? Why did NT powerPC collapse when IBM withdrew funding? I refuse to believe that MS doesn't know how to write architecture neutral code - that's just too far fetched. I'm thinking that it's due to lightning storms. --Shoeboy
If the police get a warrant, they can burst into your home and search for kiddie porn in your closet, under your bed or on top of the laundry hamper in your bathroom. They can also override any security procedures you have installed to prevent this - like a door lock. Heavens! We have to do something to stop this invasion of privacy. --Shoeboy.
P.S. Thanks to VNC, I didn't have to drive downtown, and sit at the console to recover. Why didn't Microsoft think of that? They did, It's called SMS. I'm not going to tell you the summoning ritual to get that onto your server though, some things are too horrible to be unleashed upon the mortal world. --Shoeboy
See how long it takes for the NT people to reinstall. *grin* Less time than you'd think. I admin NT for a living and we have a super quick method of getting NT onto any system.
1. Chalk out a inverse pentagram inside a circle on the floor. 2. Place a lit candle at each point of the pentagram. 3. Place the computer in question in the center of the pentagram with the case off. 4. Chant "Yog Sothoth Neblod Zin." while sprinkling the blood of a freshly slain rooster on the motherboard.
This works in under 5 minutes for intel hardware. I once managed to get NT onto a VAX 780 this way as well, but it took a few hours.
My excuse was simple, I was using a signed 8 bit integer to hold my array of victims. I stopped when I hit a buffer overflow. I told the jury that they were members of Future Farmers of America - it was ruled a mercy killing.
BTW - "John Katz told me to do it." is my excuse when I get arested taking 12 year olds to XXX movies.
( I know, I know... but there are amazingly few women I know of who fit this description honestly). What you _mean_ is that you've met very few women who actively seek out confrontations with authority and get all vocal about their attitude. There's a big difference between thinking for yourself and acting out. --Shoeboy
Young male, computer obsessed, problems with authority, ateist, anarchist, slacker, tendency to take expensive things apart and scatter them around my apartment, avid reader, fan of thai cuisine, pale, nocturnal, extremely odd musical tastes, likes to build things, once killed 128 (2^7) people at my middle school - that's me. Maybe I'm to blame for the stereotype. If so, I'm sorry. --Shoeboy
All name used in my posts are current or former coworkers. Papshigali is not the Rajeev's (a DBA) real last name, but I never could pronounce or spell his last name, Papshigali seems like a reasonable mutilation. --Shoeboy
Scientists discover that evolution has stopped in Kansas. TOPEKAIn a discovery that has shocked biologists around the globe, a team of anthropologists and geneticists discovered today that evolution does not function in Kansas. "It was a shock, but when we examined the facts, all evidence suggested that Kansans are in the exact same evolutionary state as they were 4 billion years ago." Exclaimed Dr. Rajeev Papshigali, professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, "The evidence was undeniable, low sloping simian foreheads, the inability to make and use simple tools - everything suggested that these people, if we may even call them that, appear to be genetically identical to Neandertall man. This challenges everything we've believed about evolution." Scientist first began investigating Kansans after noticing that a majority of them believed the existence of a gaseous vertebrate of infinite heft to be more probable than the accumulation of favorable mutations over geologic time. "It was amazing," explained Dr. Greg Hay, "we found that Kansans did not have sufficient mental capacity to understand the concept of evolution. That's not all, we found that they engaged in a primitive ritual where they would twitch on the ground uttering complete gibberish and then claim that they were speaking in tounges. We recorded the noises made, and found that they were identical with those of the spider monkey." Scientists had previously believed that humans and spider monkey had diverged in the evolutionary tree some 11 million years ago. "We may have found a species of primate that has existed unchanged for all that time, against all probability." Some scientists have criticized the findings of Doctors Papshigali and Hay, saying instead that the explanation lies in the fact that Kansans still use lead based paint on cribs, and that the infant Kansans tend to knaw on the bars of their cribs while teething. As pediatrician Dr. Ray Middleton argues "All the mental deficiencies of Kansans can be explained by brain damage due to lead poisoning. The idea tha evolution has stopped is ridiculous." Middleton, who is not a native Kansan is leading a drive to have lead based paint banned statewide.
All the probable users are asked to contribute their thoughts on what the project was supposed to do. Most of them suggest things entirely unrelated to the description of the project.
All reasonable suggestions are torn up and fed to a goat.
The goat is sacrificed in the middle of an inverted pentagram while the PM chants "CTHULHU FNAGN" (this step is optional)
The development group works out a good application framework on a whiteboard. The least popular member of the group is then assigned to create a powerpoint detailing the proposed framework.
Out of bitterness, the guy writing the powerpoint discards the teams ideas and writes his own. The powerpoint is then sent to management.
Management approves or vetoes the project based on the color scheme used.
The team suddenly finds themselves commited to a shitty framework. The alpha geek on the team blames the PM and begins playing political games to get him/her replaced.
Deciding that misery loves company, the team asks the Unix and NT admins what platform the app should run on.
The Unix wookies and the NT trolls declare total war on each other and the PM gets cc'd on every message in the resulting flame war.
The team hires a bunch of contractors to help develop the project.
Performance review time. Everyone tries to look good at the expense of others. Massive flame wars erupt.
Team begins to develop application while attempting to keep PM in the dark.
PM gets revenge by requesting customer feedback on the proposed feature set.
Team vetoes all customer requests, promises to include them in the next version.
Management hears the customer complaints. Demands more powerpoints.
Reorg time. PM now reports to a new manager.
Team missed deadline for first beta as they are working on powerpoint slides.
Cubicle move. Work interrupted as everyone in the building starts moving cubes to the tune of 'pop goes the weasel'. When the music stops, they all rush to a new cube except for one sluggish contractor who is promptly fired.
Team missed second beta deadline due to the loss of the contractor fired in step 18.
Management decides that the project will never get finished, cancels it.
This isn't the best way to design software, but it seems to be a common method. --Shoeboy
A working group to address illegal activity on the web? This just shows how out of touch this administration is. When you want an address for illegal activity on the web, you get a static IP from your ISP, or else you use DHCP. Then you get a domain name. It's the same for legal activity. It's simple, why is a working group required? What are they going to reccomend? That all activity use the 207.xx.xx.xx subnet? --Shoeboy
Don't think so. Larry left his company to dwindle and disintegrate amid rabid infighting while he sailed around the world on his 80 foot yacht. In recent years he's been acting like managing oracle is a hobby he indulges in from time to time. Oracle has suffered from this. I doubt Larry, or anyone else at Oracle believes that they selling a ridiculously overpriced piece of software that runs on a free OS is sound buisness. They just don't want to get left behind in the great linux stampede. --Shoeboy
I'm sure that there will be a vigorous competition to drink to the point of nausea and get the coveted "FIRST PUKE!!!" --Shoeboy, who is very, very sorry about this post and promises to do better next time.
Managers challenge developers to get work done using Windows 2000 SEATTLE In a move that sent tremors of fear through the programming community, project managers across the country have begun challenging their developers to write code on Microsofts new flagship operating system, Windows 2000. The challenge has not been well publicized - most developers only find out about it after being shown a box running Windows 2000 and being encouraged to get to work. The prize for victory is continued employment. So far nobody has successfully completed the challenge, although there have been several notable failures. "It was awful," complained unemployed programmer Greg Andrews, "I couldn't do anything. I slipped further and further behind schedule until my PM decided I wasn't up to the challenge and gave me the axe." Several industry analysts blamed these failures on one of the ground rules laid out in the challenge - PMs refuse to allow hardware upgrades for W2K users despite the fact that it requires at least 256Mb of ram and a PIII-500 for reasonable performance. The analysts speculate that the challenge could still be completed if not for a few 'features' Microsoft included in order to make the challenge more, well, challenging. First off, is the extensive use of wizards, wizards are programs that require the user to navigate through a dozen dialog boxes in order to change even the most trivial of settings. Secondly, W2K makes extensive use of MMC a specialized tool designed to aggravate users accustomed to keyboard shortcuts. "We aimed these inovations at administrators mainly," admitted a Microsoft spokesperson, "but we're pleased to note that all users of W2K have found their productivity reduced by these tools. Wizards and MMC are part of our Zero Administration Windows initiative whereby we make administration of windows such a nuisance that nobody tries it." Still, many developers are hopefull that they will be able to complete the W2K challenge. Observered one developer, "I'm three weeks behind schedule right now, but I just discovered that if I disable the networking services and everything that depends on them, I free up just enough memory to allow me compile my 2500 line program in under 10 minutes. I might still have a job next week." --Shoeboy
US military to deploy linux enthusiasts against hostile powers WASHINGTON D.C. In a landmark victory for the renegade OS, the United States Army has changed its recruitment and training procedures in order to make military service more attractive to Linux Users. "We're going all out to get as many of these penguin people into the ranks as we possibly can." Stated General Jack Ripper "These geeks truly are americas finest." The military became interested in geek warriors after observing multiple flame wars on the popular web site slashdot.org. "We used to think that the Army Rangers were the meanest mothers on earth, then we watched KDE and Gnome users face off." Explained Gen. Ripper. "We then had an elite team of rangers engage in the discussion. When I saw those hardened troops break down in tears from the geek onslaught, I knew we had found the perfect source of violent maladjusted zealots." Assimilating the new geek recruits required something of a change in the standard training regimen. Instead of boot camp, recruits are now put through reboot camp where they are forced to support mission critical applications on Windows98. This teaches them to hate. Recruits are then put through what is known as the 'burma road' drill - where they attempt to stay abreast of the most recent 2.3.x kernel using a 486sx/25 for compiles and a 1200 baud modem for downloads. After a few short weeks, the perfect killing machine is created. Geek troops are capable of untold attrocities in combat, including roasting prisoners over an overclocked celeron, installing MS Bob on enemy hardware and moderating down 'first posts.' "Some governments have complained that these troops don't abide by the geneva convention." Admitted Gen. Ripper "But I say that the geneva convention is a closed, proprietary protocol funded by Microsoft - screw em." --Shoeboy
Thousands of Linux advocates and Transmeta watchers are debating the significance of a recent email sent from Linus Torvalds to Alan Cox on 8-3-99. The email read in part: Probably. I really think it's a matter of "if this device really doesn't have any ordering constraints, then we can use the new nifty feature to make it invisible to most users".
The big question is what did Linus mean by those fateful words. On/. thousands have suggested that he is implying that Transmeta has created a magic invisibility device which Torvalds will use to battle the fiendish crime lord Erik "The Red" Blowhard. "Wow man!" Shouted flak in a post to/. "I think that Linus didn't mean to cc. the kernel list on this one. He's spilled the beans on the whole Transmeta operation. Think about it. Invisibility suits. This rules. FIRST POST."
Anthropologists have postulated that Linus' mails receive so much attention because he is seen as a sort of divine "priest king" by his followers. "Unfortunately, this means that if the pace of development on the kernel ever slows, the crazed worshippers may sacrifice Linus to regain the favor of their gods. History shows this pattern occurring again and again." commented Dr. Rajeev Papshigali of the University of Utah. "If the sacrifice is unsuccessful, we may see Linux users losing their faith and joining other strange sects. Possibly they may even convert to one of the daemonology cults that originated at UC Berkeley."
An AC suggested that this was an out-of-context quote from a mail about standard pc bus architecture. This was quickly moderated down as "flame bait" as was another post wondering if Linus could scratch his nose without having the event posted on/.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, so I examined your email and I noticed that it is a .edu. I therefore assume that you're educated in both spelling and geography. Congrats. If you could examine my breath right now, you'd observe that I stayed up all last night drinking vodka and salad dressing. I think I can be excused for not being able to spell or punctuate correctly. If not, I'll just pass out now. Thanks,
--Shoeboy
Dear Mr. Young and the Red Hat, Inc. Board of Directors,
Your recent, wildly successful, IPO has shown, to the joy of Linux fans everywhere, that Wall Street investors are smoking crack. Linux is destined to lower profit margins on software sales for everyone, but investors still see you as a potential gold mine. Now is the time to leverage your core buisness asset of crack smoking investors. As crack and glass pipe supplies have been drastically lowered during your IPO you need to invest in entities that will ensure an adequate supply of crack cocaine for future stock growth. Allow me to suggest the nation of Columbia.
Acquisitions: There are occasional rumors that Red Hat would consider buying a small european nation such as Luxembourg with its newfound wealth. Bad idea. Who owns Luxembourg? Who do you write the check to.
Instead, and this is key: buy Columbia from the Medelin cartel. This will provide a sufficient amount of coca plants to fuel irrational investor exuberance into the next millenium. What does this bring you?
Equatorial climates and loads of coke. What better way to enjoy your wealth?
Columbia will also give you easy access to Peru's shining path guerillas. These rebels are brutal fanatics, just like linux users. Imagine unleashing a horde trained jungle warriors in the midst of Redmond. Instant coup de etat and you're the CEO of Microsoft! Then you can let your investors snort cocaine off the top of Steve Ballmers glistening scalp. What a way to build market enthusiasm.
Revenue. IPO money is great, but the real money is in narcotics smuggling. You currently only have 10 million in revenue. That's paltry compared to the amount you could make by cornering the market on coke.
CIA contacts. That's right, once you're a major player in the drug arena, the government will bend over backwards for you. They need the drugs for controling inner city unrest and will gladly charge mandrake and debian with antitrust suits just to keep the supply going.
Human capital. Linux programmers are cool to have around, but what company can afford to be without mules? You can use the cartel's drug runners to swallow encryption algorithms and smuggle them out of the country. This will allow you to be the only US software company with real encryption.
Buy Columbia from the drug lords, it just makes sense.
--Shoeboy
No irony at all actually. NT is still highly portable. It runs on 486, pentium, pentium pro, pentium II and K-6 chips. What more portability could you ask for ;-)
--Shoeboy
Oracle on NT makes me retch. It doesn't belong there. CreateThread() vs. fork(), IO completion ports vs select() and poll. There are waaay too many differences for a single program to make efficient use of both types of systems. MSSQL7 will run rings around oracle on NT. (Actually MSSQL7 runs rings around just about everything on intel hardware - check www.tpc.org if you doubt this) Oracle on Tru64 unix outperforms oracle on NT. There's simply _no_ good reason to run oracle on NT. Ever.
--Shoeboy
What happened to "NT is extremely portable." In theory, the only hardware specific component is supposed to be HAL.DLL. The rest of the NT code base is supposed to be highly portable C code. By replacing HAL.DLL and recompiling the rest of the system, it was supposed to be possible to port NT to whatever in a matter of weeks. Why did compaq need an NT development team in the first place? Why did NT powerPC collapse when IBM withdrew funding? I refuse to believe that MS doesn't know how to write architecture neutral code - that's just too far fetched. I'm thinking that it's due to lightning storms.
--Shoeboy
If the police get a warrant, they can burst into your home and search for kiddie porn in your closet, under your bed or on top of the laundry hamper in your bathroom. They can also override any security procedures you have installed to prevent this - like a door lock. Heavens! We have to do something to stop this invasion of privacy.
--Shoeboy.
It's Han Solo in Conscientious.
--Shoeboy
P.S. Thanks to VNC, I didn't have to drive downtown, and sit at the console to recover. Why didn't Microsoft think of that?
They did, It's called SMS. I'm not going to tell you the summoning ritual to get that onto your server though, some things are too horrible to be unleashed upon the mortal world.
--Shoeboy
To install service pack 5 the correct deity is Shub Niggurath, Yog Sothoth only provides the NT 4 golden bits.
--Shoeboy
See how long it takes for the NT people to reinstall. *grin*
Less time than you'd think. I admin NT for a living and we have a super quick method of getting NT onto any system.
1. Chalk out a inverse pentagram inside a circle on the floor.
2. Place a lit candle at each point of the pentagram.
3. Place the computer in question in the center of the pentagram with the case off.
4. Chant "Yog Sothoth Neblod Zin." while sprinkling the blood of a freshly slain rooster on the motherboard.
This works in under 5 minutes for intel hardware. I once managed to get NT onto a VAX 780 this way as well, but it took a few hours.
--Shoeboy
My excuse was simple, I was using a signed 8 bit integer to hold my array of victims. I stopped when I hit a buffer overflow. I told the jury that they were members of Future Farmers of America - it was ruled a mercy killing.
BTW - "John Katz told me to do it." is my excuse when I get arested taking 12 year olds to XXX movies.
--Shoeboy
( I know, I know... but there are amazingly few women I know of who fit this description honestly).
What you _mean_ is that you've met very few women who actively seek out confrontations with authority and get all vocal about their attitude. There's a big difference between thinking for yourself and acting out.
--Shoeboy
ateist Oops, should have added bad speller while I was at it.
--Shoeboy
Young male, computer obsessed, problems with authority, ateist, anarchist, slacker, tendency to take expensive things apart and scatter them around my apartment, avid reader, fan of thai cuisine, pale, nocturnal, extremely odd musical tastes, likes to build things, once killed 128 (2^7) people at my middle school - that's me. Maybe I'm to blame for the stereotype. If so, I'm sorry.
--Shoeboy
All name used in my posts are current or former coworkers. Papshigali is not the Rajeev's (a DBA) real last name, but I never could pronounce or spell his last name, Papshigali seems like a reasonable mutilation.
--Shoeboy
Scientists discover that evolution has stopped in Kansas.
TOPEKAIn a discovery that has shocked biologists around the globe, a team of anthropologists and geneticists discovered today that evolution does not function in Kansas.
"It was a shock, but when we examined the facts, all evidence suggested that Kansans are in the exact same evolutionary state as they were 4 billion years ago." Exclaimed Dr. Rajeev Papshigali, professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, "The evidence was undeniable, low sloping simian foreheads, the inability to make and use simple tools - everything suggested that these people, if we may even call them that, appear to be genetically identical to Neandertall man. This challenges everything we've believed about evolution."
Scientist first began investigating Kansans after noticing that a majority of them believed the existence of a gaseous vertebrate of infinite heft to be more probable than the accumulation of favorable mutations over geologic time.
"It was amazing," explained Dr. Greg Hay, "we found that Kansans did not have sufficient mental capacity to understand the concept of evolution. That's not all, we found that they engaged in a primitive ritual where they would twitch on the ground uttering complete gibberish and then claim that they were speaking in tounges. We recorded the noises made, and found that they were identical with those of the spider monkey." Scientists had previously believed that humans and spider monkey had diverged in the evolutionary tree some 11 million years ago. "We may have found a species of primate that has existed unchanged for all that time, against all probability."
Some scientists have criticized the findings of Doctors Papshigali and Hay, saying instead that the explanation lies in the fact that Kansans still use lead based paint on cribs, and that the infant Kansans tend to knaw on the bars of their cribs while teething. As pediatrician Dr. Ray Middleton argues "All the mental deficiencies of Kansans can be explained by brain damage due to lead poisoning. The idea tha evolution has stopped is ridiculous." Middleton, who is not a native Kansan is leading a drive to have lead based paint banned statewide.
--Shoeboy
This isn't the best way to design software, but it seems to be a common method.
--Shoeboy
That all activity use
This should read That all illegal activity use
--Shoeboy
A working group to address illegal activity on the web? This just shows how out of touch this administration is.
When you want an address for illegal activity on the web, you get a static IP from your ISP, or else you use DHCP. Then you get a domain name. It's the same for legal activity.
It's simple, why is a working group required? What are they going to reccomend? That all activity use the 207.xx.xx.xx subnet?
--Shoeboy
Don't think so. Larry left his company to dwindle and disintegrate amid rabid infighting while he sailed around the world on his 80 foot yacht. In recent years he's been acting like managing oracle is a hobby he indulges in from time to time. Oracle has suffered from this. I doubt Larry, or anyone else at Oracle believes that they selling a ridiculously overpriced piece of software that runs on a free OS is sound buisness. They just don't want to get left behind in the great linux stampede.
--Shoeboy
Observered? Yikes. I meant Observed. All other spelling and grammar errors are intentional.
--Shoeboy
I'm sure that there will be a vigorous competition to drink to the point of nausea and get the coveted "FIRST PUKE!!!"
--Shoeboy, who is very, very sorry about this post and promises to do better next time.
Managers challenge developers to get work done using Windows 2000
SEATTLE In a move that sent tremors of fear through the programming community, project managers across the country have begun challenging their developers to write code on Microsofts new flagship operating system, Windows 2000. The challenge has not been well publicized - most developers only find out about it after being shown a box running Windows 2000 and being encouraged to get to work. The prize for victory is continued employment. So far nobody has successfully completed the challenge, although there have been several notable failures.
"It was awful," complained unemployed programmer Greg Andrews, "I couldn't do anything. I slipped further and further behind schedule until my PM decided I wasn't up to the challenge and gave me the axe."
Several industry analysts blamed these failures on one of the ground rules laid out in the challenge - PMs refuse to allow hardware upgrades for W2K users despite the fact that it requires at least 256Mb of ram and a PIII-500 for reasonable performance. The analysts speculate that the challenge could still be completed if not for a few 'features' Microsoft included in order to make the challenge more, well, challenging. First off, is the extensive use of wizards, wizards are programs that require the user to navigate through a dozen dialog boxes in order to change even the most trivial of settings. Secondly, W2K makes extensive use of MMC a specialized tool designed to aggravate users accustomed to keyboard shortcuts.
"We aimed these inovations at administrators mainly," admitted a Microsoft spokesperson, "but we're pleased to note that all users of W2K have found their productivity reduced by these tools. Wizards and MMC are part of our Zero Administration Windows initiative whereby we make administration of windows such a nuisance that nobody tries it."
Still, many developers are hopefull that they will be able to complete the W2K challenge. Observered one developer, "I'm three weeks behind schedule right now, but I just discovered that if I disable the networking services and everything that depends on them, I free up just enough memory to allow me compile my 2500 line program in under 10 minutes. I might still have a job next week."
--Shoeboy
US military to deploy linux enthusiasts against hostile powers
WASHINGTON D.C. In a landmark victory for the renegade OS, the United States Army has changed its recruitment and training procedures in order to make military service more attractive to Linux Users.
"We're going all out to get as many of these penguin people into the ranks as we possibly can." Stated General Jack Ripper "These geeks truly are americas finest."
The military became interested in geek warriors after observing multiple flame wars on the popular web site slashdot.org. "We used to think that the Army Rangers were the meanest mothers on earth, then we watched KDE and Gnome users face off." Explained Gen. Ripper. "We then had an elite team of rangers engage in the discussion. When I saw those hardened troops break down in tears from the geek onslaught, I knew we had found the perfect source of violent maladjusted zealots."
Assimilating the new geek recruits required something of a change in the standard training regimen. Instead of boot camp, recruits are now put through reboot camp where they are forced to support mission critical applications on Windows98. This teaches them to hate. Recruits are then put through what is known as the 'burma road' drill - where they attempt to stay abreast of the most recent 2.3.x kernel using a 486sx/25 for compiles and a 1200 baud modem for downloads. After a few short weeks, the perfect killing machine is created. Geek troops are capable of untold attrocities in combat, including roasting prisoners over an overclocked celeron, installing MS Bob on enemy hardware and moderating down 'first posts.'
"Some governments have complained that these troops don't abide by the geneva convention." Admitted Gen. Ripper "But I say that the geneva convention is a closed, proprietary protocol funded by Microsoft - screw em."
--Shoeboy
Thousands of Linux advocates and Transmeta watchers are debating the significance of a recent email sent from Linus Torvalds to Alan Cox on 8-3-99. The email read in part:
/. thousands have suggested that he is implying that Transmeta has created a magic invisibility device which Torvalds will use to battle the fiendish crime lord Erik "The Red" Blowhard. /. "I think that Linus didn't mean to cc. the kernel list on this one. He's spilled the beans on the whole Transmeta operation. Think about it. Invisibility suits. This rules. FIRST POST."
/.
Probably. I really think it's a matter of "if this device really doesn't
have any ordering constraints, then we can use the new nifty feature to
make it invisible to most users".
The big question is what did Linus mean by those fateful words. On
"Wow man!" Shouted flak in a post to
Anthropologists have postulated that Linus' mails receive so much attention because he is seen as a sort of divine "priest king" by his followers. "Unfortunately, this means that if the pace of development on the kernel ever slows, the crazed worshippers may sacrifice Linus to regain the favor of their gods. History shows this pattern occurring again and again." commented Dr. Rajeev Papshigali of the University of Utah. "If the sacrifice is unsuccessful, we may see Linux users losing their faith and joining other strange sects. Possibly they may even convert to one of the daemonology cults that originated at UC Berkeley."
An AC suggested that this was an out-of-context quote from a mail about standard pc bus architecture. This was quickly moderated down as "flame bait" as was another post wondering if Linus could scratch his nose without having the event posted on
--Shoeboy