Monthly Archives: October 2008

Africa, Technology

Microsoft calls Global Anti-Piracy Day

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REDMOND, Indian Ocean, Tuesday — Microsoft has announced that today is “Global Anti-Piracy Day,” with the aim to raise awareness of the damage to software innovation caused by robbery and murder on the high seas.

Zombie pirate process“Robbery, rape and brutal murder at sea is just like people copying that floppy,” sobbed billionaire Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. “You wouldn’t steal a patented software process, why would you steal a cargo ship?”

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has made these the most dangerous waters for software development in the world. The pirates use hacked zombie PCs, sometimes impounding codebases and programming staff at the point of their Heckler & Koch MP3s and demanding warez before they are released.

A famous attack late last year against one open source operating system was foiled when the crew scared the pirates off with the Righteous Mathematical Stentor, an ear-splitting acoustic device developed in Massachusetts as a “non-lethal” free software advocacy weapon.

Somali clan leaders have agreed to end over two decades of Unix wars in the country and have made attempts to address the piracy problem. But the tremendous lawlessness off the long eastern Somali coastline reflects the difficulty of controlling the flow of information on the Internet.

In one breakthrough, pirate chiefs have resolved that they will never pirate Windows Vista or Office 2007. “Not even with your dick.”

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Technology, United Kingdom

Children’s exposure to disturbing net pics curable by sending the NSPCC money

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CYBERSPICE, Brass Eye, Monday (NNN) — The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a leading charity promoting the cause of itself, has released a survey showing that nearly 75 percent of kids in UK have been disturbed by images they saw on the Internet.

My Little Monster Pony“Children are just a few clicks away from innocently stumbling across upsetting or even dangerous pictures and films,” said NSPCC policy advisor Zoe Hilton, “such as NSPCC telly ads about how your parents are going to punch the shit out of you, or documentaries of NSPCC claims that satanic ritual abuse existed. And also, give us money or you’re a paedo. Paedo. Paedo. Paeeee-do.”

Ms Hilton also stressed the need for manufacturers to incorporate advanced parental controls and protection mechanisms in computers. “Children can best be protected by installing a meter that takes 20p per page viewed and sends the money to the NSPCC. Or you might as well be raping and killing them yourself. You sickening shitbag.”

Ms Hilton added that video hosting and social networking sites should monitor content posted on their sites and remove all offensive material immediately. “That this is impossible to enforce worldwide means we’ll just have to keep demanding it and sending out press releases asking for money. You filthy bastards, molesting children through their eyes. You vile noncey fuckers should be lynched. But bung us twenty quid and we’ll say no more, eh.”

Technology, United States

Microsoft releases Silverlight 2.0, nobody cares

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BOLGIAS 8 AND 9, Redmond, Sunday (NNGadget) — Microsoft today announced the release of version 2.0 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.

NBC Silverlight fail“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. 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 resumé’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.

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Health, United Kingdom

Reward scheme for pregnant smokers to quit

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PARK HOSPITAL, Bevan, Thursday (NNN) — Mothers-to-be are to be offered gift vouchers and beauty treatments to encourage them to give up smoking, the NHS has announced.

Pregnant chavette smoking“Simply highlighting the dangers of smoking in pregnancy is not always enough,” said Help 2 Quit director Kevin Lewis. “In one focus group of pregnant smokers, 13 out of 15 women suggested vouchers would be a good incentive to give up. They were quite specific on the selection of shops.”

Smoking in women of fertile age has since risen 25%. “We was gunna go to Lakeside,” said Chardonnay Pleb of Chelmsford, “but they said I’d drawn the second line on my stick. Cheeky cow! Just ’cos their test’s broken. Or I had a spontaneous miscarriage at one week, between my test and their one. Gi’s my fackin’ vouchers!”

The NHS is also considering a voucher scheme as incentive for hospitals to clean sufficiently well that attending will be less hazardous to mothers and babies than smoking would be.

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Politics, United Kingdom

Terrorists linked to child porn

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4 QUADRANT CREATED EARTH, Whitehall, Friday (NNN) — Terrorists are embedding coded messages into child pornographic images and using paedophile websites as a secure way to pass information, according to British security services.

Osama bin Tinky WinkyAccording to MI-5 officer David Icke, no charges of possession of child pornography have been brought against those accused of terrorism “because of … unspecified … security … reasons. Yuh. So it’s vitally important we read your email and put a CCTV camera in your toilet. It’s for your own safety.”

Further revelations show that the terrorists are also linked to investment banking, are responsible for global warming and puked down your shirt last night after you drank that tenth pint that was a bit off. And they were wearing hoodies.

“That’s right!” said Icke. “The terrorists are … Icelandic … Muslim fundamentalists, running the banks in a Muslim financial conspiracy … and they want to start making wine in Iceland so they can … collapse the worldwide alcohol market like they did the banks and make us all non-drinkers. Also, time is actually cubical in nature … No, wait, listen!”

“This is an important development,” said Labour MP Andrew Dismore. “It needs child protection, criminological and psychological work. Also, we need to take DNA swabs of everyone in the country and tattoo a bar code on their heads.”

“This conclusively demonstrates why the current situation is unlike any other situation in history,” said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, “and we need 180 days’ detention without charge. And a pony.”

Finance, United States

Analysts: credit crunch caused by the poor

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PUNDITS’ CORNER, G.W. Bush Sewage Processing Plant, Friday (NNN) — Analysis of the global financial crisis reveals that the root cause is not stupendous bets on toxic deals, raw naked greed, cocaine-induced septicaemia, tertiary syphilis or mad cow disease amongst bankers. It’s because of all the poor people signing up for mortgages.

Daisy Duke, Black Widow of the Credit Crunch“It’s true that we got into trouble by bundling mortgage securities that only held their value and made profits so long as enough poor people signed on to get screwed,” said Dick Fold of Lehman Brothers. “But you just don’t understand the intense psychological pull poor people have on rich folks! They can make the world’s hardest, meanest, most ruthless CEOs, who’ve spent years honing the fine arts of profit-making, part with good money on a whim and hand it to a bunch of irresponsible, check-bouncing layabouts!”

America’s 499 billionaires controlled $1.4 trillion in assets, until the poor people caused the catastrophic market failures of the past month.

“It’s lending to minorities that did it,” said Neil Cavuto of Fox News. “You lend to those people, the country collapses. Fwoosh! I understand ACORN was involved in it, too. Which means it’s Obama’s fault. Unsurprisingly. I don’t really understand these ‘credit default swap’ things, but I can tell a bad credit risk just looking at him. Or her, of course — it’s Hillary’s fault too.”

“It ain’t that hard,” explained sub-prime mortgage defaulter Cletus J. Underclass. “Y’got mortgages, they make a stream o’ money. Y’kin call that stream an asset with a value. Y’bundle up them ‘assets.’ Y’bet on that there bundle bein’ good an’ ever’one payin’. Y’bet on that bet bein’ good. Y’sell that bet for trillions o’ bucks an’ make billions in bonuses. Ah spend mah money on Budweiser, NASCAR and good weed this month instead of the mortgage, mah buds do the same, the whole pile falls over, yer all fucked. And AH AIN’T SORRY! Fuck you and yer buds! New York assholes! Whoo-eee! Can’t wait to do it again next time! Y’all come back now!”

“Damn that Cletus and his siren call,” sobbed Fold. “If only he’d call me back.”

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Politics, Technology, United Kingdom

UK government adopts Digital Rights Management

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THE NILOPTICON, Whitehall, Thursday (NNN) — The Home Office has moved to calm fears over its new plan to collect every email sent in or out of Britain.

Government data vending machine“We’ve been speaking with our PFI contractors,” said Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, “and they’ve been speaking with those nice people from Microsoft, and we think we can use something called ‘Digital Rights Management.’ It’s worked perfectly to protect music and software, I can’t see any way this won’t work just as well for us.”

The planned email monitoring system, hooked to your identity card, tax details and complete NHS record, is considered not only potentially intrusive, but hazardous: the government and its contractors have misplaced many disks and memory sticks containing private data. But with DRM, data can only be accessed by authorised users on an authorised system, running the specially hardened operating system Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Trials of the new system have shown minor hiccups, but nothing to worry about at all, honestly. “When we try to access the data it occasionally says ‘Insert 25¢ to continue’ and we have to remember to keep bags of American coins around. We have asked EDS Capita Goatse for a localised British system that will take 20p pieces and have an attendant to un-bung things when they get stuck, which will take only six months and cost a very reasonable £100 million extra. We also get a year’s free reactivations from their call centre! It looks a very good deal to me.”

The safety and unbreakability of the system is assured. “We tried copying the data in various obvious ways, but the RIAA threatened to sue the Home Office for breaking the DRM on its own data. So obviously no-one will try this ever.”

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Politics, Science, United States

Cheney discovered to have a heart

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TORCHWOOD THREE, Cardiff, Wednesday (NNN) — US Vice-President Dick Cheney is to receive treatment to correct an abnormal heart rhythm, his spokeswoman has said.

Dick Cheney, CyberwomanMarkets would have been shaken at the news that Mr Cheney possessed such an organ had they not been utterly exhausted already.

“During a visit with his mechanic this morning, it was discovered that the vice-president has internal organs similar to those of a human, including one organ that apparently pumps blood,” said his spokeswoman, Megan Mitchell.

“However, we have given him a large supply of cute puppies and fluffy bunnies to bite the heads off, rip apart with his bare hands and so on, and he is on his way to a full recovery.”

The vice-president has been treated for the condition before. In July 2007, he had what was meant to be the last stage of his complete cyberneticization and abolition of the last traces of puny “human” emotion.

“I only hope McCain makes it in on election day so we can finish cyberizing him as well,” said Mr Cheney. “We’ve already replaced his morals with a clockwork mouse mechanism remote-controlled by Karl and have a killer Stepford fembot shadowing him to keep him … on-message.”

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Technology, United States

Next Windows to be called “Windows”

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MORDOR, RedMonk, Tuesday (NNGadget) — In a triumph of marketing over marketing, the next version of Windows will be called “Windows.”

Windows 7“Nuts to you and your ‘Windows $NEXT_VERSION’ jokes,” said Microsoft CEO Steve “Trains Run On Time” Ballmer. “It’s Windows %NEXT_VERSION%, and fuck you! WordPad and Paint will kick your ass.”

Tentative names included Windows Blackcomb, Windows Vienna, WindOS X, Windex, Windows Steak and Blowjobs Edition!!! (which proved in beta testing to be Tofu and Long Querulous Discussion About Where Our Relationship Is Going Edition) and Windows 2007 2008 2009 2010.

A new line of advertisements, made on Apple Macintoshes, is set for 2009:

WINDOWS SE7EN. Overwhelming greed, lust for power, Mac envy, slothful performance, Aero pride, wrath against Samba, spectacular gluttony. WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

Canonical, Inc. shares were up 5% in early trading.

Science, Technology, United Kingdom

Turing Test won with Artificial Stupidity

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LINDEN, The Grid, Monday (NNGadget) — Artificial intelligence came a step closer this weekend when a computer came within five percent of passing the Turing Test, which the computer passes if people cannot tell between the computer and a human.

The winning conversation was with competitor LOLBOT:

“Good morning.”HAL 9000 Goatse
“STFU N00B”
“Er, what?”
“U R SO GAY LOLOLOLOL”
“Do you talk like this to everyone?”
“NO U”
“Sod this, I’m off for a pint.”
“IT’S OVER 9000!!”
…
“Fag.”

The human tester said he couldn’t believe a computer could be so mind-numbingly stupid.

LOLBOT has since been released into the wild to post random abuse, hentai manga and titty shots to 4chan, after having been banned from YouTube for commenting in a perspicacious and on-topic manner.

LOLBOT was also preemptively banned from editing Wikipedia. “We don’t consider this sort of thing a suitable use of the encyclopedia,” sniffed administrator WikiFiddler451, who said it had nothing to do with his having been one of the human test subjects picked as a computer.

“This is a marvellous achievement, and shows great progress toward goals I’ve worked for all my life,” said Professor Kevin Warwick of the University of Reading, confirming his status as a system failing the Turing test.