Ask Jack

I’m thinking of buying a netbook as a second machine for net access and mobile broadband. Should I get one with XP or can I run Linux and not worry about what’s “under the bonnet”?
M Shuttleworth

Jack Schofield Bill Gates mugshotLinux-based netbooks have apparently friendly front ends, but are very demanding if you go any deeper. Linux is like the Mooncup: a nice idea, but messy and not for the squeamish. In fact, Linux can be likened to a Mooncup-using redhaired hippie girlfriend who lives in a house in the country she built herself from twigs and has very strong ideas on how everything should be and has all her original body hair. The sex is fantastic, but only if she thinks the astrological conditions are perfect. And the house has a hand-dug latrine, so she’s propped a toilet bowl on top and thinks that’s “user friendliness.”

No, no. You would far prefer Windows. That’s like a nice normal bottle-blonde girlfriend who has a proper office job and dresses cleanly from Primark and has a sweet smile and lives in a proper bedsit and knows everyone and how to act normally and is accepted in society. She gets headaches a lot and fits of rage where she smashes everything and there’s an odd smell of decaying human flesh coming from the drains and the toilet backs up every now and then filling the entire block with sewage and bits of bodies, but this is entirely normal and nothing to worry about.

My four-year-old PowerBook G4 is putting itself into sleep mode and refusing to wake up. It gives a very unfriendly beep and a black screen when it is turned on. Taking out and replacing the memory will eventually bring it to life.
S Jobs

This is a known fault in the Macintosh line, where the keyboards were dipped in vats of herpes virus before being shipped. Mac OS X is well known to induce symptoms similar to tertiary syphilis in long-term users — ask anyone with Mac-using friends. The G4 has an old PowerPC chip, and is obsolete because Apple has long since moved to Intel chips. So at least you can run a proper operating system like Vista on the new ones.

I have a PC bought from Dell, a proper computer company, and am running Microsoft™ Windows™ Vista™ Service Pack 1. It’s the best operating system ever in the entire universe and I can do anything those annoying Mac users and Linux nerds can. And Windows 7™ will be even better! I don’t have a problem, I just wanted to tell you this to piss off those annoying anti-Microsoft trolls who keep commenting on your Guardian column.
J Schofield

This is an excellent start to a perfect computing experience. Make sure you have only genuine Microsoft software on the system, and don’t ever use Firefox in case your penis shrinks — Internet Explorer 8 guarantees you will get many useful email offers for a greatly increased penis with incredible sperm production capability. Also, Google will invade your privacy and put pictures of you masturbating on Google StreetView, so only use Windows Live Search. Happy surfing!

Palin condemns campaign critics as “big meanies”

WASILLA HIGH SCHOOL, Alaiskah, Friday (NNN) — Governor Sarah Palin has condemned McCain staffers as “unprofessional jerks and big meanies” for spreading nasty stories through their cliquey cronies at Fox News and dumping pig’s blood on her head at the GOP Prom.

Sarah Palin as Carrie at the Republican Prom“They said I di’n’t know where Africa was!” said Mrs Palin. “And that I blew the kegger budget on my new dress! They’re just jealous of my popularity as Homecoming Queen. Look at First Dude in a suit! Isn’t he just dreamy? They just wish they had all the guys falling at their feet. I’m the beauty queen here and you’re not. I had forty-five percent of the country wanting me!”

“You know how Mr McCain said ‘Leave Sarah Palin alone’?” said an anonymous McCain staffer. “Well, he was lying. He was just setting her up for humiliation. Because she deserves it. Bitch.”

“You jerky bitchy meanies!” shouted Palin. “I’ll tell Senator McCain on you! And your bitch meany jerky stuff! See if I don’t! I’ll run in Ted Stevens’ seat and you’ll never kick me out! So there!”

Exasperated, Professor Obama threatened to hold the entire Republican Party back for detention until 2016.

“Sex on the job” policeman blames video games, TV

MANCHESTER, San Andreas, Friday (NNN) — Police constable Gary Bayldon, 48, who admitted having sex with one woman while on duty and propositioning another after she had been arrested, blamed the influence of the Grand Theft Auto video game series and the BBC TV show Life On Mars for corrupting his mind.

MarsBayldon had a poster of Gene Hunt from Life On Mars on his locker and was known for preferring to drive his patrol car using a video controller, while telling those protesting “you so much as belch out of line and I’ll have your scrotum on a barbed wire plate.” His habit of calling himself “Claude,” ramming other cars and shouting “SCORE!” every time he hit a pedestrian also worried fellow officers.

Bayldon met one of the women after arresting her in a domestic incident involving her boyfriend at her home in October 2005. “She was as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot,” said a fellow officer. “It never did click that wasn’t a way to meet a good girlfriend.”

“Despite being corrupted by the evils of the popular media, you as a police officer have very considerable power and the respect of the community you serve in,” Judge Charles Tilling said, passing sentence. “Your use of cheat codes and hacks is an abuse of that trust.”

“You’re not the one who’s going to have to knit himself a new arsehole after twenty-five years of aggressive male love in prison,” said Bayldon.

People “can’t wait for ID cards”

THE MEMORY HOLE, Whitehall, Thursday (NNN) — Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has hailed spectacular, record-breaking public demand for identity cards and will allow people to pre-register within the next few months.

Osama bin Windsor-Mountbatten on the fifty pound note“I regularly have people coming up to me and saying they have nothing to hide and want me personally to have every detail of their lives and pressing ten-pound notes into my hands for their very own precious pink and blue card,” she said, taking another hit of her salvia bong.

The first biometric cards are being issued this month to foreigners who can be forced into it. They will be issued to young people on a voluntary basis from 2010, per every teenager’s dream of having their every movement tracked.

People applying for cards and passports from 2012 will have to provide fingerprints, photographs and a signature, which Ms Smith believes will create a market worth about £200m a year by the “mended windows” theory of economics. “It takes money that was being wasted on food and rent and puts it into circulation for the betterment of the whole economy, particularly our dear friends at EDS Capita Goatse.”

The Home Office is talking to retailers and the Post Office about setting up booths to gather biometric data. “We’re sure everyone would be happy with having their fingerprints taken at Tesco when they get their shopping.”

In her speech, Ms Smith rejected claims handing enrolment over to private firms would compromise security. “We’re introducing new certification authorities and so forth, which will mean that masses of data never leaves our offices and the BNP never gets a database of every immigrant in the country or anything like that.”

High court conservatives favor “fucking strong” indecency rule

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED GODDAMNED STATES, Washington, Tuesday (NNN) — Conservative Supreme Court judges want to uphold an FCC crackdown on the use of salty language during daytime and early evening hours.

Corky in shock!U.S. Solicitor General Gregory G. Goatse said the strict regulation of broadcast TV preserved it as a “safety zone” for families with children. “They’ll never hear the foul shit they’d hear on the Internet, on cable or, God fucking perish, the schoolyard.”

The Federal Communication Commission imposes heavy fines on broadcasters who broadcast any of “shit,” “piss”, “fuck,” “cunt,” “cocksucker,” “motherfucker” or “tits,” though saying them in sequence functions as a First Amendment “cheat code” and is allowed as artistic expression. Broadcasters can be fined more than $325,000 for a single utterance of the F-word, even some fuckhead blurting it out on a live broadcast.

Chief Justice John G. Lemonparty Jr. and Justice Antonin Stilea dominated Tuesday’s argument and strongly supported the FCC.

Stilea said he understood that foul words would be heard at a football or baseball game. “Those assholes ain’t fit for polite company. But TV’s a different fucking one cup of two girls. TV coarsens the public debate, not like that fucking Internet thing. I’m not persuaded by the argument that people are more accustomed to hearing this shit than they were in the past.”

During Tuesday’s argument, only Justice Ruth Bader Tubgirl, waving her naked hairy butt at the courtroom to emphasise her point, suggested the court delve into the First Amendment issues that underlay this dispute. It is “the fucking huge pile of elephant dung in the room,” she said. “I can’t believe this fucking retarded goddamn bullshit.”

“If you can’t say f—,” noted Lenny Bruce, “you can’t say f— the government … ahh … darn it all. To pieces.”

America chooses none of the above

BOOTH OF DESPAIR, Ohio, Tuesday (NNN) — Americans today committed egregious acts of democracy to elect the next failed administration and the next failed Congress.

Voting boothIn a fabulous upset, almost no-one could bring themselves to vote directly for either of the official candidates, instead opting for a write-in vote. Popular write-ins included “the black guy”, “the old guy”, “McCain from 2000” and “Tina Fey.” The seventeen votes for “The Invisible Man” were tallied for Joe Biden. Several tons of Liquid Paper needed to be scraped off voting machines.

The winning candidate turned out to be Noneof Theabove, 46, of Dogshit, Nebraska. Apart from the Presidency, Mr Theabove won 72% of Congressional seats and all Senate seats up for election this year.

Mr Theabove’s policies include drinking, shouting abuse at the television and inchoate existential despair. “He completely embodies the national mood,” said Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, just before applying for a new job flipping burgers.

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.

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Al-Qaeda PR man convicted in fair and speedy trial

NOVEMBER SURPRISE, Pennsylvania, Monday (NNN) — Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, accused of being Osama Bin Laden’s media secretary, has been convicted by a US military jury at the Guantánamo Bay detention centre.

Multi-OsamaHe is the second prisoner to face a war crimes trial under a specially-created system of military commissions that Republican activists and lawyers have praised as working efficiently to reach the correct answer.

“This is the finest justice the military can buy,” said Still-President George W. Bush. “It took us a speedy six years to securely convict him in a military court with a jury of army officers. The world can rest assured we’re not just tidying up loose ends or nothing.”

The goverment was quick to assure the press that this display of American might would cause the cowering, cowardly Al-Qaeda to just give up and go home.

“I want to leave a really good legacy for my successor,” said Mr Bush.

Defence minister refutes claims of inadequate equipment in Afghanistan

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP, Whitehall.co.uk, Saturday (NNN) — Defence and equipment minister Quentin Bailey has said he is “horrified” by accusations the government has been “cavalier” with soldiers’ lives by not giving them proper equipment.

Bow and arrow hunting in Afghanistan“I recently visited Afghanistan,” said Mr Davies, “and 100 per cent of those selected to speak to me said they were now satisfied with their equipment.”

Recent advances include the new EDS Capita Goatse Stinger™ Kill-O-Tron™ Personal Missile, a simple yet effective device consisting of a sharpened point, a long thin shaft and stabilisers at the back. “We use only ‘green’ renewable power for the device, which is propelled using energy from the operator.”

The new “Flintstone” Land Rover, driven by sticking one’s boots through the floor and running, is current standard equipment. The canvas canopy has been especially strengthened for Afghan conditions.

The Ministry has also recently unveiled its new close-combat weapon, the Personal Lithic Projectile, for dispatch at the enemy on a direct hand-to-hand level with comprehensive individual control and discretion. Similar wooden projectiles are also available.

“The notion that the Ministry of Defence is indifferent to the need to get the right kit into the theatre is a travesty of reality. Next you’ll be suggesting that we provide whatever rubbish our PFI suppliers want to sell in the hope of a juicy consultancy after 2010.

“To show our bona fides, we shall be sending Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand over for an entertainment tour. The Satanic Sluts declined, for some reason. Please don’t feel you have to send them back, of course.”

Who is Barack Obama?

YOUR PHONE, America, Saturday — Greetings, fellow American. I am McCain campaign volunteer XQ-17-B-2, calling as a concerned Ferrous-American citizen to warn you of the terrible dangers of voting for Barack Hussein Obama.

Barack Obama doesn’t like being called that. In fact he prefers that you just use his first initial and call him B. Hussein Obama, and face Mecca when you do. Either that or call him “Adolf” like his wife does. In bed.

Megatron the McCain robocallerMr Obama has been palling around with terrorists. He knew Bill Ayers when he was eight, when Ayers was blowing up schools in Hawaii. This is when Ayers ghosted Obama’s first book.

There is a direct correlation between Obama’s rising poll numbers and the fall of the stock market. Check our campaign site, voteforscaryolddudelosingit.com, for the graphs.

There are shocking rumours that Obama may in fact be black. We are still seeking confirmation on this score.

Obama was not born in the United States, his birth certificate has been forged. He is in fact a French Muslim, shipping in illegal aunts from Africa. The electoral office has been taken over by socialist agents of the mainstream media so they don’t care.

But you know the truth, my friend. The Stalinist mainstream media mafia is pushing their boy, their uppity eloquent boy. He’s going to tax away and redistribute your guns. You’ll need a backward “B” carved on your face to collect your mandatory government welfare tofu. Sarah Palin will be sent back to Alaska. Don’t let them get away with it!

I’m John McCain, and I approve this message. Some restrictions may apply. Please leave your vote at the tone. beeeeeeep