All posts by David Gerard

Finance, Technology, United Kingdom, United States

Grand Theft Auto: Wall Street released to controversy

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BELTWAY, Liberty City, Sunday (NNN) — The new Wall Street Wars version of controversial video game Grand Theft Auto will let players deal sub-prime mortgages to earn in-game cash.

GTA: Wall Street is a significant advance in game technology, bringing the famous Red Ring Of Death to Microsoft Excel and thus giving PC gamers the advantages long enjoyed by Xbox 360 gamers.

Wall StreetIn the end game, being run as a Live Multiplayer Weekend from Friday through to tomorrow, the final “boss” is the US Treasury. Defeating this character depends on the player’s posse putting enough game points into play to crash the whole game if they are killed. Success earns the player and his team a 700 billion point bonus.

Controversy surrounds a download available on the net called “Hot Latte,” which is said to unlock secret insider trading scenes. However, the final edition of the game is unlikely to feature explicit criminality, sticking only to the socially-sanctioned variety.

Dan Houser, chief of game developer Rockstar, said: “Our games are intended as entertainment and relaxation for mature adults, not children. GARÇON! MORE COKE AND HOOKERS OVER HERE! CHOP CHOP, S’IL VOUS PLAÎT MATE! We are of course very happy to continue to work with all responsible bodies on these matters, as previously.” He then proceeded to snort an entire gram in one hit.

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Technology, United Kingdom

Egham is “spam capital” of UK

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LAGOS, Surrey, Friday (NNN) — Email filtering company MessageLabs reports that Egham, Surrey, on the suburban outskirts of London, is the town that receives the most spam in Britain.

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

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

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

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

Politics, United Kingdom

Identity cards introduced for those foreign Johnnies, not you

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DEPARTMENT OF CONTRACTING, Pfi, Thursday (NNN) — The Home Office today unveiled the new British identity card, to be issued to non-EU citizens in place of visas. “This is vitally important,” said the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. “LOOK! TERRORISTS!”

The card bears the subject’s picture, name, date of birth, visa status, working status, place of birth, gender, mother’s maiden name, favourite TV show and football team and preferences in pornography. The biometric details will be the subject’s middle fingerprints. An RFID transponder and smart card chip will aid in the efficient reading and distribution of the subject’s details.

UK Loyalty CardThe card will be compulsory for foreign nationals. All terrorists and illegal immigrants will be required to obtain one and show it to policemen, council officials or dog catchers on request. From 2009, cards will be issued to new workers at airports, as forcing them upon existing staff may cause everyone to quit.

“The card evokes the fundamentally British nature of identity cards,” said Ms Smith, “as shown by the EU load of bull and stars and the absence of the words ‘Britain,’ ‘United Kingdom’ or similar. It’s the first UK identity card since the Second World War, so will help us all pull together in that jolly good old Blitz spirit.”

“We wholeheartedly support this move, for the good of Britain,” said Nick Hitler (no relation) of the British National Party. Reports that the BNP had put out a bounty on a “lost” data disk listing the names and addresses of every immigrant in the country are unconfirmed.

Ministers hope to roll out the scheme to everyone in the country by 2011, since they do not anticipate being summarily ejected from Parliament in the 2010 elections. In any case, EDS and Capita will still be paid.

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United Kingdom

Police “rudeness” complaints up 25%

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MENEZES, Stockwell, Thursday (NNN) — Complaints of police rudeness and impoliteness have risen 25% in the last year, the Independent Police Complaints Commission says.

Police toiletOthers complain of police refusing to accept that a crime has been committed. “The bounder failed to doff his cap or call me by my full title,” said arrogant over-monied young twat Otis Ferry, 25. “He even threatened me with a charge of ‘wasting police time’ when I insisted he report his own atrociously oikish behaviour to his knighted superior! I blame the socialists in power.”

Figures released earlier this year showed police carried out 955,000 stop-and-searches in 2006/07, up 9%. Black people are seven times more likely to be stopped as white people. “Brown ones should just stay inside and keep away from tube stations,” said commissioner Sir Ian Blair, “particularly if they’re in the force themselves.”

The Met said it welcomed complaints. “On slow nights we make paper planes from them, cover them in hairspray, set them alight and launch them from the roof,” said Sir Ian.

“They should save their rudeness for those Johnny Foreigners with their new Johnny Foreigner ID cards,” said Brenda Busybody, 77 (IQ), of East Cheam, “not decent British folk like us. I pay my licence fee!”

In better news, reported crimes are down 25% on last year yet again, this apparently being in no way connected to closed police stations or point-blank refusals by police to accept that the bleeding person limping in with torn clothes and no money is a victim of crime rather than, e.g., a random vagrant just after a warm cell for the night.

Entertainment, Technology, United Kingdom

Sony-Ericsson, Nokia unveil unlimited music services

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DAS BUNKER, British Phonographic Industry, Wednesday (NNGadget) — Sony-Ericsson has announced PlayNow Plus, a new plan for unlimited “DRM-free” music downloads on phones.

“Pay, er, PlayNow Plus is completely unlimited, covers all major labels, no DRM, get all you want any time you like,” said spokesdrone Mobile Salestwat. “This is the biggest deal in mobile music ever! Of course, it’ll only play on your phone, for the duration of the contract, all songs then disappearing. Well, just a little DRM. Honest.”

Theatrophone and chainNokia was quick to strike back. “Our Comes With Music plan is a simple, compelling user experience with first class music-enabled devices, and really doesn’t have any DRM at all, unlike those rapacious Sony bastards,” said spokesdrone Mobile Salestwat. “We pay you to take the songs! And you keep all of them! Forever! Until the end of the contract. And you can play them on your phone and your computer! Through the Nokia software. So only a wafer-thin piece of DRM. Hardly any.”

“Our plan is so much better,” said Sony. “Songs from our service randomly come up to you offering you CASH CASH CASH, a lovely fruit basket, a backrub and a blowjob. The rootkit our software installs on your computer, which crashes it once an hour and records everything you do for our marketing department and sends a gigabyte a day of Nigerian spam, is for your comfort and convenience. And absolutely no DRM. We prefer the term digital consumer enhancement.”

“Your plan’s mother was a pigdog!” said Nokia. “Have you ever tried using an Ericsson phone? Worst. Interface. Ever. Our plan beams the entire catalogues of all six, er, five, I mean four major labels, plus the complete works of the remaining Hollywood studios, directly into your brain’s pleasure centre! And also gives you huge and spectacular breasts! Or penis! Or both! And your little dog too! It does burn out chunks of your cerebral cortex when your contract ends, for the protection of the artists and the continued development of musical culture. So you might want to be sure you’re on time with your upgrade. But it’s not DRM. As such.”

Both services offer approximately five million songs, though 98% of downloads to date have been of the track “Bloody Irritating Piece Of Synthetic R&B” by MC Sewermouth, purchased on stolen phones and played at top volume by those teenagers in the back seat of the bus.

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Health, Science, United States

Genetically modified food is a “taste sensation”

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THE LAB, Borg Cube, Tuesday (NotScientist) — Dedicated Monsanto geneticists, working for the good of humanity and a badly-written space filler in the newspapers, have produced a fabulous array of valuable new cash crops with 100% all-natural artificial flavors that developing countries can grow to pay the interest on their ludicrous debts to the International Monetary Fund.

Cylon Number Six“Bananas that taste like banana flavoring!” said Cylon Number Six of Monsanto Public Relations. “Strawberries that taste like strawberry flavoring! Brewed coffee that tastes like instant! I was really disappointed the time I ate a strawberry as a kid, it didn’t taste anything like strawberry flavor. Now your kids will never have to suffer the same way.”

The wholly natural artificial flavoring builds on examples from nature: bacon with the magical taste of bacon, Quorn with the magical taste of Quorn and Budweiser with the magical taste of urine. The latter example also produces urine with the magical taste of Budweiser.

Some flavors for specialist niches were not a success. “Ice cream that tastes like vanilla dental dams turned out too gritty for the lesbian market, probably because no-one actually uses them.” Authentic™ ManJuice™ chewing gum for the gay market was considered too “outré” at this time, as no-one could actually bring themselves to use the word “tasteless.”

The company looks forward to continuing to feed the world at very reasonable rates on heavily patented non-breeding seed. “Without us, the poor would starve. Starve, you hear? Naturally grown Big Macs with the magical taste of a New Jersey chemical vat will save the world. Anyone who hates Monsanto hates humanity and probably turns tortoises upside-down in the desert,” said Six, nibbling on a Red Dye No. 1 fruit fresh off the vine. “We do what we must because we can.”

Technology, United States

Free Software Foundation announces GNUPhone

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DEFINED FREEDOM, Gnuisance, Monday (NNGadget) — The Free Software Foundation (NASDAQ: RMS) has announced the Free Software alternative to the evil, DRM-infested, locked-down, defective-by-design iPhone: the GNUPhone.

The key technical innovation of the GNUPhone is that it is completely operated from the command line. “What could be more intuitive than a bash prompt?” said seventeen-year-old Debian developer Hiram Nerdboy. “The ultimate one-dimensional desktop! Just type dial voice +1-555-1212 --ntwk verizon --prot cdma2000 --ssh-version 2 -a -l -q -9 -b -k -K 14 -x and away you go! Simple and obvious!”

GNUPhoneThe phone will also serve as a versatile personal media player. “I can play any .au file or H.120 video with a single shell command! The iPod could never measure up to this powerful ease of use.” Video is rendered into ASCII art with aalib. “If blocky ASCII teletype softcore pinups were good enough for 1970s minicomputer operators, they’re good enough for you. Respect your elders.”

The KDE project will be bringing its next-generation KDE 4 desktop to the GNUPhone. “you can flip, twirl, dice, blend, fold, spindle and mutilate your terminal windows to your heart’s content,” said developer Aaron Seigo. “look at that cool effect! any complaint that basic functions don’t actually work is ignorant of the intrinsic beauty of the plasma api and is just more fud spread by haters like stevie ray vaughan-nichols and novell corporation.”

Actual successful voice calls are expected by 2011 to 2012. Regulatory approval is proving problematic in the corrupt, corporate-captured US environment. “The FCC said that if we dared switch on this, uh, ‘piece of shit’ in a built-up area in its present form, they’d break all our fingers with a fourteen-pound cluebat,” said Nerdboy. “They’re obviously shilling for Apple, Nokia and Microsoft.”

The second version of the GNUPhone will run EMACS on the HURD kernel and be operated by writing eLisp macros on the fly. “It’s the clearest, most elegant and natural operating environment anyone could conceive of,” said Nerdboy. “Really, we’re not out to destroy Apple; that will just be a completely unintentional side effect.”

Entertainment, United Kingdom

Famous person’s son in jail

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OUT WITH THE CHAPS, Hooray Club, Sunday (NNN) — Otis Ferry, son of singer Bryan Ferry, has been refused bail on charges of robbery, assault, perverting the course of justice and being an arrogant over-monied young twat.

Chav Basil BrushHis mother, former model Lucy Helmore, was worried that he was “without any clean socks and shirts” in prison, and that he will not be able to cope with confinement because he “loves the outdoors so much,” particularly the bits where foxes are ripped apart by dogs.

Mr Ferry was charged with assaulting a hunt monitor and stealing her camera and keys and threatening a prosecution witness on these charges, as well as being an arrogant over-monied young twat in general.

He has had visits from his equally talented and worthwhile friends Pixie Geldof, Jade Jagger, the Allen kids and one of the lesser McCartneys.

His mother added: “I think this whole thing has been politically motivated.” A spokesfox for the Metropolitan Red Fox Association called such claims of a fit-up “scurrilous” and denied allegations of a six-month surveillance operation by undercover urban foxes. “Is it ’cos I is red?” he added belligerently.

Politics, United Kingdom

Abi Titmuss marked as next Labour leader

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PAGE 3, Channel 5, Friday (NNN) — Abi Titmuss has been flagged as the hot prospect for leader of the Labour Party in the leadup to the Annual Conference.

Prime Minister Abi TitmussThe party has searched for a suitable candidate who is actually ideologically distinguishable from any of New Labour. Ms Titmuss’ cheeky grin and cheerful attitude are expected to resonate with voters, as are her breasts. She is also considered ideal for a job whose expected term is about fifteen minutes.

“As long as you can ’ave a larf, innit,” said the future Prime Minister and former nurse, television host, author, actress and woman foolish enough to have shagged John Leslie.

Should her 2010 bid for re-election fail, she is expected to run for Mayor of London in 2012, getting more magazine coverage than even Ken Livingstone managed. “Boris is still a bigger tit, though.”

Nuts is expected to replace The Sun as the official UK governmental journal of record. Gordon Brown’s name will also be legally changed by party vote to Gordon Arsemess.

Entertainment, Technology, United States

Apple declares: “OK, we’re evil”

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CUPERTINO, Transylvania, Friday — After bricking unlocked iPhones, kicking applications off the iPhone store that might even slightly compete with iTunes in the far future and filing a wave of patents on basic well-known computer science, Apple Inc. today filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring that it was openly adopting Evil™ as a corporate policy.

Evil Steve Jobs“Fuck it,” said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, “we’re evil. But our stuff is sooo good. You’ll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It’s shiny and it’s pretty and it’s cool and it works. It’s not like you’ll go back to a Windows Mobile phone. Ha! Ha!”

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was incensed at the news. “Our evil is better than anyone’s evil! No-one sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Where’s your antitrust trial, you polo-necked bozo? We’ve worked hard on our evil! Our Zune’s as evil as an iPod any day! I won’t let my kids use a lesser evil! We’re going to do an ad about that! I’ll be in it! With Jerry Seinfeld! Beat that! Asshole.”

“Of course, we’re still not evil,” said Sergey Brin of Google. “You can trust us on this. Every bit of data about you, your life and the house you live in is strictly a secret between you and our marketing department. But, hypothetically, if we were evil, it’s not like you’re going to use Windows Live Search. Ha! Ha! I’m sorry, that’s my ‘spreading good cheer’ laugh. Really.”