Category Archives: Technology

Health, Media, Technology, United Kingdom

Computers turn children into Satan

Leave a comment

PAGE 3, Channel 5, Monday (NTN) — Children spending at least two hours a day in front of a computer monitor have been scientifically proven to turn into rapacious hellspawn, say all newspapers today.

Elle Macpherson reading the Financial Times upside-down, nudeChanging visual information, as opposed to safe and reliable newsprint, has been connected to behavioural problems and conformance disabilities in children.

“Those younger than eighteen are developmentally incapable of distinguishing between the good, wholesome products of accredited journalists and seditious content that may lead to negative thinking,” said researcher Desmond Murdoch of the University of Metro. Repeated exposure to unedited information can lead to “fear and anxiety, sensitization to the suffering of others, increases in assertive attitudes, thoughts and behaviors, social concern and possible voting,” he said. “The best science money can buy proves it.”

Outraged Internet users notified all their friends on Facebook of an email campaign to alert people to this hopelessly biased abuse of scientific publishing, attending a protest against the event by changing their listed location on Twitter and adding a logo to their icon before being distracted by the next shiny thing. Fortunately, none of them had bred or would breed.

“I met a doctor once,” said Mr Murdoch. “Or handed one a cheque with a significant quantity of zeroes on it, anyway.”

Defence, Entertainment, Technology, United States

US military bans icky nasty game

Leave a comment

SLIGHT INDISPOSITION STAR, Communal States of America, Saturday (NTN) — Medal of Honor, a popular video game that lets you play as the unAmerican team, has been banned from US military bases as “insensitive.”

After moral panics, including from UK Defense Secretary Liam Fotherington-Thomas — who issued official condemnation of the game as “horrid” — US military officials decided not to stock the game in the nearly 300 base exchange shops.

“This game is disgusting and violent,” said Maj. Gen. Bruce Casella, “and gives the impression that our actions in Afghanistan involve dangerous weaponry and people getting hurt. We cannot risk such appalling propaganda reaching our lovely soldiers and their delicate psyches.”

General Casella announced a new version of America’s Army, in which US soldiers go to the fictional country of Wartornistan, and sing songs, dance to psychedelic rock and paint flowers on tanks. Usually opium poppies.

Electronic Arts, makers of Medal of Honor, responded with plans to make a version of America’s Army in which you can play either the hippies or the troops at Kent State.

Technology, United States

Activision releases Video Game Hero

Leave a comment

HEY HEY 16K, Need To Know, Saturday (Big K) — Activision has announced its new playalong title, Video Game Hero, in which the player immerses himself in the world of the cultural hero of the twenty-first century: the gamer.

The player enters a virtual parents’ basement and starts shadowing an expert game of Tetris. He works his way up through pretending to pretend to farm an imaginary farm in a virtual version of Facebook to going “yeah, see?” next to a non-player character pimping nonexistent hoes in Grand Theft Auto. Additional modules kill your player and call you “n00b” and “fag.”

But it’s not all video playalong — players have to click to gain additional powerups of Cheetos and Diet Coke. Traps include hygiene points and female players. An Anime Expo subgame requires the player to cosplay a character one-third their avatar’s weight, a foot shorter and the opposite sex.

The game comes with an authentic imitation controller, with all the buttons of a real controller.

Later titles this season include Journalism Hero, in which you follow the bouncing cliches on a screen and try to cut’n’paste the phrases in increasingly bizarre and meaningless combinations to win the most Google hits for the day and keep your job.

However, scientists at the Print Publication and Buggy Whip Institute issued an epistle cautioning that Journalism Hero could lead to short attention spans, shallow emotional affect and blathering buckets of shite over anyone in range.

Technology, United Kingdom

Facebook pits software against child predators

Leave a comment

CYBERSPICE, Goatse-By-Cam, Friday (NTN) — Facebook has announced “sophisticated algorithms” to monitor its users and detect clear signs of paedophilia such as not clicking on ads, not playing Farmville or taking holy orders.

Gay Pope BenedictThe site analyses users’ actions and compares that behaviour to a standardised set of actions, such as intermittently but consistently hitting F5 during working hours and clicking on a sufficient number of O2 advertisements. If behaviour is too far from normal mode, such as insufficient spending on extras in Petville, not installing the “Which Victim Of Facebook Phishing Are You?” application or use of Church Latin, the software will “degrade” the user’s experience, whipping them with sticks and deriding them as the worm they are.

Zoe fucking Hilton, previously of the NSPCC but now much further advanced in the paedo-scaremongering industry with new wizard wheeze the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, called Facebook “a bunch of fucking nonces who smell of altars. If they don’t put a big fucking ‘CEOP’ button at least two hundred pixels on a side on each and every fucking Facebook page, they might as well be taking those kids into the confessional and brutally and graphically sodomising them personally and individually. And that’s Doctor Zoe fucking Hilton. And they won’t give us any fucking money, either. Which is a sure sign that Facebook are a pack of paedos. Paeee-dooos. Cunts.”

Actual children and teenagers, meanwhile, continued to lie about their ages, put up ridiculously Photoshopped pictures of themselves, send homemade porn to each other by text message and stab each other. “Gosh, I hope I don’t see any swear words on that ‘internet’ thing,” said KT Myspce, 14. “That would be horrid.”

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with 400 million users a month, over two or three percent of whom can use a computer without risking serious injury.

Technology, United States

Microsoft releases world’s dumbest smartphone

2 Comments

NO MICROSOFT WAY, Redmond, Wednesday (NTN) — Microsoft has unveiled its new Zune One and Zune Two mobile phones for unusually stupid social-networking enthusiasts in their late teens and early twenties with a higher income than their IQ.

Drunk Facebook girlTeam leader Roz Ho said the company had tried to create a Microsoft gadget that people actually wanted to have, like the XBox 360, but that actually worked properly.

“Get your Friendster and your MySpace!” said Ms Ho. “We studied consumer habits and built the perfect phone for the, uh, ‘social generation,'” she air-quoted, “to make it ‘fab’ and ‘bling’ — I mean, of course, ‘Bing!’ — for people too dumb to work an iPhone to share their lives moment to moment.”

The handset is of simple design for simple people. The keyboard engages caps lock at random and interjects common “chat” acronyms like “LOL” and “OMG” and “RTFM” should too many words in a row be spelt correctly. A breathalyzer automatically switches on the video camera in the event of excessive alcohol consumption. As well as the usual daily crashes, the Blue Screen of Death can be invoked by the user so as to have a suitable excuse not to answer a text. Later revisions of the phone may include making voice calls.

Drunk Facebook girl 2

“We are excited to be the exclusive carrier for this exciting new Microsoft phone in the exciting US,” said John Harrobin, Senior Vice President of Paperclip Filing, Morning Drunkenness and Excited Press Release Quotes at Verizon Wireless. “Because we fucking hate you people. We really do.”

Roz Ho was previously leader of the Microsoft team that lost all the data on everyone’s T-Mobile Sidekick phones last year when the systems team was told not to bother with backups.

Technology, United States

iPhone developer agreement: Eat a bug on camera

Leave a comment

ONE APPLE WAY, Cupertino, Saturday (NTN) — iPhone developers are up in arms at Apple requiring them to use only Apple toolkits, sacrifice a Windows developer at their local Apple Shop every Sunday and maintain an altar to Steve Jobs in their homes. And eat a bug.

Apple is famous for its rigid control over its devices, in its quest to maintain user quality. Developers have worked under increasing restrictions in their attempts to provide quality applications for the iPhone such as I Am Rich, Magic 8 Ball and iFart.

“Not a big deal,” said Mr Jobs in a personal email. “Cross-platform development leads to a worse user experience every time. Also, the video of you eating the bug has to be H.264 QuickTime or your app is out. Extra points for cockroaches.”

“This clause shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the creative freedom developers need,” said iPhone developer Greg Slepak. “Software is an infinitely malleable creation of pure thought. Toolkits, languages and frameworks are only a way to develop something people will want. It’s like telling Rembrandt what brand of brushes he’s allowed to use.”

He paused to chow down on a palmetto bug for his MacBook’s camera. “I’ll tell you, a lot of iPhone developers are seriously considering Android, just as soon as Google develops a suitably exploitable stream of mindless thralls that will generate us a gushing torrent of money.”

“Thanks for the video, Greg,” said Mr Jobs, “but we’ve just added section 3.3.1.a: ‘In particular, when Greg Slepak submits an application, the bucket of cockroaches in the video have to be Apple-branded and genetically engineered in Cupertino.’ So we’ve rejected your application, cancelled your membership and zeroed your account.

“Of course, you’re free to apply again. Or not, if you don’t want a goddamn dumptruck full of money backed up to your house. It’s a free country.”

Asia, Entertainment, Technology

PlayStation 3 trounces Xbox 360 for reliability

Leave a comment

GUTEN TAG, Wii Geht’s, Monday (NTN) — Sony has proudly announced a Playstation 3™ Holiday™, where all users are advised to go outside and play in the sunshine. “Have some fun! Talk to a human! Party like it’s December 31st, 1999! Amazing 3D rendering!”

The company had long battled in public perception with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and its enthusiastic customer base, many of whom were onto their second or third 360. “Their turnover has been incredible. Doing at least as well is a matter of honour.”

Sony has also given the PlayStation Network a well-deserved break, its fifteen subscribers being encouraged to partake of the joys of meditation and deep contemplation of the nature of reality and solitude. “Cancelling your Trophy Data teaches that all is maya, or illusion. Through reliving the 2000s on your PlayStation again, you have been given a fresh chance to attempt to transcend this immaterial plane and reach … Nerdvana.”

The Full-Motion Vacation™ has been extended to developer debug console machines. “There’s enough games. Really, how many games do you need.”

Sony have not announced an end date for the “much-needed” break, but hope people will enjoy it. “Read a book! Watch TV! Count on your fingers! To 8,001,050! Or whatever it is you people do! … How about a nice game of chess?”

Asia, Technology

Apple admits using subtle and precise child labour

1 Comment

PROFESSOR JOBS’ SCHOOL FOR GIFTED YOUNGSTERS, Shenzhen, Sunday (NTN) — In its annual supplier report, Apple has admitted that its Chinese factories have employed children to build its gadgets. “Ones with a particularly refined sense of aesthetics.”

Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. The child workers were found in a facility with high vaulted ceilings, elegantly crafted marble work benches and a classical quartet playing in the background in a corner of the floor. Young geniuses sat in their Aerons and levitated components into place with the powers of the mind, burning the famed Apple logo into the back of the assembled device with but a glance of terrifying but controlled power. Some lunches, with only an hour’s break, would involve wines of less than ten years’ vintage.

Competitors were outraged. “We are shocked, shocked to hear of Apple’s ruthless exploitation of the chilll-drennn,” said Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. “But then, what do you expect when they actually ask their suppliers about this stuff. Don’t ask, don’t tell! That’s what made the 360 great!”

Apple’s Chinese manufacturing facilities were the site of controversy last year when one young worker at Foxconn, who had teleported an iPhone home overnight, was found to have committed suicide by leaping from the top of the building, first breaking his own neck, and tearing out all his own fingernails on the way down. He was found with Apple logos carved into his back, obviously also self-inflicted. “A tragedy,” said the report.

Technology

Jaron Lanier: Why people should pay more attention to me and not Web 2.0

3 Comments

When I noticed myself getting mean online I thought, “Something has gone terribly wrong.” It was obvious the rest of the ARPAnet had a social problem, not just me being some sort of asshole.

My book You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto is ruffling virtual feathers across the ARPAnet. And so it should, because I invented virtual reality. Wikipedia, which is a tissue of lies, says so. Prospect magazine’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals Poll lists me. Also, my hair is much better than yours. And I’m fifty. According to Wikipedia, so I’d better change my birthday.

Today, the web is a bland place. It’s all user-generated content — silly clips on YouTube, spiteful anonymous comments on blogs about my books, endless photographs of people at a bar with their friends or up a mountain with an ironing board. It was much better back in the early days of the ARPAnet, before we let the commercial users on. These words will mostly be read by numb mobs composed of people who are no longer acting as individuals. You know, the peasants. Virtual reality is far more ennobling, but you never hear people talking about that any more.

The ARPAnet only creates banal mashups of old culture. Salvagers picking over a garbage dump. Only the old-world economy of books, films and newspapers creates original content like Lawnmower Man or Battlefield Earth. Everyone knows that real artists have no influences. This stuff the kids are into these days is just noise!

The ARPAnet is also killing music, according to my good friends at the RIAA. Did you know there’s no music in Spain any more? It’s true!

Will we — meaning I — be able to live off our brains in the future, or will we just have to give our creative works away for free? If we can’t live off our brains then we’ll need a form of SOCIALISM just to survive. WIKIPEDIA IS COMMUNISM! Until the Wikipedia Corporation finally builds a good interface, for goggles and power-gloves.

Open source and open content are a cancer. The dogma I object to is composed of a set of interlocking beliefs and doesn’t have a generally accepted overarching name as yet, so I’m going to call it Digital MAOISM, which is COMMUNISM. Update, five years later: Here is a detailed retcon explanation of why I was not just trolling for headlines by calling Wikipedia COMMUNISM, but was speaking precisely and you just weren’t thinking hard enough: [snip 10,000 words]

Also, you should get into virtual reality more.

You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto is published on papyrus scroll and hand-illustrated by monks. You cannot have a copy until you have fought your way up the mountain and proven yourself worthy.

Entertainment, Technology, United Kingdom

Derby commuter hell named after Lara Croft

Leave a comment

SOFT SQUARE, Suburban Bedroom, Friday (NTN) — An impossibly uninteresting stretch of ring road in Derby is to be named after a 3D computer animation with ludicrously-rendered breasts.

Lolo Ferrari’s somewhat disturbing First Life avatarThe new stretch from Osmaston Road to Burton Road will be named after the aristocrat and archaeologist Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, who Toby Gard of Core Design in Derby created by taking an already anatomically-dubious rendering of Neneh Cherry as Tank Girl and then “accidentally” increasing the breasts by 150%, before giggling nasally and nipping off to the bogs to masturbate himself raw.

“Lara Croft was created in Derby,” said councillor Lucy Care, cribbing from Wikipedia, “and deserves to stand with other famous icons of Derby, such as, er, I’ll get back to you.”

89% of automated poll-spamming bots run by fat, unloved, misogynistic and somewhat cat-piss-smelling gamers around the world voted for the name, immortalising Lara Croft in the form of a monument to commuter frustration and carbon monoxide inhalation over wasted hours of human life, dripping away second by second, to taunt the mostly middle-aged males stuck in said traffic with the prospect of perfect, bouncy, computer-generated jubblies, free of any defect or actual personality to get in the way. Then some idiot in a BMW nearly sideswipes you.

“Oh!” said Cllr Care, “Derby County didn’t get relegated from the second first division to the third first division last year! That’s pretty good, isn’t it? Hold on, I’ll keep looking.”

“No, actually, Derby County are shit,” said a councillor for Swansea. “We kicked their arses 1-0 last weekend. And we’re going to have an Internet poll to name our new bypass offramp AOL Blockage, Slashdot Chicane, Numa Numa Nook, Goatse Gap or Tubgirl Pass. And cachau bant ti cachu mes, as we say to the tourists from Derby looking for local colour.”