Fake News
written by turg
on April 21, 2000
from the why-didn't-humorix-think-of-this-first? dept.
Dear Reader,
You've probably noticed that at the bottom of the Slashdot home page there is a disclaimer that reads "All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster."
My newly formed company, The Poster, Inc., is pleased to be recognized as the rightful owner of the comments on Slashdot. We are preparing a generous offer to allow Slashdot to continue to publish our property on the World Wide Web or in book form, for a very small ongoing royalty fee -- while we explore ways to market our property in other media.
Furthermore, our subsidiary, the Their Respective Owners Co., is preparing a contract to license the use of the trademarks attributed to them in the disclaimer referenced above.
Some of you may have noticed that the disclaimer on the comments pages indicates that comments are owned by "whoever posted them" and you have probably puzzled over this apparent contradiction between this disclaimer and the one on the front page. We are aware of the confusion this has caused, and are taking steps to correct this. We can assure you that ownership of all the copyrights and trademarks referred to here has been consolidated under the ownership of our companies.
I hope this message has been helpful in clearing up the unanswered questions about the ownership of the intellectual property which has been compiled to create Slashdot. Please hesistate to contact us with any questions.
Sincerely,
W.P. Them
CEO, The Poster, Inc.
P.S. We've recently hired Mrs. Edna Graustein, of Kansas City, Mo., to our newest company division, All Rights Reserved Corp. As you probably know, Mrs. Graustein currently holds all rights to comments posted on Kuro5hin.org. This acquisition will establish The Poster, Inc. as the leading source for innovation in the field of intellectual property laws.
Fake News
written by Dave Finton
on April 19, 2000
from the we're-not-talking-about-hot-dogs dept.
Unrelated Stock News: Dwight Erlenmeyer's Rear Raises $400,000,000 in successful IPO; "Profits, my ass" declares CEO
Today investors, analysts, and bathroom attendents all across Silicon Valley were up in arms over the start of what many people referred to as "Weenie Wars". Weenies working over at the Redmond, WA campus of Microsoft Headquarters(tm) threw down the gauntlet Thursday when it was discovered that a DLL contained the Microsoft Certified Encrypted (the text was reversed) string "Netscape engineers are weenies!"
"This is War," declared Microsoft Chairman Bill "I'm The Biggest Weenie Of Them All" Gates. "We will destroy Netscape yet. Damn you, Steve Case!"
Netscape weenies, who also share some overlap with the Mozilla weenies, welcomed the challenge and have already taken measures to ensure a successful couterattack. "The Mozilla Weenie Team have not taken this lying down," said Steve Case, Head Weenie of AOL, Time Warner, CNN, and the remaining northern half of the Western hemisphere. "The open source nature of our browser gives us more than enough firepower to humiliate Gates' pet weenies into submission!" Case then went on a taunting spree, pointing at the television camera and adressing Gates personally "I own CNN, I own CNN! Thhhpppppppt!!!" while sticking his toungue out.
Eric Raymond, gun-toting flute-playing weenie, told reporters that "While I was looking through the Mozilla source code, I saw that someone inserted the phrase 'Billy is a weenie! Nyah nyah nyah' at the top, and below that a ASCII text image of a guy mooning the reader. This was inserted at the beginning of every source file. It was frikkin' hilarious!"
"It wasn't just a scanned-in image, either," said Raymond with awe in his voice. "Someone actually took the time to create the ASCII image with his bare hands. It was beautiful: Art at its highest!" Raymond then wiped a tear from his eye.
Slashdot weenies are, as usual, raising a maelstorm over the matter. The entire internet experienced the brunt of the force of the Slashdot Effect. It was a day network administrators around the world would never forget.
"My God! The router! This purple flame shot out of it! It was horrible!" screamed George Guy, an weenie employee of UUNet, now undergoing rehabilitation. "I hadn't seen anything like it since that Monika Lewinsky thing came out! Oh wait, there was that DeCSS thing. My insurance company has threatened not to pay for my phychiatrist's medical bills; it's in the thousands this week alone!"
Richard Stallman, a weenie who for some odd reason has this thing with large hairy mammalian herding weenie animals, declared this day a "blow against our natural right to share with our neighbors. In fact, last week my neighbor Frank said 'Um, Richard, thanks for the free GNU/Linux CD, but I don't even own a computer. I appreciate the thought, but please don't come over again.' See? This is obviously a nefarious plot to undermine our freedoms!"
No one knows how this Silicon Valley soap opera will last. God willing, someone out there will put those responsible out of their misery soon. "These employees must be punished. They violated the laws set forth by their superiors," said marketing weenie Jill Smith. "They will be dealt with in the appropriate manner." She then pushed an evil button that did evil things to handsome international spies with numerical aliases (whose boss has an alphabetical one).
"This is a highly critical and relavent issue in world affairs. Things like this could make or break the technology market, and thus the world market. Let us be thankful that important developments in the computer industry are guided by infantile, hostile emotions over trivialities. Where would the world be otherwise?" said some guy who was obviously a communist idealist and a proponent of the subversive "freeware" movement, whereby "hackers" hope to make multibillion-dollar companies actually responsible for their actions.
What does this mean for Humorix readers? Absolutely nothing.
Fake News
written by James Baughn
on April 17, 2000
from the bill-gates-didn't-see-this-coming dept.
Back in the 80s, businessmen hoped that computers would usher in a paperless office. Now in the 00s, businessmen are hoping that paper will usher in a computerless office. "We've lost more productivity this last decade to shoddy software," explained Mr. Lou Dight, the author of the bestselling book, "The Dotless Revolution". "By getting rid of computers and their infernal crashes, bluescreens, and worst of all, Solitaire, the US gross domestic product will soar by 20% over the next decade. It's time to banish Microsoft crapware from our corporate offices."
Lou Dight is the champion of a new trend in corporate America towards the return of pen-and-paper, solar calculators, old IBM typewriters, and even slide rules. If "dotcom" was the buzzword of the 90s, "dotless" is the buzzword of the 21st Century.
We at Humorix took a tour of Bob's Mobile Home Factory, the first company to hop Dight's Dotless bandwagon and become computer-free. Productivity and profits have soared since the company instituted its "Microsoft-free, Crash-free, Solitaire-free, Headache-free Policy" last year. The owner, Bob Hunter, showed us his office where the only electronics to be seen include a Selectric II typewriter, a digital clock, and an old fax machine.
"I could write a whole book of horror stories I've experienced while working with computers," said Bob. "I don't fear Hell now that I've lived through Microsoft Windows. The move to a computer-free working environment was the best thing we've done since we switched to manufacturing double-wide trailers instead of single-wides."
Employee morale and productivity has increase substantially. One worker beamed, "I can type out a memo on this typewriter -- or heaven forbid, write it out longhand -- much faster than I could with Word. Especially when Word would always crash right in the middle of saving to disk."
The changeover wasn't without problems, however. "I had to give everybody a deck of cards so they could play Solitaire during their coffee breaks," said Bob. "They started suffering withdrawl symptoms without it. Oh, and I installed some flatscreen panels in the hallways that would randomly display a Blue Screen of Death or other common error. This way employees will still feel at home."
We of course asked why the company didn't adopt Linux instead of eliminating all computers. "Oh, Linux has some advantages over Windows, but I don't feel like editing a textfile everytime I want to do something new. I still haven't quite bounced back from that first horrible experience I had with vi. No, Linux wasn't the answer, and neither was BeOS, Mac OS, *BSD or OS/2. Computer operating systems all suck. Pen-and-paper is the best platform as far as I'm concerned."
Bob's isn't the only company to go dotless. Indeed, Lou Dight has founded a consulting firm to help other businesses re-enter the Old Economy. Ironically, Dights's company is expected to IPO next week. He admitted, "Well, my company has turned a profit, so I don't expect the IPO to do very well. These days investors only touch unprofitable companies like Amazon, but hopefully my Dotless Revolution will end all that."
Fake News
written by Matthew "This Nickname Contains No Typsos" Adair
on April 15, 2000
from the ProfitKeeper-missiles-in-Gates-Square dept.
Recently Humorix mentioned rumors that Microsoft had launched its ProfitKeeper missiles at the Space Station Mir in response to the purchase of the aging USSR space relic by Rob Malda. However, records from our Spy Satellite Number 2 tell a different story: the missiles overshot the station by several thousand miles. Not because of a BSoD, but because Microsoft is engaging in a darker, more insidious plan.
Our correspondent and Mir maintenance chief Pitr tells us, "It seems that Microsoft's missiles are not missiles at all. They are proton boosters stolen from the RSA painted to look like Microsoft ProfitKeeper(tm) warheads. According to our radar, these proton boosters carry what appears to be the components of a space station."
The Vast Spy Network was able to acquire an internal Microsoft email giving us deeper insight into Chairman Bill's plans.
Subject: Windows 2001 -- An Innovative Odyssey
From: William H. Gates III, boss@mail.microsoft.com
To: Space Station 1.0 Development Team Members
X-Sender: Mozilla 6.0 (Rat Head Linux)
X-Security-Notice: This memo is confidential! Do NOT let it outside of HQ! Do not -- I repeat -- DO NOT allow this to fall into the hands of Humorix's Vast Spy Network... We all know what happened the last time they intercepted an internal document!
Dear Microserfs,
Recent events in the Linux world are disturbing. Not only did Mr. Malda purchase Mir, but Mr. Eric "Internal Memo Thief" Raymond is working on some project called GNU/Conquest, apparently a weapon of mass destruction. Let's not forget about the whole GNUist Conspiracy problem [Editor's Note: There is no conspiracy]. Finally, the barrage of anti-trust lawsuits courtesy of the "Justice" Department is only going to get worse. I'm really getting worried about the security of Microsoft. It's time that we start to think big. Very big. Much bigger than battleships.
We must take to the stars to ensure Microsoft Innovation(tm) will continue into the next Millennium(tm). That is why I suggest we build a massive orbital command center to assist the defense of this establisment. We currently have the systems to do this: Our DirectSquish(tm) weapons are easily adaptable to space, and I have recently made *ahem* arrangements... for access to high power rockets.
We must build this space station. We cannot allow the only station in space to be running an open-source [Editor's Note: Richard Stallman would like to remind you that the correct term is "free software"] operating system. That would be a disgrace to everything we hold dear. We must prove, once and for all, that American Ingenuity(tm) will always overcome evil Russian and Finnish excuses for "technology".
[Technical details snipped for brevity]
Yours in capitalism,
William Gates
Rob Malda posted an article on Slashdot stating that "maybe that Anti-Krul Laser(copyleft) is a good idea after all. Supervirii [sic] weapons are starting to sound quite intresting [sic] too..." Eric Raymond has been quoted as yelling, "GNU/Conquest is not a weapon of mass destruction! It's an RPG! I swear! Compared to ActiveNuke, it is completely benign!"
The RSA has demanded retribution for the stolen proton boosters, ordering, "We demand payment for our stolen hardware or we shall send the Russian Army to crush your puny stuffed-shirt office workers!"
A representative of the fabled "GNUist" organization told us, "Mr. Malda has little to worry about. We have been working in secret with Transme... wait, you weren't supposed to hear that. Ignore everything I just said. We must remind you once again that There Is No Conspiracy. At least none we can speak of at the moment."
Fake News
written by James Baughn
on April 13, 2000
from the does-this-gesture-involve-a-certain-finger? dept.
NORTH CAROLINA -- Jon Katz is ranting about WAVE, a program designed to reduce school violence by encouraging school tattling. However, most people are ignoring a similar campaign called GESTURE (Getting Employees Stimulated To Undermine Responsible Ethics) to remove ethics and social responsibility from corporations. "School violence is unwanted. Corporate ethics is also unwanted. It's time to take a stand against employees who let profit take a back seat to values," said a spokesman for Blackerton, the corporation behind the new campaign.
Blackerton has established a site at GestureAmerica.com for the new program. Employees who suspect co-workers or bosses of unusual behavior can post anomymous tips at the site and possibly win prizes. GESTURE defines unusual behavior as "anything that might lead to the inappropriate spread of ethics, morality, social responsibility, fairness, virtue, integrity, or honor into the for-profit corporate environment."
According to the GESTURE site, corporate ethics is a growing problem, much like a weed. "All corporations have a duty to their shareholders to make as much money as possible," states one online pamphlet titled, "Tip Your Cap to Capitalism". "Anything that gets in the way of profit must be eliminated. Do you think Bill Gates would be the richest man today if he actually cared about values? Yeah, right!"
Among the warning signs the GESTURE campaign wants employees to be on the lookout for include:
- Donating company money to charities for purposes other than tax-writeoffs.
- Adopting Open Source software. Said one GESTURE spokesweasal, "The idealism behind the Free Software Foundation has no place in business. Linux, Apache, and other 'free speech' software is a subversive meme that could destroy everything Adam Smith held dear. Anyone who is connected with this virus in any way should be re-educated as swiftly as possible to prevent values from creeping into business."
- Using phrases like "that's not right", "I can't with good conscious do that" or "I have principles to live up to" at business meetings. Such people are obviously using other critieria besides money in making decisions, a definite no-no.
- Displaying a concern for the environment, for human rights, or for any other non-profit-making cause. "If a manager starts complaining about the sweatshops the company operates in El Salvador, it's time to fire him before he ruins everything," says one GESTURE pamphlet.
- Embracing competition to help make products better and cheaper for consumers. "We just can't have that," a GESTURE staffer said. "Eliminating competition is not evil. What's good for Microsoft is good for the country."
The GESTURE Campaign will be running a series of nationally aired TV commercials promoting their cause and holding up such corporations as Microsoft, Nike, and the MPAA as corporate roles models.
Feature
written by Ewout Stam
on April 11, 2000
from the BSoD-on-your-tv dept.
Thanks to the diligent efforts of our Vast Spy Network(tm), we've been able to obtain a pre-pre-pre-alpha prototype of the X-Box, Microsoft's new gaming console designed to monopolize the console market. We spent several hours of quality research time playing the games included with the unit, although, in the end, we really weren't that impressed with it.
When we first obtained the X-Box, we wanted to know what underlying platform it used. Recently several Anonymous Cowards speculated on Slashdot that the system was actually based on the X Window System. "The X-Box is a box with X on it. QED," one argued. Another AnonCow rebutted, "No, the X-Box runs a modified Win2K kernel. Bill Gates is purposefully using the name X-Box to attract and deceive Linux fans. It's all a conspiracy."
After setting up the X-Box in the Humorix Lab of Doom(tm) it was immediately clear that it was running Windows 2000. The blue screen was a dead giveaway.
Eventually we were able to successfully boot the X-Box and fire up several pre-installed games, including:
Penguin Bash
As a Microserf character, you must hunt and squish penguins, Linux longhairs, Linux converts, anti-trust lawyers, and men wearing red hats. After completing each level, you must defeat a Boss, such as Richard M. Stallman (who rants and raves about "GNU/Linux", causing your eardrums to explode), Eric S. Raymond (who is quite a skilled Geek With Guns), Tux Penguin (who can charge at speeds in excess of 100 MPH), the BSD Daemon (who holds an extremely sharp pitchfork), and other assorted Open Source characters.
After killing each Boss you receive a Borg implant with additional powers, including "Assimilating Linux Converts", "Slinging FUD At Your Opponents", and "Firing Competition-Keeper Missiles". Levels include The Bazaar, The Anti-Trust Court, The Linux User Group Meeting, and The Command Line.
Age of Monopolies
This is a simulation game in which you are the president of your own computer business. Starting with a small store located in your basement, you gain knowledge and skill by selling Microsoft products. When your knowledge reaches a certain level, you are able to sell the store and raise enough capital to buy expensive programming software (i.e. Visual Batchfile and ActiveEdlin) to open up a software design firm.
Then you can set up your own network using cheap software such as FreeBS(o)D. If your network becomes popular enough, you can have your own kind of Internet called MSN (My Slow Notwork).
Eventually, when you become the World's Richest Monopolist®, you are accused of violating archaic anti-trust laws by the Department of Injustice. You'll have to talk, talk, bullshit, talk, delay software release dates, talk, talk, bullshit, and give hype-laden speeches. The game is incredibly difficult to win from this point on.
Valley Rally
In this game you race through the streets of Silicon Valley, hoping to avoid the traffic and not run over any Venture Capitalists. Some of the vehicles you can drive include:
- The Microsoft Darn-fast Open-roofed Smooth-feel-car (MS-DOS)
- The FreeB(u)S-D
- The Real Mach3 Speed-thing (RMS)
- The Windows (a 100% glass car in the form of one big window)
- The X-windows (a 100% glass car with Xs on it. This car is fast and cheap, but not optimized for every track. It will need a reconfiguration for every new track it comes along)
This game's playability was ruined by an insidious bug that affected the vehicles, particularly "The Windows". Braking and throttling at the same time invariably caused the car to change into a blue color and come to a sudden halt and start beeping endlessly. We also discovered that when driving The Windows, the stop lights on the track would sometimes turn blue (with white unreadable letters) instead of green, preventing the car from advancing. A well-placed Microsoft source tells us that this is a normal "feature" and will be included in the final version.
Solitaire
Of course, no Microsoft product would be complete without Solitaire, FreeCell, and Minesweeper. If the X-Box does become successful, we suspect that the total productivity of the world will drop by at least 5% as everyone wastes countless hours playing Solitaire in front of their TV.
The X-Box does include the capability to take screenshots, but they are dumped to an unusable proprietary file format. It's our understanding that this format will only be readable in Office 2003 (Both the X-Box and Office 2003 are expected to be released in 2005).
Overall, we were not that thrilled with the X-Box. Of course, the big "Microsoft" logo on the front is a definite minus. Also, we really can't take any gaming platform seriously unless it has the ability to play XBill.
Fake News
written by Matthew "He beat me to the punch!" Adair
on April 10, 2000
from the geeks-(pause)-in-(pause)-space! dept.
In a suprising move yesterday, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda announced that he and the rest of the Slashdot crew had purchased the Russian Space Station Mir for a mere $5,000,000. A firestorm broke out on Slashdot shortly afterwards, with people roasting each other alive in the debate as to why Taco Boy had bought the aging space station.
In the live episode of "Geeks in Space" that ran shortly after the purchase, Rob said that, "with all of the money we got from VA Linux and Andover for selling out to them, we were able to contact the Russian Space Agency and offer them a few million for the thing." When asked why he bought the station, Rob only said, "Well, look at it this way... we need a way to defend ourselves from the Krul invasion... or we could broadcast Geeks in Space from space. Hmmm... an orbiting Mexican restaurant might be nice. Actually, we don't really know what we're gonna do with it."
Humorix contacted the Russian government to see if we could get any additional info. In particular, we wanted to know about the low 5 million dollar price tag and, more importantly, if the Russians would still accept a higher bid. Humorix stock rose 5/8 points yesterday, so now we've got money to burn. We already have a fleet of spy satellites. A space station, no matter how run-down, would be a nice addition.
We spoke with RSA Director Vladimir Chenkov, who flatly stated that the deal had already been made and that we were out of luck. He did mention that Iridium might still be for sale cheap, though. When we asked why Russian had been so quick to sell Mir, he answered, "You see, we had this worthless piece of [Russian expletive] floating in space. When some American idiot... er, buyer, was interested in acquiring it, we didn't hesitate. Five million dollars might seem like a bargain to Mr. Malda, but we'll be able to use the windfall to pay our salaries this year. Our employees will be happy to see a paycheck."
Comments on Slashdot ranged from "HAHA! Taco Boy is an idiot for buying that piece of *%$#! (Score: -1, Flamebait)" to "How does he think he's gonna get to Mir? It's not like the Geek Compound has a launch pad... or does it? (Score: 2, Insightful)" to "You fools! Haven't you seen the list of people signing up for rides? I swear I saw some GNUist party members in there! It's part of their conspiracy! (Score: -100, Paranoid [There Is No Conspiracy])"
Immediately after the announcement rumors circulated that Microsoft intended to launch a nuclear missile at Mir from their subterranean Redmond command center. We suspect this rumor is false. After all, Microsoft's command center is located in the Nevada desert, not Redmond.
Cartoon
drawn by James Baughn
on April 9, 2000
from the innovative-ways-of-fighting-the-monopoly dept.
Last week's ruling against Microsoft generated much cheering and partying within Linux circles, but now it's time to settle down and decide what to do with the Evil Empire. While the best remedy would be to aim a missile towards Redmond, Washington, such a plan might raise a few small legal issues.
One remedy (among others) that we here at Humorix propose is a Truth In Advertising requirement for all Microsoft product promotions. An advertising clause similar to the one in the old BSD license would be imposed. The Microsoft Marketing Department (motto: "We make lawyers look like angels") would then be required to list the names of every company that has contributed (willingly or unwillingly) to the Microsoft product being advertised.
In order to avoid typical Microsoft cheating, such credits must be printed in a font that could actually be read by an average person without experiencing severe eye damage. Of course, the amount of paper needed to place even one print advertisement would consume vast tracks of rainforest, but we believe that it's worth it.
We've prepared a sample advertisement for Windows 2000 that demonstrates this Truth In Advertising requirement in action.
PNG Format Advertisement (56KB, 500 x 500 pixels)
Fake News
written by Matthew "I am not Comrade Penguin" Adair
on April 7, 2000
from the we-take-back-everything-we-just-said dept.
Dear readers,
It was reported by Humorix on April 2nd that an army of Red GNUist Penguins had invaded the US and taken over, establishing the world's first GNUist republic. All I have to say is that this was a hoax. There is no revolution. I am not Comrade Penguin, who never existed anyway. I can confirm what was previously reported by Mr. Splatz: There is no conspiracy. The penguins have not taken over the world (yet).
The whole problem started when some joker cracked into my email account and submitted a story to Humorix World Domination Headquarters using my name and the pen name "Comrade Penguin". The Humorix staff -- still hungover from April 1st festivities -- mistakenly posted the article and attributed it to me. I can reassure you that I am not Comrade Penguin. There is no conspiracy.
I am terribly sorry about any confusion this may have caused. If you want further information concerning this, please visit this website.
Thank you,
Matthew Adair
Fake News
written by James Baughn
on April 2, 2000
from the boy-we-did-we-look-foolish-yesterday dept.
We here at Humorix would like to apologize for the lack of any April Fool's Day jokes published yesterday. We realize that our readers (both of you) come to expect quality April 1st mayhem, such as being acquired by Microsoft or announcing a virus that installs Linux on infected computers.
The Humorix staff actually planned several April 1st day jokes, but were unable to act on them after we all got drunk on March 31st and didn't fully sober up until this morning. Our drunkenness would explain the severe lameness of the articles we did publish yesterday. (I mean, geeks becoming militant because they didn't get their Slashdot fix for the day? Sheesh, every real geek gets his News For Nerds from Kuro5hin.org these days anyways. What a horrible stupor-induced fake news article that was.)
So, we hope you accept this sincere apology and will continue to visit Humorix in the future. If you wish, you may receive a refund on the defective electrons you received yesterday. Please send those electrons in a self-addressed stamped envelope to Humorix World Headquarters and we will give you a full refund.
Signed,
The (Now Sober) Humorix Staff
Fake News
written by Comrade Penguin
on April 2, 2000
from the this-is-not-an-april-fools-day-joke dept.
LINUSGRAD (Washington, D.C.) -- The United States is no more. The 200 year old republic has fallen to GNUist Penguins who invaded yesterday afternoon. The Red Penguin Flag flies over the capital. The Revolution is in motion.
"We have had enough of the oppression of the followers of the Open Source Movement," exclaimed Benevolent Dictator Tux Penguin, now acting as leader of the UPGR. "No one believed us when we ran a Beowulf Cluster for President. So we have taken matters into our own hands. You are now under Penguin rule. This nation's resources have been open sourced. We have crippled the enire planet's encryption systems. Have fun!"
Said one individual, known only as AC since he is hiding from counter-revoultionaries, "It was only a matter of time. The revolution has been proceeding at full speed since the NSA adopted Linux. We have been subverting the government for the last few months and nobody noticed! BWAHAHAHA!"
The UPGR's Red Penguinitic Army has already raided the headquarters of Microsoft, America Online/Time-Warner, Network Associates, and Ziff-Davis. The MPAA and RIAA are next on the list. Bill Gates is currently being publicly humiliated in front of a large crowd in Linusgrad. We haven't yet received word on what the Penguinistas are doing to Jesse Berst or Fred Moody, although we can only imagine that it's really, really bad.
We are victorious... Long live the mighty Union Penguinitic GNUist Republics!
Fake News
written by James Baughn
on April 1, 2000
from the c:-dos-run-c:-me-fdisk dept.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE, NC -- We here at Humorix have been hearing reports all day long about an April Fool's Day joke embedded in Red Hat Linux 6.0 and above. The joke is a program called "640K" that simulates the MS-DOS 6.66 command line. The joke has fooled quite a large number of people, causing some of them to do foolish things, like fire up FDISK.
One member of our Vast Spy Network(tm) sent in a screenshot showing the April Fool's Day joke in action during bootup:
Starting MS-DOS...
Now booting the MSDOS.SYS kernel...
Creating 640K RAM barrier...
Loading CD-ROM driver... ERROR:
Competing operating system CD-ROM
found in drive D:.
Disabling CD-ROM interface...
Loading mouse driver... ERROR:
Non-Mightgosoft mouse detected.
System will not function properly!
Activating Visual Edlin and Visual
Batchfile interfaces... Done.
Welcome to Mightgosoft DOS 6.66!
(C) Mightgosoft Corporation,
1983-2000. All rights reserved.
Violators of the Mightgosoft Closed
Source License will be sold as slaves
pursuant to UCITA clause 6-1C(a).
C:\>QUIT
Bad command or file name.
C:\>EXIT
Error: user is an idiot.
C:\>HELP
Help files not found. Please install
Mightgosoft DOS 6.66 Plus! Pack,
available from your local Mightgosoft
Outlet store.
C:\>CD\LINUX
Error: user invoked name of competing
operating system. Illegal operation
performed. User will be punished.
C:\>REBOOT
Warning: this operation is not
necessary since MS-DOS is not scheduled
to crash for at least 15 more minutes.
Proceed anyways (Y/N)? Y
Access denied. You have insufficient
privileges to perform this operation.
Please consult your MS-DOS Operating
Manual, page 2,412.
C:\>FDISK
Error: User attempting to modify MS-DOS
installation. Illegal operation
performed. User will be punished.
C:\>SCREW YOU, BILL GATES!!!!!!!!!
[CTRL-ALT-DELETE]
From what we can gather, the joke was slipped in by a bored Red Hat employee. However, some conspiracy nuts have already speculated that a Microsoft mole could be responsible.
Users are certainly not happy about the joke. "I thought that my son had replaced my Linux partition with a DOS partition! Not knowing any better, I fired up FDISK and deleted what I thought was a newly created DOS partition. Of course, it was really Red Hat (or should I say, Black Hat) masquerading as DOS. Now I've lost my Linux install and all of my hand crafted config files that took 3 years to get perfected!"
Indeed, reports of people panicking and using FDISK have been numerous. We here at Humorix would like to issue this public service announcement: Do not touch your FDISK program if your machine appears to be running MS-DOS. Stay calm. Adjust your system clock to April 2nd, and this April Fool's Day madness will be over. Everything will be alright. Do not do anything stupid!
We would ordinarily expect such a prank to generate a firestorm of controversy and cause an angry mob to descend on Red Hat's North Carolina offices. However, that angry mob is still in Holland, Michigan protesting Slashdot's April Fool's Day joke, as previously reported.
Fake News
written by James Baughn
on April 1, 2000
from the it's-not-easy-being-a-dotcom-millionaire dept.
HOLLAND, MI -- It started as an innocent April Fool's Day joke: Taco Boy and his compadres posted Slashdot articles in languages other than English. However, an angry mob of Dotheads, unable to read the postings, started suffering "News for Nerds" withdrawl symptoms within seconds. Within hours they had descended on the Geek Compound in Michigan brandishing pitchforks and yelling "Bring back Slashdot!"
About one thousand Slashdot addicts formed a semicircle in front of Taco Boy's dwelling. While the gathering was relatively peaceful, they did cause quite a nuisance by shouting these verses over and over again:
Those who deny our News For Nerds,
Will be treated today as big fat turds!
We demand our Stuff That Matters,
Or else we'll make something big go splatter!
Please, please, please dear old Roblimo,
Give us news about a Quake demo,
We'll even take a post by your own Jon Katz,
But if you don't comply we'll hit you with this axe!
Yes, April Fool's Day we now hate,
Now give us a fix before it's too late!
So, listen up you dotcom sellouts to Andover,
Stop playing with your billions and send some news right on over!
The time of reckoning is here for Slashdot,
Quit your April 1st joke lest we crash your lot!
Ironically, Rob Malda and company are in Boston today for the Geek Pride & Andover Promotion Festival, so the protest accomplished little except giving the local police something to worry about.
Said one of the participants, "Taco Boy now has a responsibility to provide timely News for Nerds to satisfy his army of Anonymous Cowards. We Slashdot junkies will not tolerate abuse like this happen again. Are you listening Andover.Net? No more April Fool's Day jokes!"
Fake News
written by Nick Sandru
on April 1, 2000
from the shattered-windows dept.
AFDERT Alert
For immediate release
1. Introduction
The AFDERT has received recently a report from a source inside Microsoft regarding a secret feature that has been included in all PCs with preinstalled Windows sold after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for violating the antitrust legislation.
There is strong evidence supporting the possibility that this report has been leaked intentionally by Microsoft in advance of the April 6th deadline for an agreement between Microsoft and the DoJ. It is believed that Microsoft intends to use this secret feature to impose their terms on the DoJ.
2. Description of the problem
The report claims that the secret feature, tagged by AFDERT as 'BabyPC', is capable of splitting a Windows PC into its components. It can be activated by signals sent from Redmond, WA, should Microsoft be forced to split into "BabySofts".
According to the report the 'BabyPC' feature, when activated, causes the following sequence of events:
- The screws holding the PC's cover are expelled violently.
- The cover, the motherboard, the disk drives and the power supply are separated from the chassis.
- The add-on PC boards (I/O controller, video display interface, sound inteface and so on) are thrown from the motherboard.
- The socket-mounted components, including the processor, are expelled from the their sockets.
- The keyboard and the mouse disintegrate and keys, buttons and other parts are thrown in all directions.
After the split the PC can be reassembled and can even become functional again at a lower performance level if enough parts can be retrieved.
3. Impact
The PC ceases to function and its operator is exposed to the risk of beeing hit by flying debris. The 'BabyPC' feature is likely to cause widespread disruptions affecting all aspects of modern life. The hospitals' emergency services might be overwhelmed by the many casualties caused by 'BabyPC'
4. Computers affected
Any PC with preinstalled Windows 98, 2000 or NT delivered after the DoJ vs. Microsoft lawsuit started in 1998
5. Protection
The best protection is to switch to another operating system, such as Linux. The 'BabyPC' feature requires the Internet Exploder for activation.
Alternatively, if you are forced to use Microsoft Windows, you may protect yourself by taking the following measures:
- Solder all socket-mounted components on their sockets.
- Weld the power supply on the chassis.
- Replace the cover with 1/2" steel plates welded on the chassis.
- Put something heavy (for example a set of Unix manuals) on your keyboard.
- Don a bulletproof vest, protection goggles and a motorcycle helmet if you have to work with your PC on the 6th of April.
- Move your PC away from your home. Do not place it near nuclear power plants, oil reffineries, ammunition depots or other similar sites. Recomended places are the Nevada test range, the Semipalatinsk nuclear test area in Kazakhstan and the Bikini atol in the Pacific.
This alert has been brought to you by:
April Fools' Day Emergency Response Team
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