SlashNOT

Matthew writes: While it’s common knowledge that children in first-world nations are increasingly obese, the effects of overeating on third-world children are not as widely known but just as disastrous. Over-eating is now common in South-East Asia, and Diabetes is about to become the number one childhood disease in the region. Children in the Phillipines, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia nearly match their first world peers in overall girth.

To combat the problem, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a new charity called “Don’t Feed the Children“. The charity will be innovative in that it will provide a “money for food” program, whereby third world families can sell their excess food to the charity. The food is then given to the hungry, if any can be found. The charity is based other capitalism-based giving models pioneered by the foundation. According to Bill Gates, “We’re essentially taking the candy out of the mouths of babes, and giving them cash that they can spend on whatever they want. This preserves dignity in that it doesn’t force our cultural values onto the recipient of giving.”

Sunganatrami Rangesh, a six year old Malaysian boy who weighs in at an impressive 95 pounds, is excited about the program. Slashnot’s South-East Asia correspondent Jaffar Lasharesh asked him how he intended to spend the 16 Ringits he’d earned by turning in his chicken rice bowl, he responded that he would be going to MacDonalds for an ice-cream cone and a coke.

Kevin writes: Hot on the heels of the latest Linux security flaw, which allows users with shell access to crash the computer, another flaw in Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system has been found. Apparently it is possible for anyone to shut down or restart a computer running Windows XP, without even having to log into the computer. With enough patience, even hackers with very little computer skills have been able to render systems unusable for hours simply by repeatedly taking advantage of this exploit. Microsoft is playing down the impact of the flaw, calling it instead a “feature”. A related flaw allows users in physical proximity to any computer running either Windows or Linux to cause a power-input standby exception using an out-of-band attack against the binary power arbitration unit exposed on the computer. Hackers as young as fourteen months of age have been documented exploiting this hack.

matthew writes: From the May 25, 1975 edition of SlashNot

Responding to a call that a hippy cult has staged a sit-in at an Albuquerque area office, police have investigated the group and determined that our good citizens have little to fear from an apparently peaceful band of Aquarians. When questioned about their activities, the band of hippies indicated that they had actually rented the office space, a claim that is being researched by the police.

Police searched the facility as an odd assortment of home-made electric devices indicated that some sort of illegal LSD or amphetamine lab was being constructed, but found no evidence of either.

According to Police, the cult apparently believes that they are constructing “micro” computers— devices small enough for each member to own one, which will transport them into the future where they believe that all beings will be connected through their “micro” computers to a giant central computer which will contain the sum of all human knowledge. The cult believes that by linking into this central computer, people will be able to communicate instantly around the world without paying long distance.

In attempting to demonstrate their time portal machine, one of the hippies excitedly flipped switches on the front panel and caused the devices to blink lights on the front panel in quick succession. The officer in charge was uncertain why this activity generated so much excitement amongst the cult members, but determined that no further police action would be necessary beyond a weekly patrol to monitor the group’s activities.

Paul Messmer writes: It’s true. I use MSN, but just Hotmail. I was silly and chose it, because AOL had a bad rep among certain friends of mine and I figured it’d be an email address that would stay around forever, unlike my old netcom email address that Earthlink decided I couldn’t keep even if I kept paying them.

As a side “benefit,” I get taken to the MSN homepage everytime I log out of hotmail of course. A quick scan of it every once in a while keeps me in touch with the Jerry Springer/Oprah banal side of life, you know. How can you not love that?

As my eyes flitted down the page today, I came across the the most brilliant idea i’d ever seen: Suggested Searches! My God, what an epiphany. Like a bolt of lightning from the blue, I suddenly shared the vision for what I should do when my vapid existence offers nothing more of interest, and I have exhausted other ways to squander my time surfing.

Nothing could be better than to search for things that _other people_ were interested in yet don’t mean diddly squat to me. And not even things with any edifying value whatsoever, mind you. I’m totally stoked, for this is _true genius_. Watch out Google!

Well, gotta run. Need see what kind of hits I get for “gastric bypass.” Hubba hubba where do I want to go today?

Matthew writes: Stung by a seemingly never ending series of security breaches in its major products, Microsoft’s new tactic of placing a bounty on the heads of its corporate enemies seems to be working.

After being sold out by friends hoping to cash in on Microsoft’s bounty and keep their cloud city spam operation running smoothly, German uberhacker and member of the Open Source Alliance Hans Olo was captured by the German state police (”Die Sturmtroopen”) in an undisclosed location and subsequently incarcerated in Carbonite state prison. bounty hunter Bob Fett has taken custody of the suspected author of the Sasser worm and is transporting him from Germany to Redmond, Wa. Where he will be turned over to Jabba the Ballmer.

MongooseMan writes: After several weeks spent researching the motor industry, head designers at Microsoft have come to the conclusion that the X Box 2 needs to be at least four times the size of its predecessor to win the console race.

A spokesman said “We can see how SUV’s equal power in cars, and we think that by creating such a powerful image, we can sell even more X box 2’s than PS3’s.”

The awaited new controllers for the machine are believed to have 105 keys, and have a revolutionary movement sensing device which insiders are calling ‘el raton’.

Matthew writes: McDonalds Corporation has announced that it is challenging the FAT patent issued to Microsoft.

According to the press release, “FAT is ubiquitous, it’s obvious, and Microsoft should not be allowed to extract a license or royalty from companies who want to distribute products that contain FAT. McDonald’s has been distributing products containing FAT since 1954—more than twenty years before Microsoft was founded. Certainly there’s no reason why this patent should have been issued in 1996. It amounts to abuse of the patent and trademark system. We have just fended off a number of suits pertaining to FAT, and we don’t intend to be embroiled or emdeepfried in any more litigation about FAT.”

Mearzuh writes: Microsoft founder Paul Allen has spent $ 13.5 million of his own searching for extraterrestrial life.

Stock analysts claim that this is just another way for Microsoft to regain a stable footing in their quarterly profits, which haven’t been very promising in the recent past due to a lack of growth from saturated markets. Essentially, everyone on Earth already owns a few copies of Windows.

When asked if that claim is true, Allen responded, “Bill and I have a running billion dollar bet as to whether life exists on other planets. And if we found ancillary markets there as well, that’s just icing on the cake, so to speak”. Microsoft has provided NASA with free copies of Windows 98 to power the Martian rovers with hopes of finding potential customers on Mars. But unfortunately, no life forms complex enough to move a mouse have been found.”

Paul Allen remains hopeful, however, and with his recent personal investment his hopes are up in the air, sky high.

Mearzuh writes: The upcoming Windows XP Service Pack 2, to be released later this year, has been dubbed ‘Windows XP Reloaded’ by Microsoft.

“There’s a bunch of work being done on Windows XP,” said Greg Sullivan, lead Windows product manager, adding that Windows XP Reloaded was a marketing effort as well as a plan to enhance Windows XP software.

Windows XP: Reloaded is filled with a new software concept borrowed from the Java community referred to as ‘agents’. Agents will perform tasks on behalf of the system, such as power management, clearing memory of malfunctioning software, and attempting to destroy humankind. Further user interface improvements abound, such as new colorized buttons (Red for OK, Blue for Cancel). In an effort to compete with Linux in the clustered computing realm, XP also now supports a new feature called Matrix Computing Services which will automatically bind XP workstations together into a supercomputing cluster. Our preliminary tests show that most of the content in XP SP2: Reloaded, while visually stunning, is somewhat less coherent than the original and somewhat exhausting to use. Furthermore, numerous components are obviously not completed; Microsoft has announced that they will be finished in Windows XP SP3: Revolutions.

Mearzuh writes: In continuing with the hip naming of it’s Windows operating system, after such cool names as “XP” and “Longhorn”, Microsoft is considering to slightly change it’s current “XP” to a later more appealing “X.P. Ditty”. Chairman Bill Gates commented in a recent statement that they based their new naming on the success that rapper P. Diddy had when changing his name from Sean Puffy Combs to Puff Daddy, to P. Diddy. “It was only logical”, said Gates. “Who would want Windows XPedite? Everyone wants X.P.Ditty! “To further appeal to the hipness of our users and continue the coolness trend here at Microsoft”, he said, “we are also working on the new slogan for X.P. Ditty. Currently, our best one is ‘X’s Gonn’ Give It To ‘Ya’ based on the number one hit by another rapper: DMX. “With great advertising like that, we are destined to succeed.” Stay tuned.