SlashNOT

Mathew writes: Transcribed from the Office of the Prime Advocate: “Hear me fellow Humans, It is difficult to believe that it has been just 65 years since the Assimilation of Earth into the Great Martian Advocacy. The changes I’ve seen since my youth confirm the greatness of this union of the inhabited planets.

The progress we’ve made thanks to their technological gifts is amazing—why, every farm pod now has at least one transport vehicle, and we can now speak to any farm pod in the world directly by voice telephone. The social equality we’ve achieved since the dismantling of our own fruitless economic bumbling is unparalleled when compared to the time when we ruled ourselves. And the opportunity that our selfless cadre of Grade A choice humans have to pay back our debt by committing themselves to the sustenance of our dear Martian friends seems so much less wasteful than the pointless loss of life in wars between the old nations.”

Matthew writes: Apache Point Observatory, in New Mexico, has recently announced that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has offered a 50 million dollar grant to the observatory to develop image processing software that will allow astronomers to combine images from multiple telescopes to achieve resolution higher than any one telescope could achieve.

“This grant is really a breakthrough for us, and the conditions for granting it were quite liberal”, said a spokesman for New Mexico State University. “Although the new name is a mouthful, we are excited to rename the facility to Internet Information Server Point Observatory.”

Matthew writes: In an effort to simplify patch management and reduce the number of security hotfixes to just one per day, Microsoft President Steve Ballmer has announced a new and simplified security updates mechanism for computers running Windows and office call the “Patch-A-Day” program.

“A Patch A Day Keeps the Hackers Away” is the slogan for this new campaign, whereby security hotfixes will be downloaded to computers every night between midnight and 8:00 a.m.

“Imagine waking up to a newly secured computer every morning, where the previous night’s vulnerabilities have been patched so that you don’t have to think about the process. During the night we will also scan and remove viruses, Trojans, and other malicious software such as unlicensed copies of Office and any open source software that might have found its way onto your computer. Windows users who elect not to participate in the program will not be able to connect to the Internet after December 31st of this year.”

Microsoft has announced that it is acquiring bankruptcy and scandal-plagued communications carrier MCI in an attempt to handle the extra bandwidth that the program will require. The acquisition will be handled as a 1:1000000 stock swap.

Matthew writes: Apple design has announced its next triumph in the race to bring super-scalar computing to the home: The Apple iToaster.

With two IBM Power5 MCM Multi-Chip Modules, each having four dual-core G5 microprocessors and a whopping 144MB of on-chip cache, facing each other with a slot for bread between them, the iToaster will crank out 240 GFLOPS (Giga-FLoating-point Operations Per Second) while warming the perfect slice of toast every time.

“The operation is simple. You select ‘Traveling Salesman Fast Heuristic’ if you want a light toast, ‘128-bit RSA/SSL keyspace brute force decrypt’ for a medium brown, and ‘Browning Pattern Thermal Convection and Turbulence Model’ if you like your toast darker brown.” Exclaims Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the recent MacOrgy in San Jose.

“As you know, Apple has always innovated with system design, especially in the area of heat management. This allows us to recycle what would otherwise be wasted heat. And at a target price of just , it’s quite competitive with your higher end toasters that can’t solve massive matrix computing problems.”

Matthew writes: Apple computer’s new iTunes service, which allows consumers to easily purchase individual songs online, is igniting controversy as some psychologists claim that it is yet another destructive temptation for those with addiction problems or obsessive-compulsive disorders.

“They’ve made spending a buck online so easy that it can easily become compulsive.” Says Dr. Egon Trada, an addiction specialist.

“I’m treating several patients who’ve spent thousands of dollars on heavy-rhythm fueled music buying binges; they’re purchasing everything they’ve ever even remotely heard on the radio. I’ve got a seventeen-year-old male patient who just bought the entire Elton John catalog because he liked ‘Tiny Dancers’—He thought it was a song about Tony Danza. This illustrates the dangers we’re facing here.”

“iTunes is similar to a gateway drug. We’re seeing patients rapidly progress from iTunes to buying an iPod, to becoming full blown Mac users. They don’t seem to care about the social stigma of heavy Mac use, or the lack of support forums that they will face.”

“We believe that Apple needs to place controls on the service to prevent the social problems that afflict abusers. For example, suspending the accounts of people who purchase ‘indicator music’ that nobody actually likes, such as anything by Clay Aiken or Culture Club.”

Matthew writes: China launched it’s first manned mission to space aboard a Long March rocket with a capsule that will orbit the Earth 14 times in it’s bid to become the just the 3rd Nation in the world to do so, after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

“This shows to the world that we are now just 40 years behind the United States,” said Defense Minister Zhan Li Zhao. “At our current rate of development, we’ll be just 20 years behind them in another 40 years, and ready to begin testing our own Space Shuttle. Our projections show that within 100 years, we’ll be at technological parity with them, and will have abandoned Space development completely.”

Matthew writes: Scientists have just announced that the Universe is probably not infinite, and that they’ve determined its shape. For a long time, Theorists considered that the Universe might be shaped like a Bagel, but they’ve now determined that the Universe is shaped like a Soccer Ball.

“It came to me while I was watching my daughter’s soccer game last week. So I ran back to the lab, ran the numbers, and viola! I was right.” Says Dr. Jeffrey Weeks.

“This caps of years of theoretical research. I thought we really had it when we were testing the Coffee Cup shaped universe; it was a big let down when the data from the microwave survey just didn’t support it. We’d been through so many different topologies by that point, including the Toothbrush shaped universe, the potato shaped universe, and the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Skeletor action figure shaped universe.”

Matthew writes: Dark Lord Croktha, 14th Lord of Banedown Barrowlands and 23rd Level Half-Drow Elven Assassin/Thief (aka Gerald Smeed, Subway sandwich artist), on the effect of video games on the young.

“Basically, video games are destroying the next generation. I mean, there’s no attention span, no ability to perform any kind of critical thinking, it’s just knee-jerk reaction after reaction. Yes, the games are visibly beautiful, but so is the imagination. Just last week I slew the dread Dragon Lord Smood after vanquishing Banashe, Queen of Limbo. All in my head, with paper and dice!”

“The real sad part is the total lack of socialization. These kids are spending all their time alone, in the solitary world of video games, mastering what amounts to solitaire puzzles. With the classic Role Playing Games, you had to get together as a group. There was real camaraderie, a sense of purpose, and a sense of belonging. As it is, we’re loosing the next generation to these damned on-line games, and it’s getting really hard to find new members for the guild meetings. I mean, we used to be really picky about just playing AD&D 3rd Edition, and that may have caused some hard feelings, but heck, these days we’ll do a GURPS session now and then if people are interested. How are these kids going to function in the real world?”

“Vinegar and Oil?”

Matthew writes: Monkeys have developed cybernetic limbs, the third phase in their four phase plan for global dominance.

“This bodes well for our plans.” signed the enigmatic Koko, leader of the Simian Liberation Front, as she gently stroked her cat’s fur. “We again have seduced the humans into expanding our range of abilities. Now that we have achieved space flight, learned sign language, and acquired cybernetic limbs, we have only one remaining hurdle before our natural ascension as the dominant species on Earth can be fulfilled.

Koko indicated that any scientists wishing to test trigger locks on fully automatic weapons should contact the Simian Liberation Army of Volunteer Experiment Subjects.

Matthew writes: Las Vegas resident Roy Johnson was attacked today by his Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, which apparently became confused when the man tripped in the room while the vacuum was running.

“Before he could do anything, the Roomba scuttled up to him and got that little plastic spinning brush thing caught in his hair.” Said close friend Ziggy Schimdt. “Roy shrieked in pain and jumped up, but the vacuum just kept winding his hair tighter. It was on him like the impregnation creature from Alien. He fell back over, and the Roomba dragged him towards the door. It took a few minutes to get the thing turned off. We had to cut his hair out of it. There was hair everywhere.”

Roy’s remaining hair is in stable but serious condition after hair dressers styled around the patchy bald spot as best they could. The Roomba is being confined to an unused bedroom until repairs are completed.