SlashNOT

Matthew writes: Under contract to the U.S. Government, IBM is building the world’s most powerful computer. Blue Gene/L will be composed of 128 nodes each having 1024 Power (G5) processors, and will run at approximately 360 TeraFLOPS (Floating point Operations Per Second)—ten times faster than the now reigning Earth Simulator in Japan.

Blue Gene/L is designed to automatically perform all functions of government (including the department of defense), freeing the 25 million U.S. civil servants to live in peaceful harmony with nature. Blue Gene/L is specifically designed to operate with much lower power requirements and has an integrated small scale hot fusion reactor, which will allow the computer to tolerate grid power failures as long as the operating staff provides ample carbohydrate fuel sources, such wheat, corn, or other grains. Other fault tolerant features include a force sheild and the ability to electrocute operators when necessary.

The computer is also much smaller than competing systems and does not require esoteric air conditioning systems, which will allow the system to be installed within pyramids, temple ruins, or the large concrete head of a reptilian god, should the need arise.

Matthew writes: RedHat and SuSe, the largest and 117th largest Linux distributors, have announced discounts of up to 40% on free software. A RedHat sales manager explained the offer: “In order to attract the Educational and Student markets, we’re offering a 40% discount on the freely downloadable RedHat 9 distribution. To take advantage of the discount, you must prove that you are a student or an educator by faxing your student ID or educator ID to the number indicated on our education web site.”

“Once you’ve faxed in your credentials, we will e-mail you a username and password that will allow you to enter our special 40% off FTP server, from which you can download the RedHat cd-rom images for 40% less than our normal offering. Users who are not students or educators must use the traditional free download offering.”

Matthew writes: Popular search engine Google was arrested early this evening while apparently attempting to dump the body of Alta Vista, a competing search engine eclipsed by Google’s sudden rise to stardom in the search market.

Details are sketchy at this point, but police reports indicate that Google was interrupted in the act by a Police Officer that noticed a large number of semi trucks parked at Moss Landing, near Monterey Bay.

“There were a lot of trucks there. I don’t know how Google really expected to get away with it. When I walked up, hundreds of servers were being dumped into the bay, along with rack rails, hard disk drives, desktop computers, office chairs, cubicle partitions. Everything was taken apart–dismembered really. It was a mess. Of course, I immediately took Google into custody.”

According to preliminary statements taken at the scene, Alta Vista showed up at google in an incoherent state, dressed to look like google, spewing inconsistent and meaningless search results and thrashing about wildly. According to Google, they struggled over market share, but Google quickly gained the upper hand and overpowered Alta Vista. At the end of the struggle, Google had killed Alta Vista and apparently dismembered the search engine in a panic and called friends to help dump the body.

Matthew writes: Scientists have synthesized life from artificially created DNA. The life form, a hulking perambulatory humanoid, can readily be discerned from natural life forms by the bolts embedded on both sides of its neck, green skin color, and completely flat skull.

Utilizing a new process that allowed the life form to be created from scratch in a matter of mere days, the scientists have solved a major puzzle in the search for the origins of life: Where do really freaking scary monstrosities of science come from?

Matthew writes: Under pressure from recent media reports, SlashNOT writer Matthew Strebe has revealed that he suffers from Apostrophic Displacement Dysphasia, a neurological disorder that makes it impossible for sufferers to automatically determine correct apostrophe usage in the its/it’s case.

Dr. Yuri Sakhalin explains the disorder. “Like many people with grammar affective disorders (GADs), those with ADD are of course aware of the rules of grammar regarding the correct use of the possessive pronoun ‘its’ and the contraction ‘it’s’. But in individuals with ADD, the mind is confused by the fact that all possessive nouns except pronouns also use an apostrophe ‘s’ to indicate possession, so they automatically write both the contraction and the possessive pronoun with the apostrophe. Sufferers are literally unable to see the incorrect apostrophe usage on the page, and must rely on unaffected editors and software aids to remediate their writing.

“What is unusual in the case of Mr. Strebe is the fact that he’s a well published author, and that he uses a word processor capable of automatically marking up the incorrect usage. It seems as if he intentionally uses the incorrect case to exhibit his condition, or as some sort of protest against a rule of grammar that sufferers see as being unfair.”

Mr. Strebe has indicated that he is seeking treatment for the disorder at an inpatient grammar treatment facility. He notes that his condition has been especially difficult for his family members to deal with, and he is grateful for they’re support.

Captain Shenanigan writes: In a move that has suprised physicists and confounded engineers worldwide, the FCC has announced its plans to expand the wireless spectrum in order to extend the reach of broadband communications to rural and other connectivity-disadvantaged areas.

“While the current electromagnetic spectrum is large, and has been adequate for people’s communications needs up until now,” FCC Chairman Michael Powell said, it was originally specified and installed in 1909 and is increasingly showing its age.

When pressed for details about how the FCC would actually go about generating more spectrum, which the scientist Jorgen Hansensensen alleges is infinite although largely unusable (except for some choice bits in the neighborhood of light, radio, microwave, and toaster)the FCC Chairman grew vague.

“Wireless broadband is increasingly a reality in the marketplace,” he said, but I have heard reports that it has trouble getting through trees. What we need is a a stretched spectrum, one that is thinner and more flexible. And longer, able to reach all the way from the city out into the countryside.”

Matthew writes: Warner Bros has taken the unusual step of offering refunds to moviegoers who present a Matrix Revolutions ticket stub at any theater showing the release.

A studio spokesman explained the program. “We realize that there are patrons out there who don’t ‘get’ Matrix Revolutions. Like any product producer, we take responsibility for our product, and we’re willing to suck one up when it, well, sucks.”

Movie critic Roger Ebert was ambivalent about the refund program. “Don’t get me wrong—I like the idea of studios taking responsibility for churning out crap. But this is special. This is Matrix. What I’d really like so see them do is suck it up, go back to the drawing table, and write a pair of sequels that are worthy of the original. I think the fans deserve it and we ought to demand it.”

Matrix Fan Jeremy was also ambivalent. “I paid eight bucks for my ticket. Yeah, the plot totally stank, but the effects were killer, and the fight scenes totally wrocked. So I’m just going to ask for four bucks back.”

Matthew writes: Disney Corporation, long known for it’s full-length animated films, has halted all work on it’s traditional, hand drawn features currently under development. Home on the Range will be the last. Disney CEO Michael Eisner Explains:

“We’re sending the Disney film production methodology to the Disney Vault, probably forever. We’ve had a really long string of in-house produced animated films that suck, and we’ve noticed that all of Pixar’s CG films have really kicked ass.”

“Rather than attributing this to really poor script development on our part, especially when compared to their Insanely Great script development and their willingness to throw out years of work if it sucks, we’ve decided that it must be the fact that modern kids have to have photo-realistic shading and rendering.”

“So that’s all folks. We’re planning to bungle our current negotiations with Pixar, try again to develop our own in-house CG shop, and then send them really crappy scripts that won’t sell since we still haven’t figured out that ‘it’s the story, stupid’. We’ll continue down this until we’re nothing but a cable TV channel for toddlers peddling stuffed caricatures of a cartoon so old that no modern human remembers actually ever having seen it on screen as anything but a spokestoon.

Matthew writes: CEO of Symantec Corporation John W. Thompson raised a champagne glass with CEO of Network Associates George Samenuk, maker of McAffee anti-virus software, in celebration of the 20th Anniversiary of the computer virus at the recent Computer Security Conference in Washington D.C.

“We’ve come a long way since Pakistani Brain [The first virus for the PC], that’s for sure, said Mr. Thompson. Man, do you remember the Stoned virus, or Friday the 13th? Those were the days. Man, those viruses were great. By great, I mean novel and particularly virulent.”

“Yeah, but the days ahead are even more promising—from an anti-virus perspective of course. We’ve got a solid business model established, and thanks to now constant outbreaks, every desktop absolutely must have Anti-virus software. It’s not just for the idiots who open every e-mail they get or click “yes” every time a dialog pops up on the web anymore. And don’t get me started on Microsoft Outlook. Man I love that app.”

“So here’s to 20 years of the virus, and many more to come. Hopefully, somehow, we might eradicate them forever, but who knows? I kind of doubt it.”

Matthew writes: IT Job Candidate Rupert Helmsley was recently hired by Melville & Underwood under the mistaken presumption that he could help improve their diversity in hiring statistics because he wan an MCSE.

“It was quite embarrassing, really. At the end of the interview, they asked if I had anything else I wanted to tell them about myself. I said ‘oh, yes, I have MCSE.’. I meant to say ‘an MCSE’, but I was nervous in the interview, and it just came out that way.

They got quite animated at that point, and asked if it was difficult. I said, yes, it was difficult, but that the hard work was over now. Then they asked how I thought it would affect my job performance, and I said I thought that it would be an asset. I thought it was weird that they told me I was brave at that point, but I brushed it off.”

“Later that first week, one of the secretaries asked me ‘how long I had left’. I thought she meant with the laptop repair I was doing, so I said “a few hours, maybe tomorrow at the latest.’ Then she burst into tears. At that point I got suspicious, and asked her why she was crying. She threw her arms around me and said that I was a shining example of courage, and that she was glad she got to meet me before I passed on.”

“So now I take Thursdays and Fridays off for treatment, and pass off anything that might be stressful to my co-workers. Getting MCSE was the best career move I could have made.”