h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In 2003, Microsoft will gain the monopoly on computers and technology when the Apple company goes bust. On April 7th 2004, the world will discover that every single version of windows (which at this point 100% of computers are running) contains a very small program that is programmed to dial up a permanent connection to a giant server belonging to microsoft and stop taking commands from the user, effectivly giving Bill Gates unique control over every computer in the world, from your home PC to the high command in the Pentagon. With every computer in the world in his command he proclaims himself World Emperor and slowly but surely enslaves the human race. On the 14th of July 2004, the resistance movement of free humans consisting, ironically, of mainly Iraqis and Afgan Rebels, manages to launch an attack on San Fransisco, the newly declared capital of "Planet Gates", and destroys the city with their newly aquired nuclear weapons. Before the bombs hit Emperor Gates activates the American Nuclear Attack System and, knowing that his empire will soon be destroyed and himself killed by direct nuclear strike, launches a nuke at every major city in the world, killing 98% of the worlds population, and launching the world into a nuclear winter, forcing the survivors to revert to a stone age caveman state, surviving only by plundering derelict supermarkets. Past that i don't know...

Nice one!

Fortunately, an alternative scenario is that just as Emperor Gates activates the American (surely you mean Gatesian?) Nuclear Attack System he gets a message that "A Fatal Exception Error has occurred. This application will be shut down." The global network shuts down, the Empire is dissolved and humankind is saved.

and he still gets hit by the missiles.

Snowman

Has anybody tried this easter egg in Word (I think Word 97)?:

Type

I'd like to see bill gates dead

Highlight the text, select tools/language/set language and set to English(US).

Next select tools/language/thesaurus and see what you get!

That's not really an easter egg- it's part of how the Thererus works. Typing "I'd like to see Mark Moxon stripped naked, painted blue and tied to a tree' will have the same result.

Easter egg must be absent from your version - maybe I'm thinking about an earlier one?

The result should be that the thesaurus synonym box says "I'll drink to that" ...

Yeah- but that's what you get for any sentence that starts "I'd like"

Ohhh! (Clouds part...)

Very funny anyway.

Did anyone see there was an article in New Scientist a few weeks ago about how companies can trick you into taking your processor power (like the Seti At Home project, only it's buried deep in the terms and conditions for accepting software)?

~~A~~

Ah, but what you've overlooked is that the "very small program" will bear the time-honoured Windows signature: it'll have bugs in it.

When the applet is tested for the very first time in April 2004, the result will be a near-global "blue screen of death". The lucky ones will be the Luddites using Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. In accordance with corporate policy, the applet's activation code would only include the Windows versions which Microsoft still supported.

Governments and businesses will scramble to relaunch themselves on an alternative OS. Linux will pick up a litttle of the slack. However, Windows has imprinted itself on a whole generation, so copies of Win3.1 or Win95 will change hands (legally or illegally) at exorbitant prices. Backwardly-compatible Sys.Admins. will command benefit packages equalling those of CEOs. Lawyers in the US will have a field day with class action suits. The EU will retaliate with trade embargos on US exports.

Meanwhile, Microsoft will announce that Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2000 and WinXP are no longer supported. Simultaneously, they will release SP4 for Win3.1 and Win95. In July 2004, with much fanfare, Microsoft will announce the imminent launch of Win04. The reviews of the beta version will indicate that it is no more than a cosmetically-modified Win95. In the event, Win04 won't hit the shelves until February 2005.

On March 1, 2005, the hidden, rewritten, applet will be secretly tested. The result will be a near-global "blue screen of death"....