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

bread type 3or what ever it is

OK. I now have a news report from the hypothetical bread world...

'GOVERNMENT DECLARES TYPE #1 BREAD DOMINANCE THREAT TO NATIONAL NUTRITION.

'The Ministry of Food has announced that the market dominance of type #1 bread could bring about a downfall in the entire bread industry.

'This is because of light brought upon a new type of criminal, those who deliberately create poisonous butter or preserves for type #1 bread, and even some toxic spreads that can spread between loaves. The criminals have been nick-named "backers" as a corruption of "bakers".

'If the backers discover a serious vulnerability in type #1 bread, it could mean that the majority of the world's bread eaters are poisoned, and civilisation as we know it may collapse because we are so dependent on bread as a convenience food.'

didn't see that comming</>

remind me to get round to using type 3

I blame it all on the Independent Bread Makers. They sold out to type #1 too easily.

B

Well, we'll just have to get over the convenience that all this automatic toasting has provided us with over the last few decades. We'll just have to go back to manual breadmaking, weighing the ingredients, looking up in recipe-tables, using a slide-toast etc.

i intend to when i have done my exams, then i sahll aid otehrs

Anyone else here remember slide-toasters?

I prefer doing toast on a big fork in front of a log fire, myself.

B

It's catch-22. The people who make the spreads and the toasters won't make them for types #3 or #4 because not enough people use types #3 and #4 bread, and people don't use types #3 and #4 bread because the people who make the spreads haven't made them available for those types.

The general feeling here is that most people are using type #1 but would prefer to be using something different, and might want to use something different as well as type #1.

So why are we all still using type #1? Why do so many people continue to give in to something explicitly illegal?

When the Nazis tried to create one race of people, we didn't agree and say we'd do the same as the majority, we fought back.

Why aren't we fighting back now?

Unscrupulous bakeries are trying to get us to use just their own type of bread when there are such obvious flaws, not just in the quality of the bread and toasting process, but in morality, and our freedom of choice.

And I know that the type #1 bakery has already been taken to court numerous times, and I'm saying that this indicates we need to do something more about it, something more forceful and effective.

...

Thank you for your kind , but I rather hope we can get a tumultuous uprising of ideas and protests that will revolutionise the bread industry and rid the world of tyrannous bakeries. Obviously I don't deny that type #1 bread does have a place in the bread market. I am saying it should not occupy the only place.

The analogy was formulated as follows:

Type #1 bread = Microsoft Windows operating system.
Type #2 bread = Apple Macintosh.
Type #3 bread = Linux distributions (RedHat, SuSE, MandrakeSoft...).
Type #4 bread = Unix distributions (FreeBSD, NetBSD...).

Since Windows source code has recently been obtained by hackers, time may be running out before disaster...

yes i wasn't sure of the 3rd and 4th originall, but it had become clear

May I propose a toast?

I'll get me coat.

The world cannot survive without computers. The clock is ticking. Hackers are becoming more and more intelligent. No other industry has experienced this type of anti-competitive dominance. And these industries survive.

MyDoom today... Everybody's Doom tomorrow...

i get the picture

the mod uses linux/unix dosn't it *prays*

Now that we all get the picture, what are we going to do about it?

>> The world cannot survive without computers <<

Yes, it can.

I know what you're referring to. If, say all the PCBs and chips were burnt out by an EMP, all the industrial processes, elctricty/gas/water provison etc. would fail, as these are all controlled by such devices.

There was a time, however, when they weren't. We still have the technology. It is likely that there would be a short period of instability, but it would not take long to reestablish supplies.

Yes but I wanted it to sound dramatic.

And if it happens once then hackers will make it happen again and again. Something permanant must be done. I thought I would be inundated with suggestions here along the lines of 'make anti-competitive behaviour illegal' or 'sue Microsoft for all it is worth' and ideas to such effect.

problem is achieivng that ... .just run into companys in the middle of hte nigth and convert there systems