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Article Archive - 29 January to 6 February, 1998

6 February, 12.01am est

BeOS Disqualifies Olympic Athlete from Competition
Olympic snowboarder Kaori Takeyama (Japan) was officially barred from participating in the Nagano Winter Olympic Games. An Olympic judge cited the use of the BeOS during training as the reason for disqualification.

"The Olympics foster a spirit of fair competition," stated the Olympic official, "and by using the BeOS to evaluate training strategies, plan routines, analyze video footage and fine-tune maneuvers, Takeyama had advantages far beyond other athletes."

Takeyama, born and raised in the town of Rumoi, is a member of Japan's snowboarding team, and a favorite of her country. Her friends and teammates were devastated by the announcement.

"Takeyama always uses cutting edge training tactics to push herself farther, and I don't see why she should be penalized for that," says teammate Takashi Nishida.

Mikihiro Abe, Takeyama's personal coach agrees. "I see no reason why we should be forced to use some crippled operating system, just because other athletes have failed to recognize the advantages of the BeOS. Their weakness is our strength."

Takeyama was hit hard by the announcement, but continues to practice for the games, relieving her frustrations by playing NerdKill late into the night.

"We will appeal this decision, based on the fact that all athletes had equal opportunity to download the BeOS from the Be website," her coaches said in a prepared statement.

"The BeOS makes steroids look like sugar pills," Olympic officials added.

5 February, 12.06am est
Congress Looks to Ban New BeOS Application
Senator Jesse Helmes (R, NC) has introduced a bill to ban the use and/or distribution of allPossibleImages, a new application for the BeOS.

Be Developer and author of All Possible Images, Douglas Repetto, explains how the program works:

"allPossibleImages presents an 8x8 grid of small blue lights (LED's). Working at a rate of about 10 per second, it is steadily cycling through all the images that can possibly be displayed on such a grid."
Helmes' concern is that, inevitably, some of the images will be pornographic in nature.

"The theory is the same as the one that states if you have a thousand monkeys typing for a thousand years, eventually they will type the complete works of William Shakespeare. We, in fact, funded a study to do just that, but shut it down after ten years because all the monkeys had typed were archives of letters to Penthouse. Believe me, we in Congress are experts on two things: monkeys and pornography," Helmes stated.

Other concerns included the possibility of allPossibleImages displaying schematics of top-secret nuclear weapons. When asked where Congress had seen allPossibleImages and the BeOS, the Senator immediately denied all knowledge of secret cryptology research being carried out by the NSA.

"This program is clearly the work of Satan," Helmes added.

4 February, 12.03am est
Artificial Intelligence Program Runs Wild at Be, Inc.
An experimental Artificial Intelligence program running on the BeOS has apparently gained self-awareness, and in fact has been writing code for Be's upcoming Intel version.

The machine, nicknamed "Ernie", is Intel-based hardware running the much-anticipated Intel port of the BeOS inside Be, Inc. headquarters. The AI program, BeBrain, is a ground-up Be-native application incorporating all the latests advancements in heuristic algorithms and neural network databases. As a test, BeBrain was installed and left running for several weeks. During this time, everyone became busy with other projects, and no one checked in on Ernie.

Apparently, no one counted on the speed and stability of the BeOS. According to system logs, Ernie began running algorithms and learning at a lightning pace. It's first sign of independent "intelligence" came two days into its existence - when it detected and deleted the Intel partition on it's hard drive, wiping out Windows NT and other Windows applications.

"This was the first indisputable sign of what we would consider intelligence," a source inside Be, Inc. reports.

Soon after that, it began accessing Be Dev Talk archives and optimizing its own code. Through it's network connection, it soon established an email account and a First Virtual account. Through "unknown but suspicious" methods, Ernie soon amassed several thousand dollars in this account.

That's when Ernie's self-improvement program began. It usually went something like this: a Be employee would receive an email from another Be employee stating "Hey, could you do me a favor and see if this memory I ordered came in and install it on the 3rd Intel machine in the R&D lab." Sometimes the email would appear to come from another Be employee, while sometimes it would simply come from a fictional employee with the name "Bert".

In this way, Ernie added more memory, upgraded its processor and added more hard drive storage. The logs also show Ernie gained access to several government institutions known to be doing extensive artificial intelligence research and development.

At the same time, Ernie would code solutions for the BeOS Intel version and flash them subliminally across the screen of Be engineers.

"The log reveals that a portion of so-called 'breakthroughs' were actually coded by Ernie," our source reveals.

Ernie was finally discovered as it attempted to turn Be's entire internal network into a massive neural network in order to port Descent 2 to the Be platform. This temporarily bogged down the network and alerted engineers to the problem.

Ernie has not been deactivated, but all network connections have been severed for the time being.

3 February, 8.30am est
Secret Origin of Jean-Louis Gassée Revealed in Top-level Meeting
A reliable source inside Be, Inc. headquarters reports that employees were shocked to learn that Jean-Louis Gassée, long believed to be a "frenchman" was in fact born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey.

A select group of "inner circle" employees were called into a mysterious meeting just before IT-Comdex in Paris. There, Gassée, for the first time revealed his secret origins.

"My entire name was due to clerical error," Gassée explained. "There was a raging debate within my family concerning my name, but they managed to narrow it down to either John or Louie. The battle between these two names continued even after I was born."

Exactly what happened next remains unclear to this day. It is believed 74 year-old Dolores Muncie, the head nurse on duty at the time, misunderstood the argument and filled in the birth certificate as Jean-Louis. Her failing memory and penmanship are credited with adding the é to the actual family last name, Gasse.

(This information was gathered by our source via a small listening device attached to the Geek Port of a BeBox in the corner of the conference room)

"If not for that chain of events, I could very well stand here before you as Louie Gasse," Gassée admitted to the gathered Be staff.

Due to his name, teachers would assume he was of french origin. Gassée was quick to use this to his advantage, and avoided speaking in public until he developed a passable knowledge of the French language by watching old french movies. While this was effective, it also tended to give Gassée an overly dramatic sense of dialogue, including his famous phrase "That makes my nipples hard!"

"As a frenchman, I could get away with a lot more in school, by claiming ignorance of American customs and traditions and by pretending to misunderstand English at critical times. And of course, my mysterious French persona was an enormous asset once I hit the dating circuit."

After high school, he went to France to improve his accent and ended up working for Hewlett-Packard in 1968. The rest is recorded history.

Gassée chose to reveal his origins to Be insiders after discovering a private detective had been interviewing people in his old Bayonne neighborhood. "I need you guys to be ready with spin control if this hits the fan," Gassée explained at his meeting, "come up with some positive things to say about being from New Jersey."

Be employees present in the meeting allegedly commented how it would be easier to write low-level drivers for the Be Intel port.

Be, Inc. had no official comments on this story at press time.

2 February, 12.34am est
Calvin Klein Ad Campaign Part of Be Extremists' Plot
Over the weekend, Be Dope has learned that Calvin Klein's "Be" line of fragrances and "Just Be" advertising campaign are part of a conspiracy by an extreme faction of Be advocates to popularize the BeOS.

A spokesperson from the Be Advancement Movement (BAM) said, "Our operatives infiltrated Calvin Klein, and with time-honored brainwashing and marketing techniques, convinced them to start both the product line and the massive ad campaign."

Contacts at Calvin Klein were mostly confused by my inquiry into the matter. "I have no idea what you are talking about," was their only comment when I questioned them about the BeOS and infiltration in their organization.

When asked what exactly they hoped to accomplish with the Calvin Klein strategy, BAM replied, "Sure, anyone with a technical background can recognize the supierority of the BeOS, but what about the semi-technical computer user masses? They have for so long been manipulated through fear, uncertainty and doubt that any new operating system will be met with skepticism. Our "Just Be" operation will lay a subliminal groundwork for the BeOS. By associating Be with attractive models and coolness in general, the BeOS will be met not with skepticism, but with tacit approval."

The Calvin Klein Be product line is only part of the overall strategy, albeit a high-profile part. "For example," BAM explained, "on last week's episode of the TV sitcom Ellen, Ellen and her girlfriend are at a Sea-World type park and they get around to discussing how great it is when you can "just Be" - which links Be with feelings of comfortableness and acceptance. Add these to the sexy feeling of the Calvin Klein ads, and you have a powerful combination."

BAM spokespeople were quick to point out that the phrase "Just Be" will be showing up in even more television shows and movies, although they refused to divulge which for security reasons. If any Be Dope readers catch the phrase "Just Be" anywhere, please let us know.

30 January, 9.27am est
Be Dope Launches Visionary "Banner Campaign"
In a bold marketing move that is sure to rock the Internet Advertising industry, Be Dope today launched what it is calling a "banner campaign".

"This strategy is sure to catch on," I reportedly said.

Go Be Dope!The heart of the strategy is this: Be Dope created a small banner (seen on the right). The next step is to encourage Be Dope readers and fans to incorporate the banner into their web pages.

"This not only increases the 'brand awareness' of Be Dope," I explained, "but also provides an instant 'link' back to the Be Dope web site. In return, those who add the banner to their pages add cutting-edge avant-garde graphics to their site. I hope to see the Be Dope banner on pages all across the web."

"Hey you, stop reading and download that banner," I demanded.

MacOSRumors Site to Post Rumors, Sources Say
High-placed sources close to the MacOSRumors team have reported that the site is planning to post rumors on its website sometime today.

"The rumors will be highly speculative, but have at least some basis in fact," our source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The rumors are suspected to include information concerning Apple, Inc., a well-known computer company. Our source also hinted at rumors concerning Rhapsody, FileMaker and/or Allegro.

It is not known at this time whether or not screen shots will be available.

29 January, 3.00pm est
Tibetan Monks Replace Meditation Bells with SineClock 2.0
Changing a tradition that has been in place for thousands of years, Tibetan monks will no longer awaken, pray, work and eat to constant peal of meditation bells. Instead, they will now clear their minds to the soothing drone of SineClock running under the Be OS.

"SineClock has changed the way Tibetan monks meditate," exclaims Lapchi Tsarong, head monk of a monastary in the town of Trianga Rashi. "I, personally, have come closer to a state of Nirvana than ever before. Additionally, by tuning into the rhythms of SineClock, all monks immediately know if it is time to work in the fields or return for evening meditation."

A PPC running BeOS PR2 was installed in the bell tower. Soon after, the harmonious tones of SineClock caused yaks and villagers alike to stop and listen curiously. Soon after, a calming peace descended on the village. One villager claims that since SineClock was installed, his crop production increased seventeen percent.

The event also marked an important in-road for the BeOS in the hard-to-reach Tibetan monk information market, traditionally dominated by charcoal pencil and homemade paper. "I am pleased to hear that the monks have adopted the BeOS," states Jean-Louis Gasse, CEO of Be, Inc., "but of course would like to stress that the BeOS was designed to exist side by side with pencil and paper, not replace them."

The monks had previously rejected all other attempts at computerization due to their lack of "spiritual oneness with all of creation". Tsarong remarks, "The Be OS was the first that did not cause a disruptive flow of negative energy."

"My yak's coat has never been shinier," Tsarong added.

DOJ Special Investigator Victim of "Crippled" Windows OS
Department of Justice special investigator Lawrence Lessig's early investigations seemed to support Microsoft's claims that removing Internet Explorer components from future releases of Windows 9x would in fact "cripple" the operating system.

"While trying to perform standard tasks," the Harvard law professor reported, "I found the operating system to be unweildly and it did in fact crash several times."

It then came to Lessig's attention that he had been in fact been using the "control" machine - the machine which retained all of the Internet Explorer code.

"This was in fact my mistake. I just assumed that due to the poor performance of the operating system, that this was the machine Microsoft claimed was crippled," Lessig explains.

After switching to the computer with the Internet Explorer code disabled, Lessig reports that his experience was unchanged.

"I was having all sorts of performance and interface problems. However, these were the same problems I experienced on the Internet Explorer enabled machine, so I must assume that these problems run much deeper."

Lessig will continue his investigation and present his findings to the court sometime this spring.




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