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Article Archive - 29 January to 6 February, 1998 |
6 February, 12.01am est
"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.
Be Developer and author of All Possible Images, Douglas Repetto,
explains how the program works:
"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.
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.
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.
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.
"This strategy is sure to catch on," I reportedly said.
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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
BeOS Disqualifies Olympic Athlete from
Competition
5 February, 12.06am est
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.
Congress Looks to Ban New BeOS
Application
4 February, 12.03am est
Senator Jesse Helmes (R, NC) has introduced a bill to ban the use and/or
distribution of allPossibleImages,
a new application for the BeOS.
"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.
Artificial Intelligence Program Runs Wild at
Be, Inc.
3 February, 8.30am est
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.
Secret Origin of Jean-Louis Gassée Revealed in
Top-level Meeting
2 February, 12.34am est
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.
Calvin Klein Ad Campaign Part of Be Extremists'
Plot
30 January, 9.27am est
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.
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".
MacOSRumors Site to Post Rumors, Sources
Say
29 January, 3.00pm est
High-placed sources close to the MacOSRumors team have reported that the
site is planning to post rumors on its website sometime today.
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.
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.
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