This page includes my satirical views of the news, and links to other sites.
My writings are in black. Plagiarized text is in maroon, sometimes highlighted by me in red.
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. . . Alternative medicine, by Dennis Miller.
. . . Hacker: mouse suspected re Disneyland hacked.
. . . Penguin rebellion! re penguins tipping over themselves, and impending battle of Microsoft vs Linux!
. . . Wayne's headlines re Bush-Gore vote count
. . . Smiles of yesterday
. . . . . . Why not smile today?
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Hacker: mouse suspected. Part 1 of 2 (27 Sep 00) by Wayne
Hacker Breaks Into Disney Computer
Monday, September 25, 2000
http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/techwr/20000925/tCB00V0907.html Not found.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- A hacker broke into a computer system at Walt Disney World last week where hundreds of guests' names, addresses and mug shots are available, a company spokesman said Monday.
The hacker broke into a computer system used by the Leave a Legacy exhibit at Epcot. At the exhibit, guests pay up to $38 each to have images of themselves placed on a granite monument to commemorate the theme park resort's millennium celebration.
A letter explaining the computer break-in was sent out to the 1,200 guests whose information may have been accessed, said Disney spokesman Bill Warren. No other personal information, such as social security numbers or credit card information was reached, Warren said.
"What the person was able to get access to was relatively small data," Warren said."
The FBI was investigating.
On the Net: http://www.disney.com
My dire suspicion -- oh, I hope it isn't true? Given that most hackers use a mouse on their computer, it is only a short step from there to realize who the real suspect might be -- Mickey Mouse! Who would have suspected, I ask?
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Hacker: mouse suspected. Part 2 of 2 by Wayne
The case of Mickey Mouse, alias Mick the Mouse
Part 2: Mouse spotted
I will try to keep you up to date on the following saga as it unfolds.
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Hacker Breaks Into Disney Computer
http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/techwr/20000925/tCB00V0907.html
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- A hacker broke into a computer system at Walt Disney World last week where hundreds of guests' names, addresses and mug shots are available, a company spokesman said Monday. . . . .
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Sadly, my initial suspicions have turned out to be true. The FBI has as its chief hacker suspect Mickey Mouse. They do not yet have evidence that he is part of the Mafia; otherwise, they would already be referring to him as Mick the Mouse. For that we can be grateful, as can the Sons of Italy Anti-Defamation League, the Society for the Prevention of Insults to Animals, and the Hollywood Icon Anti-Slander Syndicate.
A report just in from northern Florida. A State Trooper had been taking a break while on the lookout for DWC drivers, the natural suspects for drug-running along the Interstates, and wonderfully generous sources of "donations" to the Police Benevolent Fund. DWC? Driving While Colored. He had already pulled over one suspect that morning for the fact that his left front tire had touched the center line of the right-hand lane in which he had been driving, even though there was not another car within a mile of him. The charge? Making an illegal lane change. He had not put on his signal light. This called for, of course, handcuffs, a full body search, and a search of the trunk with sniffer dogs. No use going to extremes just yet. Besides, helicopters are expensive to call in, and he still had a lot of bullets left in his ammo belt.
After all of that exertion, the officer had rightly taken a little break. When he woke up, he was so startled to see an animal at the side of the road ahead of him that he spilled his rum and Coke in his lap. It appeared that the animal was nipping at a cheese and cracker snack. Maybe another DWC case? In any case, it looked serious. Now, what breed of animal likes cheese, he wondered? For a moment he thought he was going crackers.
Could this be Mick the Mouse on the lam? He grabbed desperately for his binoculars and took a close look. No, the animal appeared (through the 70x 100 binoculars) to be too big to be a mouse! It looked more like a Dalmatian dog, straight out of 101 Dalmatians. Besides, it was the wrong color for a mouse. It was all white with black spots. But it did have awfully big ears, though. He took a picture of it anyway. If he truly had thought it was a mouse, he would have got it to say "cheese". Who knows, it might be on the "FBI's Ten Most Wanted" list! Furthermore, if the suspect were, in fact, part of the gang of 101 Dalmatians, it could mean none other than that it was a case of organized crime after all! It's about time that he got some recognition!
Back at the Trooper station he woke up the other guys after downing another rum and Coke and showed them the photo. It turned out that he showed them the negative instead of the positive print, so what they saw as he rambled on excitedly about a rogue Dalmatian, white with black spots, definitely Caucasian, was a picture of a mouse colored black with white spots, maybe a Colored, with a skin condition or a case of Albino measles? As for paw prints. Couldn't find any at the scene, what with the dripping rum and Coke and all. He did find a black glove, though. Could it be O.J.Simson's? Must be a professional! Now this is looking ominous!
CNN is now trucking in more satellite dishes from Atlanta into northern Florida. This could be bigger than the Olympics! Eat your heart out, NBC! A CNN journalist asked the State Trooper Chief whether they had the hacker suspect in custody.
"All we can say at this point in time is that the suspect was spotted", he replied.
"But when you say 'was spotted'" replied the reporter, "does that mean that he can still be spotted?".
Replied the Chief: "As I say, if we do not see him now, it means that it remains to be seen, even though we think it is still spotted. Besides, who ever heard of a leopard changing its spots?".
"But", asked the reporter, trying to puzzle out how something could be both spotted and not seen at the same time, "I thought that a picture had been taken of the suspect?".
"True", replied the Chief, "but that was at a different point in time, one that is earlier than now -- older, too".
"Can you tell us just where he was spotted", asked the short, but intrepid reporter.
"He was spotted all over", replied the Chief.
"But, I thought he was spotted on the Interstate, and at a particular point in space", blurted the reporter, vocally.
"Yes, he was spotted all over, at a particular point in space and at a given point in time", rejoined the Chief, remarkably.
"I'm afraid I'm getting a bit confused", noted the reporter vaguely, "how can he be spotted everywhere at a given point in time and yet be spotted at only one point in space along the Interstate. Was that the only point at which he was spotted?".
"As I say again", said the Chief, getting just a mite impatient, "my point was that he was spotted everywhere and at one point in time, but was spotted nowhere else at other points. Do you get the point now?".
"At this point in space, and in time too, I think we shall sign off for now -- thank you, Chief".
So, now the whole situation has escalated to America's Most Wanted, with two suspects on the lam now, one a hacker with the handle Mick the Mouse, and the other a state trooper with a bad eye for photography! You've heard of Androids? This cop they've dubbed the PolarAndroid. Yes, he took his camera with him. Yes, it was a Polaroid.
At this point in time, no one knows at what point in space the two suspects are.
We will keep you informed of the further misadventures of
M * i * c * k t * h * e M * o * u * s * e .
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Penguin rebellion! by Wayne
Scientists to Study Mysterious Penguin Tipping
http://www.outsidemag.com/news/headlines/story_thu2.html Compiled by Outside Online
November 2, 2000 In what may be one of the oddest wildlife studies ever, British scientist are traveling to the Falkland Islands to confirm whether curious penguins become so fixated on passing aircraft that they fall over as they watch them fly overhead.
According to a report today by the Associated Press, Royal Air Force Pilots have long claimed that the birds crane their neck back so far to watch the planes and helicopter fly by that they tip over. The study will involve two Lynx helicopters that fly over the colonies from different angles and at different heights to test the penguins' reactions. [If you thought that things were bad with the Lynx choppers, imagine what could happen if they were Sea Kings!]
A British officer aboard the ship that will host the scientists confirmed the peculiar spectacle to the AP and stated that the investigation was prompted by environmentalists calling for fewer flights in the region. A scientist from the British Antarctic Survey told the wire service that the penguin tipping is an "urban myth."
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Urban myth, you say? Maybe there is a more ominous explanation. Are we sure that these Lynx helicopters are not, in fact, Linux helicopters? It would make sense, considering how closely allied Linux is with penguins. Isn't it just natural that penguins, -- who we all know are so loyal to Linux -- would fall over backwards in how much they look up to Linux? Who would have thought the Open Software Foundation (OSF) would have gone to these lengths (and so far south) to advertise its wares? Were any of its pilots wearing Red Hats, I wonder? That raises a delicate question. If these whirlybirds have Windows installed in them, wouldn't that be the first time that Linux has ever had Windows installed? Just asking.
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Scientists ask: Do penguins really fall over?
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Do penguins fall over backward when watching aircraft fly overhead?
Two British scientists are traveling to South Georgia in the south Atlantic to find answers to that question and others from a study of the island's 400,000 King Penguins.
Scientists have usually been skeptical about reports of penguins falling over backward to watch aircraft flying above them. But a senior officer on the British navy ship HMS Endurance, which is taking the scientific team to South Georgia, said he believed the reports.
"The penguins always look up at the helicopters and follow them all the way until they fall over backward," Stuart Matthews, the ship's operations officer, told the Daily Telegraph.
Dr. Richard Stone of the British Antarctic Survey told Reuters that scientists were concerned that low-flying aircraft could cause stress among penguins and affect their breeding performance.
"There may be an increase in heart rate as helicopters fly over," Stone said.
"The worst possible effect is that there would be a reduction in their breeding performance. If they were incubating eggs this could be quite devastating for them."
Stone said helicopters from HMS Endurance would fly at different altitudes over the penguins to help in the research.
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But were the poor little penguins being cared for at all? And could there be an alternative explanation for their increase in heart rate? Judge for yourself. The following shows one Red Hat Senior C++ Programmer coming to the rescue, but minus the Red Hat, alas! (No, the rumor that C++ stands for C more more just isn't true!)
See cartoon image Pants off at http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~conradp/linux/cartoons/images/homebm08.jpg.
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No wonder the poor little guy's heart was going pitter-patter! Have you hugged a penguin lately? Well -- she has!
It all seems to add up now. First we had Men in Black conspiracy theories, now we have Birds in Black and White to contend with! But, the story doesn't end there. Consider the following little morality tale. Here we also have a case where some of the animal kingdom -- marsupials this time -- are being bowled over by whirlybirds and such, but not for long -- revenge is sweet. Read on!
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CARELESS CODE RECYCLING CAUSES KILLER KANGAS
Mutant Marsupials Take Up Arms Against Australian Air Force
The reuse of some object-oriented code has caused tactical headaches for Australia's armed forces. As virtual reality simulators assume larger roles in helicopter combat training, programmers have gone to great lengths to increase the realism of their scenarios, including detailed landscapes and -- in the case of the Northern Territory's Operation Phoenix-- herds of kangaroos (since disturbed animals might well give away a helicopter's position). [There are those blasted helicopters again! Yes, they were probably Linux ones too!]
The head of the Defense Science & Technology Organization's Land Operations/Simulation division reportedly instructed developers to model the local marsupials' movements and reactions to helicopters. Being efficient programmers, they just re-appropriated some code originally used to model infantry detachment reactions under the same stimuli, changed the mapped icon from a soldier to a kangaroo, and increased the figures' speed of movement.
Eager to demonstrate their flying skills for some visiting American pilots, the hotshot Aussies "buzzed" the virtual kangaroos in low flight during a simulation. The kangaroos scattered, as predicted, and the visiting Americans nodded appreciatively... then did a double-take as the kangaroos reappeared from behind a hill and launched a barrage of Stinger missiles at the hapless helicopter. (Apparently the programmers had forgotten to remove that part of the infantry coding.) [Could it have been even worse? Well, how would you like to see penguins attacking with Stinger missiles? Exactly! ]
The lesson?
Objects are defined with certain attributes, and any new object defined in terms of an old one inherits all the attributes. The embarrassed programmers had learned to be careful when reusing object-oriented code, and the Yanks left with a newfound respect for Australian wildlife. [Let that serve as an object lesson in object-disoriented programming!]
Simulator supervisors report that pilots from that point onward have strictly avoided kangaroos, just as they were meant to. [No mention of the penguins -- oh no.]
-- From June 15, 1999 Defense Science and Technology Organization Lecture Series, Melbourne, Australia, and staff reports
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How do you think that the penguins are going to get revenge against the forces of the Kingdom of Microsoft? Well, . . .
See cartoon image at http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~conradp/linux/cartoons/images/roared.jpg.
Who would have thought that you would ever see a penguin with a Bill in its bill?
And how do you think that the Leader of the Kingdom would reply, and upon what platform he would appear?
For a glorious image, be warned that the message you will see after clicking on the link near the end of this sentence about downloading Netscape (you can then safely click on <OK> to downloading Netscape without that happening) is just part of the joke on the page that you are going to by clicking Gates Hordes. (You will have to move downward a few lines to see the image on that page. This is more complicated than I would like because I was not able to copy and paste that image. I do not know why, yet. I copied the others in this article alright.) That same site, Larry Brash's Microsoft & Bill Gates Joke page, is at Brash.
You guessed it! From the position of the sun alone, you can see that the glorious Leader of the Kingdom of Microsoft is marshalling his forces -- heading southward toward the impending battle against the Birds in Black and White and the Kanga Klans! No Gates shall hold back his hordes! But, wait! Is that not a Linux whirlybird attacking from right out of that selfsame sun? After all, Linux and the penguin birds are all of a feather in getting along quite well with Sun Microsystems, we've heard.
Janet Reno is nowhere to be seen -- yet! They're still trying to find McMurdo Sound on the map -- the same one they and their CIA buddies down the street used to find the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade! (The map was so old that some of the Roman Roads were still under construction!)
And, finally, upon those shores of ice did he arrive!
See cartoon image at http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~conradp/linux/cartoons/images/titanic.gif.
Let the battle begin!
Not to boast too much, but the images above were brought to you through the aid of the GIMP. (Gee I'm Mighty Pretty). Say one for the GIMP!
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Wayne's headlines re Bush-Gore vote count
From my much-anticipated headlines section:
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Miami Herald: 1 April 2002.
. . . Gore leads by 1 vote, but counting complicated by pregnant chads having given birth. Proximity to dimpled chads suspected culprit.
. . . Pro-lifers march against aborting "offspring ballots". DNA testing for proxy parentage of ballots proceeding.
. . . Bush adds 25th lawyer to team, and calls for UN intervention and monitoring of Florida votes by Zambia and Nigeria.
. . . NATO preparing strike force for possible attack on Chinese restaurant in Miami. CIA searching for Texaco maps.
. . . Latest CD "Is a Gore on the floor worth two in the Bush" by the new group "New Chads on the Block" rising in the charts (although those ballots are being recounted too!).
. . . Gore's team of mathematicians in fierce debate over use of: (1) Roman numerals vs Arabic numerals, and (2) abacus vs computers. A Dade County SWAT team is on standby.
. . . Bush mathematicians retaliate by threatening to legislate the value of pi to be 3 instead of 3.14159265358979323846264338327 . . . so as to make it easier to round off the ballot counts -- they being circular and all. Besides, most of the scrutinizers do not have 3.14 fingers!
. . . Gore algebraists retort that this is a circular argument -- more pi in the sky!
. . . Bush team accuses Gore's pi statisticians of being on LSD (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds).
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Smiles of yesterday
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This may be the source of some of the problems of our lady friends: http://www.gotlaughs.com/humor/men.shtml
Here's an example of one of the culprits -- bad dog: http://www.gotlaughs.com/animals/baddog.shtml
Here's what that guy drives: http://www.gotlaughs.com/animals/k9.shtml
. . . And two of his pals -- friends forever: http://www.gotlaughs.com/friends/1.shtml
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See also News satire (News10).
The AFU & Urban Legends Archive: http://www.urbanlegends.com/
Alan Sokal Articles on the Social Text Affair: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/ Includes: "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity".This is the original "parody" article, published in Social Text #46/47, pp. 217-252 (spring/summer 1996). Has many links, and serious implications re Postmodernism.
Alternative medicine, by Dennis Miller. http://www.hbo.com/dml/cmp/medicine.html. " . . Like I said, I don't think that Western culture has all the answers, but it sure does seem like people in India flock to the Red Cross in droves whenever that tent pops up. Hey, maybe that's their alternative medicine (wink, wink). . .".
buttons galore: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~pitharat/buttons.html. . . . WARNING, these are not just the run of the mill, normal, ordinary, "click me please," politically-correct buttons... No siree....they will fight back . . . For example: buttons with titles such as 'What are you doing here?', and 'Look behind you'. Exactly!
Furniture Porn: http://www.furnitureporn.com/. Welcome to the HOTTEST site on the Web for hardcore furniture action! Indescretion is advised!
The Homepage of God: http://www.netstore.de/~god/ Includes family photos and God's WWW Absolution Service.
How to drive like a moron: http://members.aol.com/doggiesnot/. Develop those moron skills you need to be a "better" driver!!
How to save time!: http://jokes.jesper.com/jesper/jokes.nsf/uid/F00BDDD4EE153021C125699A0056EC2A (Added 8 Jan 01.)
HumorLinks.com: http://humorlinks.com/links/. 3,255 links, in many categories. Includes:
. . . F U N N Y P H O T O S!! http://www.humorlinks.com/links/Photos_and_Images/ Funny photos. (Added 14 Dec 00.)
Institute of Druidic Technology: http://www.jbum.com/idt/ The goal of the Institute is to prove that the ancient inhabitants of Britain had access to advanced computer technology.
The Illustrated Guide To Breaking Your Computer http://members.aol.com/spoons1000/break/index.html
Jokes & Satire Web Sites: http://excite.co.za/entertainment/humor/political_humor/jokes_and_satire/. Excite Entertainment. 62 sites.
Jokes at jesper.com: http://jokes.jesper.com/jesper/jokes.nsf/orange/start?opendocument. Makes you laugh every time. Text, photos (great sight gags!), and videos -- a few of which are more than risque!
LaughNet - Satirical And Parody Sites: http://laughnet.net/satire.htm
LIGHTING THE GRILL: http://ghg.ecn.purdue.edu/ Lighting the grill with 3 gallons of liquid oxygen. Started with 60 lbs of charcoal, and burnt up 40 lbs of it in 3 seconds. Result is a grill ready to cook in about 3 seconds, and all the old grease, etc burned off (not to mention the garage, the back yard, . . ?). 1996 winner of the Ig Nobel prize for chemistry. See the movie!
The New World Odor: http://www.rru.com/webodor/. Making scents of Olfactory Transmission Protocol (OTP), the new protocol that's permeating the Web. Includes a review of Adobe Odorshop.
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You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca
