Open Source Headlines: July 27, 1999
NetBSD Officially 'Missing'; Police Launch Search
"It has missed its shift at Denny's for the past three days," say friends
July 27 - The NetBSD operating system has officially been declared "missing" by police, and a massive three-state search is now underway. The
operating system had fallen on hard times lately through a lack of publicity, and had taken a part-time job as a cook at a local Denny's, say
friends. "It missed its shift for, like, the last three days. And we tried calling its house and nobody answered, so we were worried that it might
be dead." NetBSD will soon be appearing on milk cartons in the "Have You Seen Me Lately?" section. Police refused to comment on whether the
disappearance of NetBSD is being linked to the similar disappearance of OS/2 Warp a few years ago.
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Windows 98 Applies for Admission into FBI's Federal Memory Protection Program
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Local Teen Brags About Being a 'Hacker' in Mistaken Belief it Will Get Him Laid
"This is bound to get me major buns," says 15-year old
July 27 - Local 15-year-old Bobby Hendrick has begun telling schoolmates that he is a "hacker," in the sorely mistaken belief that this will
attract girls to him. "My AOL Instant Messenger nick is 'd3aTh h8k0r'," says Hendrick. "Combined with my Metallica concert T-shirt that I now wear
every day, this is bound to get me some honeys." When asked about his credentials as a "hacker," Hendrick replied that he had so far "downloaded
some cool MP3s and a warez copy of FrontPage 2000" and gotten a friend to send him a serial number. "Plus," Hendrick added, "I heard about this
cool site called Bug-Tracker and after I find it, I will break into the Pentagon and try to start World War Three. That should get Jenny Finestein
in my algebra class to really like me."
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Steve Jobs Announces "Floppy Disks Suck Goat D**k"
"I Will Hunt Down Everyone Who Uses 1.44 MB Disks and Kill Them," Announces Apple iCEO
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Wired Magazine Cover: "Personal Multimedia Nanotechnology Will Revolutionize Everything Within Six Months"
"We're Not Kidding This Time," says Wired Editor
July 27 - Wired Magazine representatives announced a new "Next Big Thing," while they admitted in a press conference today that all of their
previous "Next Big Things" were primarily "utter horse-s**t." Juniper mentioned that, although no one had followed any of their "101 Ways to Save
Apple," the company "seemed to be doing sorta kinda okay now." Wired admits that other features and covers on "Why ISDN Will Rule This Planet
Immediately," "How Anyone Who Still Has Physical Cash in Their Wallet is a S**thead," and "Why No Internet Stock Will Ever Decrease in Value" may
have been somewhat misguided. "Oh, and we're sorry about Jon Katz," Juniper added.
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First Person Reads a Sendmail.cf File All the Way Through
"I got about halfway through, and it was just commented-out lyrics from 'Stairway to Heaven' and some snack recipes," says beleaguered
sysadmin
July 27 - Derek Thompson, a UNIX system administrator, has become the first person to ever read all the way through a sendmail.cf in one sitting.
"I was really bored and I had about 14 hours to spare," Thompson said, "so I figured I'd try reading a sendmail.cf file." Thompson revealed that,
after all of the config options and the relay rulesets, the file turned into song lyrics and recipes at about line 700. Representatives of
Sendmail, Inc. stated, "Yeah, we were primarily just f***ing with people. Sorry."
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Microsoft to Open-Source 'Times New Roman' Font
"See, we're doing open-source stuff," says MS. "So get off our backs."
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Mozilla.Org Says New Browser Coming Out "Any Day Now"
Project now has over 12 lines of finished code, say organizers
July 27 - Mozilla.Org has just released its Milestone 12 build, signfiying that the open-source version of Netscape Navigator now has 12 lines of
finished C++ code in it. "We're very excited," says one project organizer. "It will now get most of the way through booting before crashing on
most architectures." Project leaders say that a finished project is within close reach, as soon as its renderer is completed, a facility for TCP
sockets is built in, a user interface is established, POP3/IMAP functionality is written in, and the program proves stable for more than 30
seconds at any given time. According to project leaders, the browser should be released "somewhere between the next few days and late fall 2007."
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Jon Katz Rocks Open-Source World with New Column
"Why isn't there a 'dir' command in Linux?" Katz asks. "I can't see my files."
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