Entry No.16e

IT Writers Awards

LOCK your doors, bar your Windows and keep all household cleaning products out of the reach of children because it's happening again. Regular readers of Defrag may remember our groundbreaking story from last year which suggested that Microsoft CEO, president and guy called Steve, Steve Ballmer, was taking legal advice on the Department of Justice antitrust case from his seven-year-old son Sam, who advised him to appeal and also to buy him a packet of Pokemon cards.

A follow-up investigation, for which we wore our hat with one of those little cards with Press written on it, has revealed that Microsoft's child labour policies don't end there. Chairman Bill Gates is now taking speech-making lessons from his three-year-old daughter Jennifer Katharine. According to a story from Associated Press, the Gatesmeister's daughter is intolerant of aggressive and abusive language. ``I can't even say `stupid' or `kill' any more,'' Gates revealed. ``If she can't say it, I can't say it.'' At first we thought this was a sensible plan because it's amazing how such seemingly innocuous words can upset the youngsters, especially if you use them in a sentence like: ``I'm going to kill you, you stupid baby!'' But the more we think about it, the more his statement worries us. Defrag hates to be dismissive of young people -- after all, they are Our Future -- but we can't help but think that when you are the head of one of the world's most powerful corporations, limiting your vocabulary to that of a three-year-old is not such a sound business strategy. For instance, last week Bill Gates gave a speech in which he said: ``I think wireless is probably the key component that's really going to take the scenarios of empowerment that we've always believed in and make them a reality.'' On the surface it may seem like this is the sort of thing a child would say, on the grounds that it is more or less complete gibberish. But look a little closer, would a child really use words like empowerment and component? Defrag doesn't think so. In fact, we think that if it was being uttered by a three-year-old the statement would have sounded more like: ``Want juice. Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!'' Which is the sort of sentence that when uttered by the head of the company tends to make investors nervous. Especially if you smear yourself with soggy rusks while you say it. Undergrad fun and gamers ARE you at university? Are you annoyed by study cutting into time that could be more fruitfully spent playing computer games? Are you answering these questions out loud, even though Defrag can't hear you? Well, if you answered ``yes'' to any of these questions, Defrag has some good news for you, except in the case of the last question. You're on your own for that one. A story in the Los Angeles Times last week alerted us to a video games course offered by the University of California. The Gaming Studies Program will cover everything ``from their growing role in American culture to their design''. That's great because we can just imagine how much fun it will be writing essays along the lines of: ``Pac-man is symptomatic of the 1980s obsession with excessive consumption in a capitalist culture. Discuss, using references.'' But what we're really wondering is whether the course will be structured to meet the behavioural patterns of serious gamers. At the start, the university will have to kidnap the significant other of each student and lock them in a tower on a remote island as an incentive to complete the course. The lecture hall will have to have barrels and chests around the place which students can crack open to get food to power up mid-lecture should their energy levels start to decline. And attacking your classmates for their lecture notes will presumably get you bonus marks. Successful applicants must also supply their own rocket launcher and laser gun. Unfortunately, those students who fail to get enough points to make it to the end of the semester (or level, as it will be known) will die, but should you pass, you will be able to loudly proclaim that you have a Degree in Kicking Ass. And that's worth every risk in our book....QUOTE OF THE WEEK ``Alcohol and cigarettes both carry health warnings on their labels, but no-one warns the visitor to cybersex sites about its potential consequences.'' -- Alvin Cooper of the San Jose Marital Services and Sexuality Centre in the US What, like: ``Warning: the people on the following Web pages may make you feel inadequate about the size of various parts of your body?'' ...Dear Defrag, I've bought an iMac, which is a lovely machine, but it has no floppy disk drive. That's fine, but what am I going to do with the hundreds of floppy disks lying around my study? High Density What to do with obsolete disks is always a tricky problem. In fact, just the other weekend Defrag finally worked up the courage to turf that box of 5.25in floppies that we were keeping just in case. (Just in case what, we don't know. Perhaps, just in case we travelled back in time to 1986). Unlike discarded CD-ROMs, 3.5in floppies make pretty poor coasters, so unless you can stick them on a piece of canvas and convince someone that it's art, we recommend keeping them to throw at people you wish to annoy. Okay, just kidding here, kids....TOP 10 READERS' POLL This week: Bill Gates has bought a share in Newport Ship Building, maker of nuclear aircraft carriers, so we want your top 10 things Bill can do with an aircraft carrier. Next week: The Japanese government has delayed the roll-out of a new computers after it was discovered that members of the cult Aum Shinrikyo had developed the software, so send us your top 10 signs that your software has been developed by a cult. 10.Ship, in just seven trips, all copies of Windows 95/98 and 2000 that have had bugs identified, to South America. 9.Park it is his boatshed, just out back. 8.Use it for staging his own production of Under Siege -- the Musical. 7.Use Windows 98 as the operating system for the nuclear propulsion system of all US carriers, adding a new dimension to the common error know as, ``the blue screen of death''. 6.Deploy vital software supplies to starving Third World countries, as Windows has three times the carbohydrates of other operating systems. 5.Computerise the entire carrier operation using Windows 2000/SMS/flight simulator and sell them to the enemy. 4.Tow away a small South Pacific country -- not the easiest way to get your own top-level domain, but hey, why not? 3.Use those 16in guns to really sink Netscape this time. 2.Shoot down Steve Jobs in that new plane Apple bought him. 1.Relentlessly hunt the Giant Whale that took off his right leg as a younger man. Contributors: Captain Von Sling (not his real name), Russell Parker, Christian Anders, David Everingham, Michael Badham, Darren Thompson and David Tregoning.

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