[humorix] Crashback: Karma, Portals, Licenses

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

Crashback: Karma, Portals, Licenses
September 20, 2000

News publications often issue corrections or retractions
when they run an article that turns out to be false. 
Likewise, we here at Humorix are forced to issue
corrections when a fake news article we ran turns out to be
true.  That's the purpose of Crashback, a new feature in
which we provide updates for old fake news articles.

Any resemblance between this column and a particular
Slashdot feature are merely coincidental.  At least that's
what our lawyer told us to say.

* ICANN't Believe It

Recently we "announced"[1] that every two-letter TLD had
been sold to commercial interests.  We labeled that article
as "fake news", but it's slowly becoming true.  We
apologize for the confusion.

The Heard and McDonald Islands -- which have no population,
no home government, and certainly no DNS servers -- have
been granted their own Top Level Domain, .hm.  And now this
domain  joins[2] the swelling ranks of country-code TLDs
that are now controlled by Big Evil Companies.

We're outraged.  Some worthless Australian possessions in
the south Pacific get their own TLD, but Humorixia[3] --
that sovereign geek paradise sitting within international
waters -- gets squat. When the Revolution(tm) occurs, all
of the people responsible for the current shoddy state of
the DNS system will... well, we'll think of something
creative.

* Karma == Kash

Last year, Humorix  broke[4] the fake news that Slashdot
regulars were selling their karma-enriched user accounts on
eBay for a tidy profit.  It's no longer fake news.  Some
Dothead with the nick of "FascDot Killed My Pr" has
placed[5] his  virtual property[6] on the eBay auction
block.

The bidding is up to US$112.50 on 18 bids, all of which are
probably fake.  It's hard to imagine anybody -- except
perhaps for a retired dotcom billionaire -- would spend
that much beer money on something that has no intrinsic
value.  After all, it would take all of 3 microseconds for
Taco Boy to reduce your karma to -10,000,000.  Or to
increase the karma of all his friends so they can sell
their own accounts for big bucks.

* Good Move, Linus

Everyone's favorite "conniving bastard"[7] announced that
the Linux kernel would only be licensed under the GNU GPL
version 2.0 and _not_ any later version[8].  Clearly, this
move is designed to prevent Microsoft from acquiring Open
Source by way of a "Grossly Private License version 3.0", a
calamity we "reported" on earlier[9].  Does this mean Linus
reads Humorix?  Well, no, probably not.

* No Longer The Worst Portal

Last year we noted[10] that Google.com listed Humorix as
the number one result for "worst portal"[11]. This is the
only _real_ news we've ever published -- and it later turns
out to be false.  We've been beaten by something called
"Portal Of Evil" (no, it's not AOL) and two other
irrelevent sites, leaving Humorix as the fourth worst
portal.

Obviously, we're not happy about this lower ranking. 
Hopefully, by using the term "worst portal" numerous time
in this article, we can regain our rightful place on
Google.  We're also working on securing top placement for
other queries including "crappy portal", "money-making
portal", and "worst website".

* Life Imitates Humorix

Of course, some would quibble with the idea that Humorix
could be compared to "art".  But we do have a knack for
predicting the future:

Does MS barcoding of Windows licences make piracy
easier?
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/13302.html)

vs.

Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Policy Promotes Piracy
(http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/jun00.shtml#Medialess)

and

IT Olympics
(http://www.itolympics.org)

vs.

The First Annual Nerdbowl
(http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/jan00.shtml#Nerdbowl)

---

Links

[1] http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/jun00.shtml#TLD-Sellout
[2] http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13252.html
[3]
http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/dec99.shtml#Humorixia-Founded

[4] http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/sep99.shtml#Karma-Cash
[5] http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=438173842
[6] http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/may99.shtml#Virtual-Property

[7] http://lwn.net/2000/0914/a/lt-debugger.php3
[8] http://lwn.net/2000/0914/a/2.4.0-test8.php3
[9] http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/aug00.shtml#MS-GPL

[10] http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/oct99.shtml#Google-Project
[11] http://www.google.com/search?q=worst+portal

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