[humorix] Bill Bless You

[James Baughn <jbaughn@xxxxxxx>]

Bill Bless You
Daniel Novotny, danny(at)mail(dot)muni(dot)cz

I made a mistake. Again. My little heart aches. I humbly
bow in front of The System, which simply announces:

The program performed an illegal operation and will be
terminated.

Oh, such pain over an unfinished work. Oh, such sorrow. But
it has to be this way. Reconciled with the fate, I shuffle
through the muddy alleys to confession. Users, living in
muddy slums, see my robe of a novice and step out of my
way. "The servant of Lord Bill! Crashproofness to his
soul!"

Only one old fellow stands alone in the corner. He frowns.
Maybe an Appler...? No..., the Inquisition burned all
Applers at the stake long ago.

"I have sinned, Father Paul."

"Your system crashed, son?"

The Cathedral is marvelous: the clouds during the start,
the beautiful blue windows that you can open, close,
minimize, maximize... There are pictures of saints
maximized in the windows: Saint Jack, who died from hunger
humbly waiting for the start of Windows, Saint Tom,
fetching the page from http://www.microsoft.com/ until he
reached Ecstasy...

"What is your advice, Father? How should I prevent the Blue
Death, plaguing me day and night?"

"Repentance, prayers, Reinstallation!"

"Holy Reinstallation? Again, Father? Spare this unworthy
son the worst!"

"You know, son, what Bill has said: only Windows you may
have. Or do you want to resist the Holy Authority of Tech
Support?"

"I would never dare such!"

"Well, son. Play Solitaire for ten times and Minesweeper
for fifteen times, and your soul will be cleansed. No more
crashes!"

I kiss the ring of the holy man and I am released to the
eternally muddy streets of the town.

The next morning, my neighbor woke me. "Blue Death, lad!
Blue Death in my house? What have I done?"

"I am a mere novice. Go to the Cathedral of Tech Support,
only through Bill can you achieve enlightenment."  I gave
her the best advice I knew.

"I heard some magical formulas against system crashes, from
the herbalist."

"Which ones?" I became interested.

The black magic -- editing of the Holy Registry --- was
forbidden by the Priests of Tech Support.

"Ummm... if you run Paint three times, Notepad two times,
and Minesweeper once, and then recite 'Cables Disks
Trash... Windows Don't Crash', the Illegal Operations won't
appear."

I wanted to tell her it's just an old wives' tale, but I
decided to say nothing. What if it were true? With the Holy
System, one never knows...

Zdenek, a colleague novice, knocked at the door. "Heil
Bill. They eliminated another sect. Would you like to take
a look?"

"Heil Bill. Okay, brother, we'll go."

The mob, as always, stepped back when they saw our robes.
There were a lot of people there this time. I heard voices
from the crowd: "The Apocalypse! The DOS monster is
returning! The forces of the Command Line are coming back!"

I didn't know what the Command Line was, but it had to be
something truly evil. When a colleague, Kamil, mentioned it
in the seminary, he got a whole month of the temple jail,
strict asceticism, and he was banned from playing computer
games.

The muddy tents where the mob gathered were burned. Bill
gave, Bill took. The sectists paid for their heresy with
their lives. But then I caught a small glimpse of white
light in the ashes. A little piece of paper, with
"/usr/bin/perl" on it. I remembered the hieroglyphs,
crumbled the paper, and swallowed it. Some magic, for sure.

The next day I go to confession. I had made mistakes, as
the Blue Death had visited me again. I walk through the
crowd towards the Temple. "Servant of Lord Bill,
crashproofness to his soul!" The frowning old man was more
friendly now. Still sad, but looking at me like he is
waiting for something.

"/usr/bin/perl", I whisper to him.

"So you too..." a smile blossomed over the old man's face.
The bailiffs appeared. I turned my attention back to the
old man, but he had vanished.

"I made a mistake, Father."

"You weren't running Internet Explorer, MP3 player, and ICQ
at the same time, were you, Billless sinner?"

"No, Father. Regardless, the Blue Death visited me."

"That's not all, son, is it?" The piercing eyes of the
priest found the uncertainity in my gaze.

"I saw..."

"WHAT, by Control Panels, WHAT?"

"I saw... no..."

"Confess to your shepherd, son."

"That... that sect, yesterday."

"They are the bytes and to the bytes they turned, son."

"There was... a piece of paper... I didn't want to look at
it, really..." I was shivering all over.

"What was on that paper? I adjure you with the
Installation, the Reinstallation, and the Backup..."

"There was... /usr/bin/perl there."

The eyes of Father Paul widened. "WHAT?"

"/usr/bin/perl, Father..."

The cell was cold and bare. The executioner with the cat o'
nine tails was prepared. The Bishop and Father Paul were
standing above me. "You never saw such a paper. Repeat
after me."

"I never saw such a paper."

"Hmmmm, it doesn't sound too convincing," the bishop
objected. "Nine lashes."

Swish! "Windows Gracias."
Swish! "Windows Gracias."
Swish! "Windows Gracias."
Swish! "Windows Gracias."
Swish! "Windows Gracias."
Swish! "Windows Gracias."
Swish! "Windows Gracias."
Swish! "Windows Gracias."
Swish! "Windows Gracias."

After the punishment I went home, fully cleansed now. But I
started to doubt. The permanent crashes? Does it have to be
this way? If Lord Bill is omnipotent, why are the sects
here? What did that secret cipher mean? Who was that old
man?

"Searching, young man, searching? The DOS wisdom of the
Command Line is still here. Never dulled. Pure."

"Go away, you old witch!" I shot back. I go home and find
that all my Word documents have scrambled formatting. Maybe
I sinned. Or perhaps not? The worm of doubt is biting at my
mind.

The morning comes and I shuffle through the crowd again.
"You can safely switch off your computer now!" The hags are
chanting their litanies. The old man is here again. "You
were beaten, lad?"

I quickly ask, "What is the Command Line?"

"Oh, so you know this too! It's the place where you enter
the commands for the system in pure text form. By all the
bits and bytes, he's ripening for Peng..." Noise. The
cavalry. The knights of the Order of Big Excel rode across
the town square. The old man vanished again. Sigh.

In the seminary. We are learning the Excel tables. I don't
dare ask the priest, but brother Mirek knows a lot.

"Mirek, what is 'pure text'?"

Mirek went pale.  "Only the text in MS Word is really pure,
my friend."

"What version of Word?" Kamil asked. "There are rumours
going around in town, about Pure Text and Open Formats."

Open Formats! Another stone to the mosaic. But what's the
relation to "Pure Text" and "/usr/bin/perl"?

Just a few days ago I would have said, "Bill knows".   I
have doubts now. Is there only One System? Only one Bill?
Only Windows?

"Lad, when I was young, everything was easier. No glaring
Windows, only text commands. It didn't crash," the
herbalist laments.

"But all our faith is based on the concept of the Fall and
Cleansing!" I snapped back. "Or... maybe... Open formats?"

"Oh, my lad, it's been so long I last heard that... I
forgot what it means... Forgive the forgetfulness of an old
woman, I should buy some more RAM..."

The old man was at the market. He was hiding in the crowd,
but once he spotted me, he came closer joyfully. "Lad, by
all the sources and debuggers, they haven't gotten you yet?
You're still alive?"

"Yes, old man."

"The system doesn't have to crash. More accurately, it's
here to ensure the programs don't crash!"

This was the exact opposite of what we were learning in the
seminary. I blushed. Such blasphemy!

"The guards will be here in a moment, so I'll give you one
advice; follow..."

Roar. The dragon, MS Office, the pet of Lord Bill, flew
over the Town. The crowd became anxious, the people held
high their amulets of protection against Applers. The old
man vanished.

In the seminary, we found that we are one fewer. Brother
Mirek, the smartest one. "That sinner ran regedit.exe. He
disgraced the Holy Registry with the products of his sick
brain. During his torture, he even confessed to installing
Illegal software."

"HE COPIED SOFTWARE?" we all asked at once. Oh, Start Menu,
protect us. The bishop continued, "and we found a book
about Disassembling and Cracking in his dorm." Libri
prohibiti! Black teaching! I drew the sign of the Window on
my chest.

"Recant your dark teachings!" The bishop roared. Whom do I
see on the stake? It's that secretive old man who whispered
his wisdoms to me!

"I won't recant! People, open your eyes! Bill is just
sucking money out of you! By C, by Assembler, by Perl,
X-Windows and Shell, don't be like sheep!"  He just spotted
me. I saw the sparkle of sympathy in his eyes. "Whoever has
doubts is right! Don't use Word! Don't use closed document
formats! Seek the Penguin! Penguiiii..."

The blazing fire burned the body of the sinner. I have a
lot of questions in my head. I will seek. I will put
together the shards and maybe everything will be different.

"Phooey, heretic!" An old hag spit into the fire.



--
Humorix:      Linux and Open Source(nontm) on a lighter note
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