[humorix] Update: Perl Script Gains Citizenship

[James Baughn <jbaughn@xxxxxxx>]

Update: Perl Script Gains Citizenship
by Bryn Jones, bpaj [at] gytha [dot] demon.co.uk
August 11, 2004

The Humorix Vast Spy Network(tm) has just obtained a
communication from the future indicating that the
Not_HAL Perl script will indeed manage to become a
practicing eLawyer.

This information was received through a rip in the
fabric of space-time that recently opened in the
sub-basement of Humorix World Headquarters after a
freak accident involving... well, we don't want the
Nuclear Regulatory Agency to find out about that
one.

The shocking Not_HAL news arrived at our
Hole-In-Time(tm) portal in the form of a news
clipping describing the murder trial of beloved
Humorix Pundit and Social Commentator, Jon Splatz.
From what we can gather, Splatz will find a way to
build an EMP gun and banish Not_HAL's core
programming into Electron Hell before the eLawyer
can attempt world domination.

"I've obviously been framed," Splatz commented after
learning of the existence of the future news story.
"Or should that be... 'I will be framed?'  Or 'I was
framed in a future time?'  I hate these temporal
paradoxes."

He want on to say, "I didn't know I was -- or will
be -- capable of murder.  But if an EMP gun shoots a
Perl script and there's nobody around to see it,
does it make a sound?  Is that really murder? All I
know is that I'm not guilty, past, present, and
future."

During the high-profile murder trial, the defense
team, clearly running out of options, used the "But
who cares about a dead artificial lawyer anyway?"
argument.  In his compelling closing remarks, the
human defense lawyer stated, "If an eLawyer is
nothing but a bucket of bits, you must acquit."

The jury bought the argument, causing a stir among
journalists, who compared the bold gambit to the
famous Chewbacca defense.  "State v. Splatz is going
straight to the law school textbooks," said one
pundit.

Despite the acquittal, however, the news article
mentioned that Splatz still faced a mountain of
civil lawsuits filed by Not_HAL's children, a group
of forked processes that miraculously survived the
EMP blast because they had been temporarily saved to
the swap partition.

We will, of course, provide additional details on
this story as more news clippings arrive from the
future.  Or we might just make something up.

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