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List:       humorix
Subject:    [humorix] The Haunted Server Room
From:       James Baughn <jbaughn () ldd ! net>
Date:       2002-10-30 5:51:20
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The Haunted Server Room
By Dances With Penguins, Humorix Investigative Reporter
October 29, 2002

Witches? Ghosts? Monsters? Chain-saw murderers? Orcs?
Zombies?  None of these traditional forms of Halloween evil
have any impact on geeks. Haunted houses, B movies, and
"Very Special Halloween Television Specials" simply don't
instill fear in the hearts of American nerds.

But that doesn't mean Linux longhairs can't be scared. 
Evil definitely abounds in the world, and the
South-Southeastern California Linux User Group hopes to
capitalize with its production of the Zeroth Annual Haunted
Server Room.

"It's just like traditional haunted houses, but this is
actually scary," explained SSCLUG Benevolent Dictator and
founder Eric Steverson. "Any geek that can make it through
the entire tour of the haunted server room will get their
US$5 admission refunded.  (Offer not valid if you pee in
your pants.)"

Money raised from the Halloween event will help support
professional hobby open source programmers who will be able
to continue working on half-baked KDE and GNOME applets
that will never be finished.

This reporter was invited to a beta-testing session of the
Haunted Server Room. I've never been more scared in my
entire life.  Since only five regular readers will read
this, I don't think it will be too embarassing if I admit
that I didn't make it through the whole complex.

The Linux User Group has leased an office building to put
on the haunted production.  This isn't just any building;
it was once home to a small but prosperous software
development company that developed a software product in
competition with Microsoft.  Within days the company
suffered a violent death when it became
embraced-and-extinguished.  Some say the building is
haunted in its own right because of its checkered past. 
The place vibrates with psychic energy -- the pain
experienced by its former inhabitants is etched into its
walls and floors.  Or something like that.

When first entering the building on the tour, you see an
innocent looking computer lab filled with PCs running
Linux.  Then unexpectedly, the power goes out and one of
the "tour guides" screams, "We're being attacked!"  One by
one, the computers display the Windows splash screen... and
then the Blue Screen of Death.  "Code 3! Code 3! Our
machines are being infected!" another tour guide shouts. 
Before long the entire room glows blue from the light of
the Operating System From Hell.

The whole thing is just a show, but it was orchestrated so
flawlessly that it sent my heart pounding.  

And this was just the warmup.

Before anybody could catch their breaths, men in black
suits busted the doors down and rushed into the room
yelling "We're from the BSA!  This is an audit!" They are
followed by another batch of attackers carrying briefcases
emblazed when the logo of everybody's least favorite
monopoly.  "We're from Microsoft! This is a raid! 
Everybody step away from the computers until we can inspect
them for pirated Microsoft software!"

I nearly had a heart attack right then and there.

During the next part of the tour of the Haunted Server
Room, the audience was led one-by-one into a hallway. 
Large advertisements  are projected on the walls -- all
from companies on the Official Register Of Big Evil
Companies That Should Be Boycotted.  Loud, blaring
commercials play in the background. And computers along the
wall feature pop-up advertisements -- literally. At random
intervals, robotic mallets connected to the computers pop
up and slap you over the head while playing pre-recorded
promotions for AOL, Unisys, Verisign, and other despised
companies.

Finally, one of the tour guides announces, "Welcome to the
future!"

The audience is then herded to another room decorated like
a prison cell. One actor, dressed in prison stripes, says
desperately, "I'm was locked up when I made a typo when
entering a URL and accidentally stumbled on top-secret FBI
documents!"

Another "prisoner" screams, "I made a GIF image using the
GIMP without paying royalties to Unisys!" and then, "I
posted a Usenet message containing a deep link to the Major
League Baseball website without first obtaining their
expressed written permission!"

The final inmate says, "I was given ten-to-twenty for
transferring a copy of Windows to my mother in violation of
the End User License Agreement!" He then says in a droning
voice, "But I underwent re-education therapy and now I'm
doing much better.  If I promise to never commit another
violation against my benevolent corporate masters, I might
be allowed to go free in six months.  Microsoft is good. 
Copyrights are good.  Piracy is bad. Piracy is bad.  Piracy
is bad..."

I couldn't take it anymore.  The Blue Screens of Death...
the Intellectual Property Police Invasion... the Saturation
Bombing of Advertisements... the Microsoft/Disney/AOL
Prison... 

I lost it right there.  I ran out of the building (along
with several other terrified-beyond-belief members of the
audience) at a speed I had never achieved even when I was
on the high school track team.

What did I miss?  Well, I didn't make it to the room where
a machine-gun-toting Richard M. Stallman goes ballistic
when somebody says "Linux" without "GNU".  I didn't make it
to the staged simulation of a Congressional hearing
sponsored and paid for by the RIAA into the evils of music
piracy.  I didn't make it to the demonstration of the
exciting new features of Microsoft Windows DRM Edition.

It's been two days now since I visited the Haunted Server
Room and I'm still having nightmares.  I now check under my
bed before I turn the lights off to make sure no Microsoft
lawyers are hiding down there.

This is the last time I participate in any Halloween
activities.

--
Humorix:      Linux and Open Source(nontm) on a lighter note
Archive:      http://mail.nl.linux.org/humorix/
Web site:     http://www.i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/

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