Ladies and Gentlemen of the Archaeological Society:
I am here to present you with a theory so astounding, so amazing,
yet so compelling you will be forced to go home and rethink our entire
theory of the evolution of electronics.
The sudden disappearance of the hacker (interferus randomii)
at the beginning of the computer age has been attributed to
reproductive problems associated with long periods of inactivity,
exposure to beta radiation, social inadequacy, and stereotyping by
Hollywood technodolts.
I am here today to dispel all of these inadequate theories and
detail for you the demise of the Hacker.
Recent archaeological evidence extracted from our oldest and most
carefully preserved databases reveal that in the year 2004, a company
called Microsoft finally succeeded in deliberately - yes, deliberately
- eliminating the hacker species from our planet.
In April 2004, shortly after the monopolistic Microsoft had forced
everyone to switch to a new version of Office which included a built in
XML interpreter, an enterprising hacker named Jorgenson Schmidt-Hirosi
wrote a tiny program that exploded on the Internet like iridium from an
asteroid impact.
Soon the little program was everywhere Windows was installed -
which, by 2004, represented well over 90% of the installed base of
computers operating at the time. Then, shortly after 3:00 PM Redmond
Standard Time, every Windows based computer in the world began playing
"Jingle-Bell Rock" - we believe this to be some sort of religious
cleansing hymn - and then every Windows machine in the world
simultaneously wiped its own hard drive, asking for a reinstall
key.
The evidence is everywhere. A sudden burst of interest in
alternative operating systems was not altruistic; it was practical as
90% of the world's computers had ceased to operate. Discarded
PC-compatible computer "boxen" excavated from the giant Pit of Blue
Death in Nevada all show manufacturing dates within three years of the
"Impact," as it is now known. Sites around the world yield the same
pattern.
Thus, with no mission left and no reproductive prospects,
interferii faded into history as a footnote to a forgotten,
vulnerable, and discarded operating system.
The burst of creativity and enlightenment that led to our own
present civilization can be traced directly to that specific day. The
details of that peaceful transformation will be provided in future
presentations.
I thank you for your time, and my owner also thanks you.
Presented with appropriate humility,
R. Daneel Olivaw's Macintosh
(self-aware since 2084)
