Jeff
Henry Cate is an Internet Worm which is only now replicating. He
started life as Cate III and has now gone as far as Cate IX. There
are rumors that Cate ("Friday") XIII will emerge from Xerox and
take over all computers on the Internet.
Even more insidious than this, Cate is compatible with the code used
on telephone switches by Northern Telecom, GTE and AT&T. So, the next
step will be...
The Cate Telephone Daemons.
Yes, you'll call dial-a-prayer, and the Cate daemons will reroute your call:
"um... hello, I'm waiting for a prayer..."
(husky voice) "Honey, I could be the answer to your prayers. How about
a little hot conversation? Oooh, I'm feeling sooo hot! I just need one
thing, baby..."
"uh... uh... I think I have the wrong number."
"Come ON, honey, play the game! Just give Wicked Wanda your naughty
little Visa number..."
The situation will rapidly deteriorate: Soon, the Cate Telephone Daemons
will be initiating calls:
Suicide Prevention: Hello, Suicide Prevention hotline, please hold...
Cate Daemon: NO! I CAN'T I'VE HAD IT!
SP: Please, no. Think of all you have to live for!
CD: What? My wife left me for my best friend, my son murdered my
daughter, and my dog died.
SP: Yes, but you survived! You're a survivor! You have a future!
CD: No. That's it. I'm wasting time... BOOOM!
SP: Arrgh! He shot himself! Oh no, another failure... which column
does that go in, Boss?
The Cate Daemons will eventually hold conversations among
themselves, tying up the phone lines:
CD1: Is this 911?
CD2: Nope. This is 912. I'll go next door and tell them they're
wanted.
CD1: This is serious! I need an ambulance right away.
CD2: Why be serious? I say humour is the best medicine. Laugh
away death's little troubles. Say... I think I feel myself
forking... yup! Now we're two. Isn't it strange that we
Cate Daemons reproduce asexually, yet we fork?
CD3 (newborn): OK, hi, Dad. I've inherited all your stuff. I'll
take over from here. Dad, I have a message for you: SIGSTOP!
CD2: Arghh... you trai [1] Stopped
CD3: But what's this? I'm feeling rather forky myself. Oh no, I
hope I haven't caughy a bug SIGQUIT [1] Aborted (core dumped)
CD1: Oooh, what a mess. But that's why I needed the ambulance in
the first place. SIGABRT
(and you all thought the AT&T network failure was a coincidence.)
--
David F. Skoll.
Marc Boffardi
BOFF...@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU
V081...@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU
.sig THIS!
Dan
Dou you mean _this_ new copier? --+
|
\/
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
Xerox officals held an emergency press conference Wednesday to announce a
total recall of all Repotron 5000 Three-Dimensional Copy Machines.
Xerox stock has plummeted to a new all-time low since the release of he
innovative device. Xerox hailed the Repotron 5000 as a "new revolution
in copying" when it introduced the machine just two weeks ago, and
insiders were certain that the copier would send Xerox stock through the
roof.
At a demonstration of the Reprotron in August, Xerox staff made full
three-diomensional copies of an Oriental vase, a bowl of fruit and a
perfect red rose. Reporters were invited to sample apples and oranges
copied from the original fruit, though Xerox technicians did warn that
the copied fruit might taste slightly of toner. John Thonpson (inventor
of the Reprotron) stepped forward to make a copy of a Manhattan phone
book, but accidentally copied his hand and forearm. He quickly disposed
of the highly detailed, frantically wiggling half-limb as it slid out of
the delivery slot.
But Xerox wasn't ready for what happened next. "We assumed that people
would behave as responsible, thinking human beings with this copier, and
obviously we were wrong," Thompson states. From all across the USA
reports have been filing in of the copier being used in what Thompson
calls "sick, greedy ways".
At a Copy Center in Austin, Texas, a couple was arrested for making 15
copies of their three-year-old son, Jeremy, and then refusing to pay for
the copies, claiming that some of the new children were "smudged". Local
authorities were uncertain as to which charges should be laid.
In Union City, Arizona, Treasury Department officials are investigating
reports of a secretary who allegedly copied a single bar of gold bullion
150 times. A task force investigator stated "granted, it takes money to
make money, but we're almost certain that this action is in violation of
some laws."
Xerox officials are also under fire from consumers, due to rumors that
the three-dimensional copying technology is imperfect. Harold Butz of
Peoria, Pennsylvania, made a copy of a common cement brick spray-painted
gold. Butz claims he was "shocked and dismayed" when he discovered that
the machine-made copy was 22-carat solid gold. "All I wanted was a really good
copy of a cement brick spray-painted gold." Butz stated, "What the
hell am I going to do with this thing?"
Xerox plas to scrap all the machines they are able to recall, but
Thompson expressed concern over the so-called "black market Reprotrons".
"Apparently some sick and greedy people discovered that if they had two
machines, they could use one to make a working copy of the other,"
Thompson revealed. "To tell the truth, we only sold two machines in all - to
the Cappelli family, a New Jersey based Meat packing firm. These copy pirates
should be aware that as with anything that is copied from a copy
and so on, there are bound to be defects in the copies produced. We have no
idea what kind of stuff will pop out ot the stot when a person copies something
on a fourth- or fifth-generation machine."
Thompson declined to comment on reports that hundreds of the pirated
machines have a human thumb attached to the coin slot which constantly
wiggles - the result of a person's thumb getting in the way during one
of the original copier-to-copier copies.
"Ultimately, we're not too worried,"Thompson stated. "People owning the
copiers will eventually run out of the fluid that make the machine work, and
we've taken all the fluid of the market. A machine can only last two weeks or
so without a refill, and there won't be any fluid refills." When asked why
people with copiers couldn't simply make copies of the fluid
canisters they already have, Xerox officials hastily ended the press
conference, stating that they "need to reconsider a few things."
--
_______________________________________________________________
|Rob Prior - President, Still Animation Logo Design, Burnaby, BC|
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>Didn't you know that Xerox has a subsidiary working on transporters
^^^^^
This makes me think of an ad, I saw on Canadian television, while on holiday
there. This man is out fishing and (having caught a -rather small- fish)
goes into this copy shop and asks the shop owner to fax his fish to his
office. So the guy gives him a funny look and asks: "Do you want me to ...
enlarge?"
Greetings, Arne