First off, most people don’t realize it but old Abe was actually an American president before he started his heroic crime fighting career. This is why he is on the $5 bill. But that period of his life was largely uneventful up until the point when two time travelers (Bill S. Preston Esq and Theodore Logan later known as the Wyld Stallyns) whisked him off to 1989 San Dimas, California. There Lincoln got cybernetic enhancements, including the fabled Lincoln Repeater gatling gun mounted on his right wrist.

Abe Lincoln with his cybernetically bonded minigun.

The modifications gave him super human speed, strength and near invulnerability to gunfire. Upon returning to his own time, Lincoln almost won the civil war for the union until he was assassinated John Wilkes Booth who set off an EMP device during the performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater. It is unclear how he got his hands on the device as none of the known time travelers admitted to delivering it. It is theorized that it was either the work of the Evil League of Evil or the mysterious Time Keepers – a shadowy organization that often steps in to “fix” the past that was altered by unscrupulous time travelers.

After the assassination Lincoln’s robotic body was preserved, but the damage was irreparable using the periods technology. Abe spent the next two decades as a slowly rusting heap of useless 20th century technology. That was until he was repaired by Dr. Emmet Brown (another famous time traveler) who added many enhancements to his inner workings. Dr. Brown managed to restore Lincolns personality based on reconstructive templates he brought from the future and what was left of the positronic brain that was damaged by Booth’s attack.

Robot Lincoln hooked up to Doc Browns memory reconstruction machine

The procedure was very successful, and Abe Lincoln was brought back with only few minor memory gaps. From that point on, he devoted his life to fight evil whenever and wherever he saw it. Since his cybernetic body did not age, Abe was able to fight in the first wold war and then storm Normandy beaches during World War II.

He fought in many battles, but unfortunately his tour of duty was cut short in Berlin when he and his unit was ambushed by Hitler’s undead army. In case you didn’t pay attention in your history class, Nazi’s were the first to successfully synthesize the Zombie virus. Abe single handed dispatched over 700 unded until he finally fell under the sustained assault. With Abe’s whole unit turned undead, and the hero himself incapacitated Allied Forces had no choice but to nuke the city to prevent a full outbreak.

Lincolns body was not only damaged beyond repair but also extremely radioactive. His body was transported back to US where he was given his second funeral and was laid down to rest in a sealed underground tomb. A bit later Walt Disney petitioned the government for a permission to try to resurrect the hero once again. His request was granted, and Lincoln was transported to Florida where an army of Disney imagineers rebuilt his body from scratch, and used a much more advanced version of Doc Brown’s memory reconstruction process.

Abe Lincoln's Body being rebuilt by Disney Imagineers

Currently Abe resides in Florida and works for the Disney corporation under a contract to pay off the multi-million dollar reconstruction costs. His main job is to guard the head of Walt Disney and make occasional public appearances and speeches at the park. Disney corporation refused to allow him to participate in the current war efforts. Restoring the nation’s hero was a huge financial strain on the company, and they are not willing to risk losing it. At least not until they see some return on that investment.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

In related news, today is also the birthday of Charles Darwin – a great man who “invented” evolution. He was awesome too!

Phil and Phil - one of them controls time, the other one is a weatherman

Now, I know that Terminalists are an international bunch, I should probably explain this US-centric ritual to my readers from other parts of the world. You see, each year on February 2 we commemorate a freak event in 1993 when Bill Murray got stuck in a time loop. Actually the custom is much older than that, but we forget. The ritual is simple: we pull out a random groundhog out of a hole and shake it in front of an angry crowd. This usually scares the shit out of the poor animal and prevents it from creating a stable time loop.

If you paid attention in your bio class you should know that American groundhogs are somewhat related to displacer beasts but rather than bend space they bend time – and only in February for some reason. Unfortunately (or fortunately for us) due to severe inbreeding and laziness they completely lose this ability when they get scared – a bit like Fainting Goats. Yes, it seems like a useless ability – you’d expect it to be a fight of flight type response thing, but it’s not. Groundhogs are basically like natural homing missiles. Most of the year they live as peaceful herbivores, bur around February they enter their predatory stage. Damn things have been living alongside humans for so long they actually evolved to prey on us. A Groundhog will usually imprint on a nearby human, and then snare him in a time loop. Then it will remain hidden and feed on his victims emphatic energy. Being stuck in time is highly stressful, and humans tend to get restless, frantic and delusional after a while – which is exactly what the beast seem to want. We don’t know how they choose their victims (but most likely it is convenience and proximity), or how the loop can be ended (killing the animal does not seem to work as it re-spawns at each iteration of the loop). All we know is that if there is one of them things living near your house, you better scare the shit out of it in early February or else you may end up like Bill Murray. Then again Bill got lucky and managed to break out of the loop and then make a movie about it. According to his research in the area, Groundhogs lose interest with the victim once it stops struggling and finds inner peace. But it is yet to be confirmed.

Yes, it’s a silly holiday but hey – it’s practical. If you have never experienced a time loop, don’t judge us.

Oh, and if you are relatively new here, I highly recommend taking this occasion to read my Groundhog Day post from 2008. That’s the one we discuss what we would do if caught in a time loop. For example, how would you keep time? What would you do with all the free time? Would you become a superhero or super villain and etc…

Seriously, never leave college! © xkcd

Yep, once you leave academia no one will actually understand what you do. Unless you are working for a geek friendly company that was funded and is currently managed by geeks, people will be more impressed with your “Outlook configuration” skills than with your programming. People will assume that you actually went to school to learn “computers” – ie. how to fix and configure them. Programming being just a small but intricate case of “computer configuration” process.

Case in point, have you ever notice how people tend to use words configure and program interchangeably? Hey can you program this address into my Outlook? Can you program my excel to open those Office 2007 documents? Can you program my laptop to work with your wifi connection?

Of course this language quirk probably stems from the fact that we commonly say “program” when we mean configure when working with other electronic devices – like VCR’s or DVR’s for example.

Oh, and the only time you will be praised on your programming is when your GUI is actually visually impressive. Yeah, GUI – that most insignificant part of the software most of us throw together the last minute – that’s the only part people in the real word actually notice:

The chart on the left is generic, and random but you get the idea

Ah… Real world is a funny place. If you love to program, love solving difficult problems, love being challenged and want people to appreciate your skill, and knowledge and you want to do actual computer science for living then you should really consider getting a PHD, becoming a professor and staying in the academia.

That’s really the only place you can actually interact with other people who understand, appreciate and perhaps even admire your work. Your real work that is. Not just praise you on a well designed GUI but look at that meticulously crafted algorithm, and really, really get how much work you put into it. Academia is also the only place you can get paid for hacking away on really obscure, abstract projects that really interest you but have no real world applications (yet). Things that only you and a select group of other PHD’s in the same field will actually find use for. You know, applications that will have no retarded users who will complain about trivialities, and ruin everything all the time.

The only problem of course is that these people who understand you will be few and far in between. Most of them will work at different universities. Likely most of your fellow faculty members who you will see every day will have no clue about your field of research. They will politely nod and try to hide their yawns when you talk to them about your craft. Hell, most people in your field will likely be bored to death by the stuff that fascinates you. Unless of course you pick a popular research area, in which case you will have to deal with a lot of competition. Obscure stuff is much more convenient.

Oh, and you will probably need to teach bunch of classes to young impressionable people who will do everything in their power to actually fail your course, and not retain any information you are giving them, no matter how hard you try.

So yeah… You’re screwed either way.

I guess, what I’m trying to say here is that ours is a lonely, thankless craft. But someone has to do it, eh?

And yet, people insist on treating them as if they were conscious, living beings. They curse at them, blame them or worse yet – give them cute names. It’s not only silly but also counter productive. This behavior is basically empathic imprinting. Personification slowly but surely imbues the inanimate machine with either positive or negative emotional discharge. It pools up inside of the machine, fills all available spaces, covers every inch of the surface and then starts thickening. After several months of being bathed in waves of unrestrained empathy, the concentration is high enough it starts acting like a spectral equivalent of the primordial soup. It becomes a bubbling cauldron of psychic emanations. Sooner than later there is a spark of cognition, and the whole thing coalesces into a non-physical emphatic sophont entitiy. For the purpose of this article I will refer to these entities as “Machine Spirits (or MS)” but they are not true ghosts – at least not in the way we understand them. An MS specimen is nothing more than an empathic echo. While sapient, it’s thought patterns are shaped entirely by the emotional input provided by the human. As such it is incapable of exhibiting emotions other than it was exposed to. Being a specter born out of emotional energies it usually possesses no logical faculties and exhibits highly irrational and capricious behavior.

Machine Spirits use your computer as a physical host body that anchors them in this universe

The exact patterns of course depend on how the user treated their physical host (ie. the computer). For example, people who think the computer hates them, will give a new beginning to a being that knows little more than hate. Those who despise technology will have to deal with spiteful specters. Machines that were pampered and loved on the other hand will loving and playful personalities. This may not seem like a bad thing, but you have to remember that these beings are purely irrational, run on raw emotion and are incapable of reasonable thought. Thus a loving spirit for example decide to manifest their fillings by arranging bits on your hard drive into pleasing patterns irreversibly corrupting your data in the process.

What’s worse, since Machine Spirits are bound to a physical host and manifest in the physical universe rather than the spectral realm, they must have some mechanical means for their cognitive processes. Most (if not all) MS entities learn to steal CPU cycles and reserve memory areas for their own purposes which severely degrades the performance of the machine they inhabit. This is precisely why a brand new store bought computer is usually blazing fast for about a year, and then slows down, eventually grinding to a halt. It usually takes anywhere from 6 to 18 months for a user to successfully imprint an emotional echo on a machine and create an MS entity. As the specter grows and matures it requires more and more resources which explains a sharp decline in performance on machines that are over 2 years old.

MS entities enter dormant state when the hardware is powered down. They are irrational beings and their minds and emotional patterns are fully formed “at birth”. Still, over time they acquire new experiences which can alter their personalities. Unlike their original makeup these experiences need to be physically stored somewhere. Most MS entities steal hard drive space to accomplish this. This is why many users with MS infected machines often notice shrinkage of free HD space, but are unable to explain where that space is used.

There are two known ways to remove an MS entity from a piece of hardware. First one, is naturally the wipe & reinstall procedure. Unfortunately id does not guarantee removal of the spirit, but it can at least “reset” it to it’s original state by wiping it’s experience cache from the hard drive. Sometimes this experience is traumatic enough for the MS entity to self terminate or go into an indefinite dormant state.

The other method is starvation. While MS does not actually feed, it does thrive in environments rich in emphatic emanations. Of course it is a highly subjective, and finely tuned emphatic receptor that can only detect emotional waves directed at its physical host. It remains ignorant of all other emotional background noise. Since MS entities have no sensory apparatus (and no, they actually can’t learn to operate web cams and speakers) emotional deprivation works similar to sensory deprivation in living beings. It will slowly drive them insane. But unlike physical entities, specters can essentially will themselves out of existence. In other words if you stop personifying your computer, it’s embedded persona will eventually go away.

The problem with his that experienced machine ghosts develop defense mechanisms against this technique. They will for example try to provoke emotional response from the user by crashing the system, corrupting data and causing all kinds of other mischief. In worse case scenario they will dump themselves to hard drive and go dormant for a while but without releasing any of their tied up resources. This is why this method is most effective when combined with reformatting and re installation of the OS. A confused, vulnerable and freshly amnesiac MS will be much easier to starve than a a malicious ghost with baggage of experience to draw on.

Neither of these methods is 100% successful, and you have to keep in mind that the entity may still take over your box after sufficient amount of time has passed. Once you get a machine spirit, getting rid of it is very difficult. Buying a new computer is usually the only solution that works. But if you keep personifying the new machine, it will eventually develop it’s own specter.

The solution? Don’t do it! Your computer is a machine. It is a tool. It is an extension of yourself. It has no personality, and no mind of it’s own. Stop pretending like it does. Stop talking to it. Stop blaming it for your own mistakes. Stop talking about it as if it was alive. Don’t ever personify it – even jokingly. Don’t even think about it as an entity of it’s own. A computer is a conduit of your will – a transmission medium that connects you to the internet. Nothing more. If you think of it in any different way, you are just asking for trouble.

All of this also applies to modern cars which have computerized on-board diagnostic systems. Did you ever have that annoying “check engine” light flashing on your dashboard for no reason whatsoever? Yeah, now you know why. Don’t fucking personify your car either!

I encourage you to share our own personal experiences with machine ghosts in this comment thread.

Incidentally, guess what I’m doing on Black Friday this year? Getting up early to catch the best deals and get a jump start on my Christmas shopping? Fuck no! I’m doing this:

That’s right – I’m lying face down, and unconscious in my bed making ZZZ sounds. I am fucking sleeping in. Screw shopping. I went to a store on a Black Friday once and it was not a pleasant experience. It was like playing Left 4 Dead but instead of zombies there were angry housewives and I didn’t even have a weapon to defend myself. Seriously, trying to go shopping today is the closest experience you can get to facing down a zombie horde and survive.

So fuck it I say. I’m using my holiday to relax, play video games and do absolutely fucking nothing.

How about you? Are you going to brave fighting the horde do do some early Christmas shopping? Extra points if you managed to get some geeky swag at discount prices. Feel free to brag in the comments. Also, post disturbing Black Friday shopping stories if you have any.

“Oh, I’m thankful for all the wonderful things that happened to me this year *eye roll*“. So yeah. Have a good one!

Happy Turkey Slaughtering Day!

Of course I know that there are many non-US based readers who frequent this page so let me explain this holiday to them. You see, back in the colonial times bunch of pilgrims encountered a local population of Native Americans. Then something happened, and afterward there was a turkey dinner. What exactly happened is a bit uncertain. Some people say that there was singing and holding hands involved, other people mention a wholesale slaughter of native populations. But who cares.

In truth, this is how this whole thing started

The holiday is not about pilgrims, Indians or turkeys! It is about getting together with your family, having a dinner and arguing like you have never argued before. Most families save up pent up aggression for that occasion all year. Others hoard embarrassing secrets they can use as ammunition. Traditionally we serve Turkey because tryptophan it contains ensures that dinner table fights fizzle out naturally due to the fact that everyone becomes more groggy and sleepy as the night progresses. Next day we all hug, smile, pretend that nothing happened and go shopping.

Have fun, stay safe, kill a turkey!

Our regular UPS and FedEx delivery people usually need a signature. Still, I can hear them coming in and usually greet them as they are walking in, as my cube is actually near the door. Sometimes they smile, sometimes they wave or return the geeing. Sometimes they even stop by and chat with us. But not the US Postal Service guy.

In fact, I don’t even know if he is a guy. He could be a woman. Or both. Or neither. He could be some grossly mutated monster for all I know. I have never actually caught a glimpse of him. I have never heard him open or close the office door. Sometimes, if I’m really attentive I can actually hear the characteristic *plop* sound a bundle of letters makes as it hits the desk behind my back. But every time I turn around, the mailman is long gone. Once I even jumped out of my cubicle to see him walking out the door but he just wasn’t there. He vanished before the mail even hit the desk, alerting me to his presence.

This is what happens when a retired Ninja takes a job at the post office

I consulted this experience with my coworkers, and none of them has seen this evasive mailman either. It’s a bit of an office mystery at this point. Is he a man? Is he a woman? How old is he? Is he a Ninja? Is he an ex spy? Former mercenary? A retired hit man? Shadow person from a parallel dimension? We just don’t know!

Every time we set a trap for him, he actually manages to outsmart us. When someone sits in the empty cubicle he leaves the mail on top of the filing cabinets just outside of it. If someone happens to be filing, he just drops it on the floor by the door. If someone is standing an staring at the door he will wait till they turn around, crack the door open just a tiny bit, slide the mail in and then bolt for it.

I even asked the FedEx lady if she has ever seen our mailman, but she never actually met him despite sometimes delivering packages minutes before or after him. Bizarre!

I actually considered setting up a web cam pointing at the door, trying to capture him in action. But then maybe that would be a mistake. Perhaps there is a reason why he does not reveal himself to us. Perhaps the truth is just too frightening. Also, seeing him sneak in would probably ruin this mystery thing we have going on right now.

“Dude, Firefox 2.0 is ancient! What about Chrome and IE8?”

Well, the point is that it was not ancient when I wrote that post. Back then it was cutting edge. But we came a long way since then and so I decided to post a short update to that post.

Of course there is really no point for me to update the entry for Lynx or Dillo because not much has changed for those apps. In fact, a lot of the browsers on that old list sort of faded into obscurity. For example IE overlays such as Maxthon became obsolete around the time IE7 introduced tabbed browsing. Others such as Netscape or AOL browser are hardly even around anymore. So in this post I will mainly concentrate on the leading browsers. You know, the ones that actually support modern standards and have large user bases. Oh, and Lynx.

	Firefox You are not sure why people complain about Internet Explorer so much. It is a perfectly serviceable tool for downloading Firefox on a new windows machine. You have tried different browsers but you feel they are all vastly inferior to FF. Flock does too much, Chrome does too little, Safari is to fancy and etc… Its not like these browsers have better features anyway. At least not for long. Any cool, worthwhile and innovative feature will be either added in the next Firefox release, or has already been replicated in the form of an extension. Every time you switch browsers you are amazed at how different the web looks. Your favorite websites are covered with banners, useful AJAX based features are gone… Then you realize that other browsers don’t actually have Adblock, Greasemonkey and Stylish extensions that you rely on. You also get annoyed when you try to test your websites in other browsers since they don’t have access to the full version of Firebug. Seeing how there is an extension for everything out there, you can’t imagine ever needing another browser.
	IE5 Kill yourself.
	Google Chrome You love Google Chrome because as everything made by the big G it is fast, sleek and stable. Now you can check your Gmail and Google Reader feeds and Google calendar in style as you edit your Google Docs in a separate tab, chat in Google Talk, get your directions from Google Maps and build applications for Google App Engine. You are not really concerned that Google probably knows more about your personal interests, hopes, dreams and desires than your own mother. After all, their motto is “don’t be evil” right? Also, the tear-off tabs were awesome killer feature until Firefox totally copied them. Still, your browser runs every tab as a separate instance so there is really no way for one website to crash the whole browser… Until one does, that is – but that happens rarely.
	IE6 There are two possibilities here: You are using a locked down company computer – in which case, WTF are you doing reading this? Go back to work you lazy bum! Also, your sysadmin is either lazy or stupid. Or both. You are to stupid to live and/or you enjoy ruining the internet for all of us. In addition your machine belongs to at least 17 botnets and you pick up new trojans daily. You often wonder why your internet is so slow but you are definitely not going to install some shady “Fox Fire” or “Intranet Explore 8″ whatever that is. It’s probably a virus or something. I hope you fall into a ditch, break your ass and die all alone as punishment.
	IE7 As a rule you don’t use Windows Update. You are probably running Vista in it’s original, pre-SP1 shape and form. Your computer it is infected by 5 billion viruses and trojans making it barely usable. You heard that there is a newer version of Internet Explorer out there but you don’t care. You don’t like change. Finally, you assume that your computer is so slow because someone told you that Vista sucks. I mean, yes – it does, but it doesn’t suck that much. Your computer is slow because you are running outdated browser on an un-patched OS. And I’m not going to help you with that because you are ruining internet for everybody.
	IE8 You are one of the few windows users who do know how to use Windows Update. Hell, you might have even went out of your way and downloaded IE8 yourself though I doubt it. No, seriously – most people clever enough to know what a browser is know better than to use IE. But you might just be a loyal Microsoft customer who simply likes the new browser for all of it’s “innovative” features. Someone told you that IE8 is actually pretty standards compliant, but of course you don’t know what that is. You would probably be pretty proud that your browser of choice passes the ACID2 test but you don’t know what that is. Also, I might actually consider helping you to remove all these nasty trojans from your machine since for once you are not actually ruining the internet for us.
	Opera You really don’t give a fuck that both IE8 and Firefox 3 can pass ACID 2 test nowadays. ACID 2 test is like so 3 years ago. Now it’s all about ACID 3 and non of these upstart browsers can render that one properly. Yeah, Google Chrome sort of took over the “fastest browser” niche these days but Opera still kicks ass. It’s fast, sleek and has lot’s of unique features. Besides, all of those other browsers have their keyboard shortcuts ass-backwards.
	Safari You are a mac user… Or you are one of those sad Windows people who suffer from a Mac envy. You know who I’m talking about – folks who buy a discount Dell and then use Window Blinds or other styling tool to make their Vista look just like OSX. Does anyone else use that browser? I don’t know. Not that it’s a bad browser. It was the first one to successfully pass ACID 3 test. Not only that, but it’s Webkit engine is used by myriad of other browsers – namely Konquerror and Google Chrome. And these other browsers tend to stick out like a sore thumb on a Mac.
	Flock You keep telling people that Flock is not just a fork of Firefox with some web 2.0 and social networking extensions grafted in, but they won’t listen. Screw them then. You know damn well that your browser is better – perfectly engineered to integrate itself with the myriad of social media and content generation platforms.
	Lynx, Links, etc… Graphics are overrated. Who needs them. You browse the web for content, not for flashy designs and lolcat pictures. You use Mutt for email, Midnight Commander to manage your files, vim as your text editor. If a website contains a captcha you download it using feh, and display it in the framebuffer. Hell, you don’t even have X installed on your primary machine – you are that awesome. Of course X is installed on your backup laptop which you use to go on youtube and to download pr0n but no one has to know that.
	Chromium You are essentially like the average Chromium user but lazy. In a good way. You are to lazy to actually deal with the Windows bullshit so you run Linux. To lazy to compile stuff or fuck with RPM’s so you run Debian. To lazy to download Chrome so you run Chromium that’s available via apt.
	Konquerror You firmly believe that carpet should match the drapes and that the browser should match the desktop environment. Also, for some reason you like browsers that double up as file managers – you know, like IE did back in the day. Then again Konquerror is webkit based so it has to be fairly decent. All that hard work done by Google and Apple trickles down to your browser slowly but surely.
	Epiphany You firmly believe that carpet should match the drapes and that the browser should match the desktop environment. Besides, Ephiphany is gecko based so it has to be fairly decent. All that hard work done by Mozilla foundation trickles down to your browser slowly but surely.
	Seamonkey You fondly remember the days when a web browser used to have a built in calendar, email client, HTML editor and some other useful tools. Those were the good days. You don’t care for the newfangled fast loading browsers the youngsters use these days. Also, you don’t like when kids are anywhere near your lawn.
	Kazehakase You don’t tell people about your browser of choice in person. You have learned a long time ago that they will ask you to spell the name, and that’s just not possible. You just send them a link. In casual conversations you refer to your browser as “that browser” or kazehe-something-or-other. But hey! It’s Gecko based, lean, mean, infrequently updated and seemingly abandoned. Um… That last part is not so good, but it’s still a decent browser.

Yes, yes. I know I ignored your favorite browser. Chances are it is irrelevant, and/or it hasn’t really changed much since the last post. And if I totally miss-characterized a group of users and made you mad, please remember that posting “fag” in the comments does not count as constructive criticism. Other than that, feel free add suggestions and/or your own descriptions for users of other browsers.

Not only that, but I am clearly not an early adopter. I am a late adopter if there is such a thing. I’m the guy who was still running Wordpress 2.0.5 in April 2009. Remember that? Yes, that’s how bad I am.

In fact, I would still be running Windows XP on my main gaming box if the hardware did not become so obsolete that it spontaneously fossilized under my desk. My current gaming box has Vista on it, but only because I came with the hardware and I was to lazy to do anything about it.

You want to ask me about upgrading anything? You’ve got a wrong guy.

Unfortunately most people don’t get this. In fact, most people who ask me about Windows 7 can’t possibly comprehend that spiel above because they simply don’t understand terms such as early adopter, wordpress or fossilization. I figured I might as well use this entry to answer the most frequently asked questions I get in my inbox and IRL.

Maybe this will answer some of your burning Windows 7 questions. Or maybe you can emails this to some of your clueless friends/relatives who keep bothering you with these questions every day.

When is Windows 7 coming out?

Do I look like I care? Do you know how to google? Let me google that for you. How hard was that? For your information, it came out last week. You missed it! You know why you missed it? Because it is not something note worthy. Now piss off.

Is Windows 7 Better than Vista?

Probably. I mean, Windows XP is better than Vista. Hell, Windows 2000 is better than Vista. Sitting on an angry porcupine while being hit in the face with a putrid piece of shit spiked with sharpened nails that was shot out of a cannon and is flying at Mach 3 is better than Vista. I can’t imagine Microsoft actually being able to top Vista when it comes to how badly it sucks. Then again, I have been wrong about them in the past. In fact, every time I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that they will do something right, they went ahead and did the exact opposite.

Here is the deal – the crazy people who actually got this OS this early seem to think it is an improvement over Vista. Then again these people are likely Microsoft fanboys (why else would they get the new OS so close to the release date) so their opinions should be taken with a grain barrel of salt.

Should I upgrade?

No you should not. Wait till Microsoft releases Service Pack 1, then buy a new computer. Windows 7 will be included. If you don’t like this answer go ask someone else. I don’t care how good this new OS is. It can be printing hundred dollar bills for all I care. My position still stands. Don’t. There will be bugs, there will be driver issues, and there will be upgrade hiccups to worry about. The fact you are asking me about this tells me you are not a computer whiz, so if something goes wrong, you will be fucked cause I sure as hell am not helping you out.

Not reason enough for you? How about this – it’s a waste of money. You see, Microsoft is an evil bastard company that forces computer manufacturers to install their OS on every single piece of hardware they sell. This means that a year or two from now, when you are buying a new computer you will have to buy Windows 7 again.

No, I’m not shitting you. Remember that time I was ranting about the “Windows Tax” and you thought I’m just being a retarded open source loon? Yeah, that’s what Windows tax is. It means that Dell (for example) won’t give a flying fuck that you already have a copy of Windows 7 at home. Windows is part of their bundle, and they won’t take it out. Unless of course you can find the tiny hidden link to their Linux based model – but that narrows down your choices quite a bit.

Also, if you buy an OEM version bundled with the computer you will be paying much, much less. Microsoft basically discounts their OS down to fraction of the retail price to make sure that it ends up on every single piece of fucking hardware sold in the world. Don’t waste your money.

But I hate Vista! Should I Upgrade?

No. You should suck it up, and listen to me next time you are buying a computer. What did I tell you about Vista last time around? It’s a piece of shit. What did you do? You went and bought it. This is your punishment for not listening to me.

Actually, I don’t care. Go ahead and upgrade. Just make sure you back up all your data befo… Oh, what? You don’t want to upgrade anymore? You are scared now? All I said was to backup your data. If you want to upgrade your OS, you should be prepared to have your system hosed. I’m not saying it will get hosed – I’m saying shit happens.

And don’t come running to me when you fuck shit up. You know what I’m going to do if you come to me crying that Window 7 ate your hard drive? I’m going to hire Verne Troyer to Shoryuken you straight in the dick. And no, I’m not joking.

Will Windows 7 run on my computer?

It won’t even if it will. Let me put it this way – if you are asking me about this, it means you are to dumb to look up your system specs, google up Windows 7 requirements and do a quick comparison. If you can’t perform a simple task like that, you should not even be considering an upgrade. You should go and buy a computer with Windows 7 already installed whenever it’s time for you to get a new machine.

If you can check this information, then why the fuck are you bothering me with this shit?

Ok, here is the real answer: if you are running Windows XP right now, then no, it won’t run. If you are running Vista and it is sluggish as hell, then Windows 7 will also be sluggish as hell. The new OS is allegedly faster but it still has Vista guts under the hood so it won’t make your machine into a speed daemon.

If your current box is an evil beast from hell that can actually run Vista reasonably fast hen yes, Windows 7 will run on your system and you will probably see some performance gains (assuming the reports about the speed are true). Still, you will be wasting a lot of money due to the Windows tax.

Will you install Windows 7 on my computer?

Absolutely, categorically no. Hell no, fuck no, no to the tenth power. No infinity. Fuck you! Fuck your dog! Fuck the horse you rode in on. No. I have better shit to do than this.

Unless… Unless you are a girl and when you use the voice when asking me. I will then invariably assume that you are somehow inexplicably into me, and that upgrading your OS is my ticket into your good graces. Now you know my weakness so don’t abuse it.

Keep this in mind though: if you give your computer to your girlfriend, and attempt to have her sex me into installing Windows 7 for you and I figure you out then its Verne Troyer + Shoryuken + your testicles – when you least expect it.

That’s all I have for today. If you want to add to this FAQ please post your questions and answers in the comments. If you are a Microsoft fanboy who found this whole post incredibly offensive, and who is planning to call me a fag in the comments, please note hat a) I moderate this shit, b) you should look into obtaining a sense of humor and c) your post will have your IP attached to it. You know what that means right? I can use that IP to find out where you live. And then… Verne Troyer, Shoryuken, etc.. So keep it civil.

So here is my contribution: a neat little glossary of commonly used pirate terms. Consider it a pirate talk crash course:

pls seeeed – a call to arms uttered by a pirate in need of a peer to peer assistance

stfu fag – pirate talk for “I respectfully I disagree”.

thx – the highest form of acknowledgment a pirate can expect from his peers. It’s usually reserved for special occasions only (ie. 0day releases)

a/v? – avast maties, what be the audio/visual quality of this here torrent. Arrrrr!

wtf – an exclamation indicating that the poster did not understand the previous statement, and that it may need clarification.

dot work! it ax me for cd key – I do not understand how cracks work. Please say inappropriate things about my mom

ho w do i opn iso? – common pirate talk for “I am to stupid to live”. A polite response is “gtfo”.

Hey, I don’t make these up – I’m just how that particular slang works. Don’t blame me if it’s harsh and vulgar – after all, pirate’s life is harsh and full of stranger danger. Please feel free to add your own common pirate phrases down in the comments.

Also, this:

So yeah. May your torrents never be seedles, may your ports never be blocked, may your bandwidth be huge, may your peers always seed and may your connections never drop.

Ok, ok… So I was to lazy to write a real post and I’m using the fake internet holiday as an excuse. Sue me. Actually, no. Don’t sue me. I don’t think I can afford a lawsuit right now. Maybe next week…