Wednesday 12 March 2008

Darling advocates economic benefits of unending, joyless toil

Alasdair Darling has announced sweeping changes to the UK's taxation system, in his first budget as Chancellor, which will see punative charges levvied against all forms of fun. Having previously hinted that the duty on nicotine and alcohol would be raised at above-inflationary rates, there were gasps from the back benches as the Chancellor explained how this would be extended to activities including going to the park, wearing brightly-coloured hats and tickling babies by 2010.

"Uncertainty in the global financial markets, combined with slower consumer spending in the latter half of 2007/2008, means we're all just going to have to stop dicking around and focus for a bit", said darling. "Do you really think the Chinese are having fun? Of course they're not."

Perhaps the most controversial measure is the imposition of a £20 charge for those wishing to indulge in sexual intercourse. It is still unclear whether the charge will be levvied on a per-emmission basis or simply per-session. There will, however, be an exemption for those who can produce written confirmation, signed by the other party, that the encounter was "guilty, furtive and hateful".

The move received guarded approval from Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, who nonetheless drew paralells between the "fun tax" and the Tories' own plans to give cohabiting couples a financial incentive to marry.

Monday 10 March 2008

"Get your filthy science away from our Jesus", bellow furious villagers

Christian leaders are up in arms at the news that a well-known group of committed evolutionary scientists had established its own religion, dubbed Rightism. The group, led by Reverend Professor Ralf Finkheimer, reacted strongly to the criticism, denying claims that the Rightists was simply trying to bring the scientific process into church by the back door.

“The church needs to accept that there is room for many different faiths in the world”, said Finkheimer in a statement. “Our children should be presented with all of the alternatives and allowed to decide for themselves.

“The bible presents us with one story to explain the history of the universe, certainly, and that’s a matter of faith. But Billy, the Magic Quantum Singularity, provides us with another, equally compelling and valid explanation.”

Although many of the group’s detractors have observed that its belief system owes a great deal to well-established scientific theories, including the Big Bang and evolutionary biology, Finkheimer remains adamant that Rightism is a legitimate religion.

“Our beliefs have absolutely no evidential basis whatsoever”, he confirmed. “If we were dealing in science, this could all be tested and disproved, but we’re not, so they’re just going to have to live with it.”

Celebrity Rightists include Lindsay Lohan, Nicholas Cage and Giant Haystacks.

Sunday 9 March 2008

Surely Shum Mishtake

The Guardian has a secret crush on Fake Steve Jobs, the way you do an old school or university friend - not something to shout about, but who's to suspect your interest if you casually mention them in conversation?  It seems The Observer, their sister paper of a Sunday, hasn't been invited to the love-in.  50 powerful blogs they list and no mistake.

Blog Power = Voltage X Current (the acerbic quotient of the author X the relevance of their subject matter)

Blog Power (also) = Work / Time (the power to waste your time reading the same thing on ten feeds / the amount of work you should be doing)

50 blogs, but no Fake Steve - how d'you like them apples?  This must be what happens when half the staff go to Austin for SXSW while the rest stay up to cover the cricket from New Zealand.  A rear-guard action from the regular team (who have to churn out six papers in a week, not just the one) could restore the imbalance, but they've cunningly left it to the readers to fill in the blanks and thus preserve office relations.

Fake Steve invented the iPod, and yes we have heard of it... but he's not worth arguing with your colleagues over, eh.

Wednesday 5 March 2008

Ageing gamers given a bleak vision of the future

Computer gamers in their late twenties and early thirties were given a stark warning recently, when they were soundly thrashed by their 10 year-old nieces on Wii Sports. The resulting awareness of their own mortality was particularly acute for those who initially declined to play on the grounds that they are “quite competitive in games and it wouldn’t be fair”.

Eye-witnesses reported a complete inability to simultaneously move with the nunchuck while aiming with the remote, accompanied by growing frustration at being told that: “it’s easy when you get the knack of it”.

Barry Davidson, who recently completed Silent Hill 3 in just over three hours, said: “It was really interesting to experience a totally new control paradigm. For someone like me, who is used to interfacing with games in quite an abstract way, the level of direct control offered by the Wii represents a very significant learning curve.

“At the end of the day though, I just can’t fucking believe I got owned by my niece. I’m basically as good as dead.”

10 year-old Emily Davidson added: “Look uncle Barry! I beat you again! I won!”

Research shows Mac users really are laughing at you

Actual proper scientific research has revealed Mac users are 82 per cent more likely to be “smug, rich and style-obsessed” than users of Windows PCs. The shock findings also confirmed that those who buy Apple products do so simply to annoy everyone else, rather than for their own benefit.

Prof Marcus Dunwoody, a real scientist with his own lab-coat and busen burner, explained: “We found that Mac owners were prepared to pay more for computers which don’t crash, are effectively immune from viruses and boast iconic industrial design. Furthermore, they often brazenly present Mac-ownership as a solution to those suffering from the shoddy security, poor performance and usability problems associated with marginally cheaper Windows PCs.”

But the tables are set to turn on the “hairstyled, pesto-eating Macistas”, according to Dunwoody.

“Just because the Mac platform has not had a single notable virus problem in 25 years should not be an excuse for complacency”, he cautioned. “It beggars belief that Mac users aren’t loading their systems up to the eyeballs with bloated anti-virus and anti-spyware applications, to guard against this hypothetical threat. With so many fashion-conscious designer gays inflating the Mac’s market share, it’s surely only a matter of time before the platform comes onto the radar of cyber criminals.

“We’ll see who’s laughing then. Bastards”, he concluded.

Monday 3 March 2008

Ballmer slammed over “Vista Acquainted” debacle

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been under sustained fire this week, following his acknowledgement that new PCs marketed as “Vista Acquainted” may not have met the expectations of some customers. However, he went on to defend the Redmond giant’s decision to certify such low-spec machines as “a question of choice”.

“We want to ensure as many homes and offices as possible have the opportunity to experience the ‘Wow’ of Windows Vista”, said Ballmer. “So, for Vista Acquainted PCs, running less than 3Gb of memory, there is a new streamlined ‘performance’ mode, which includes an intuitive textual interface and contemporary two-colour design. Vista’s ‘performance’ environment is also highly customisable, through the config.sys and autoexec.bat files and will boot on almost any machine in a matter of minutes. Wow!”

However, Alice Hooper of technology analysts Garter is less than convinced by Microsoft’s defence: “As well as being more than somewhat reminiscent of Leopard’s iText feature, Vista ‘performance’ mode smacks of a poorly-executed, marketing-led afterthought. It’s also far from intuitive. I mean, ‘Retry’ I understand, but what’s the difference between ‘Abort’ and ‘Fail’?”