Yes, it's a long dream, but it's worth it I hope...


It opens with a shot of a Press Release...
 
For Immediate Release...

Microsoft Corp. acquire rights to the Weather.
----------------------------------------------

[Redmond. About Now]

In a surprise announcement from his self-styled Campus for the Terminally
Scary, multi-billionaire and hairstyle guru Mr William Gates announced a
new exclusive licensing deal with Nature Corp. (a division of Pagan[1] inc.)
for all rights to the new release of 'Weather' (tm) due to be released at
the beginning of 1996 (tm). 

Mr Gates enthused lyrically about his ideas for this major new venture into
controlling climactic events.
"This will be a real boon for all users of Weather. In the past, I think a
lot of people have found the Weather difficult to use and so we intend to
bring a whole dimension to using the massively powerful climactic and solar
energies that are available in these modern times."
"My idea is to integrate all aspects of Weather into one simple Point and
Drool (tm) interface, whereby it only takes one click to have a monsoon
appear in your back garden and _at the very same time_ be able to have snow
in the front garden."
"My vision is that everyone, no matter how clueless (yes, even the Mac
users) will be able to have Weather with the simplest of operations. We
intend to release a special 'Crunchy-Fruit' version which only
needs one mouse button and half as many brain-cells to use."

Early releases of Weather 96 are currently in beta-testing on other planets
in the Solar System, and while early results have proved discouraging, Gates
is hopeful to have the problems resolved in time for the scheduled release
date of 1st January 1996.
"Sure, we've had some problems elsewhere. Admittedly, one of the very early
releases did turn Venus from a paradise into a 500C hell-hole with
atmospheric pressure 100 times of that on Earth and clouds made of PH 1
Sulphuric Acid which rain constantly, but we believe that problem can be
overcome by giving the planet more Oxygen and Carbon-Dioxide eating 
algorithms."
"Mars on the other hand has been turned from a lush paradise into a 
carbon-dioxide encrusted, meteor-pocked ice-cube. Again, we believe that
adding more resources to the planet, by, in this case increasing the
Solar Input and Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere element will solve this
one."

When pressed on the issue of how Jupiter was turned from an Earth-like
haven for flora and fauna into a planet 300 times bigger with a highly
toxic atmosphere and a core not to dissimilar to diamond, with lightning
storms big enough to swallow the Earth, Mr Gates refused to comment.

---

End Press Release


----

We now skip forward to the beginning of 1996 - Weather 96 has been released
simultaneously in all the countries in the world in a blaze of publicity
which cost 3 times more than its development.
Currently, every country in the world is hidden under a blanket of bright
turquoise clouds with a heavy drizzle coming up from the ground. Some of
Weather 96's users are a little disenchanted.

We are currently watching one such user trying to contact Microsoft
Technical support. This one call will tell a tale.

<ring> <ring> (to skip the 5 minutes of waiting)

Tech Support: Hello. Microsoft Weather support line. How may I help you.
User: Hi. I'm having a few problems with the Weather.
TS: It's your hardware.
User: Excuse me?
TS: Your hardware. Weather was tested on every available platform. It even runs
    on a moon.
User: but...
TS: I assure you it's your hardware. There are no known bugs which are our 
    fault.
User: Which platforms?
TS: Venus, Mars, Jupiter.
User: But not Earth?
TS: Umm. Excuse me?
User: Earth. I think most users of this product want to use it on Earth.
TS: Oh. OK. Umm. Er. I'll pass you to my supervisor.
Sv: Hello, how may I help you?
User: I'm having a few problems with Weather. Can you help?
Sv: Certainly. Tell me the problems and I'll tell you how to fix your hardware.
User: Umm. Well. Erm, I'd like to use the Sunshine feature...
Sv: Well, you're currently running Winter 96 yes?
User: Yes...
Sv: Well, I'm sorry, but Sunshine is an undocumented, unsupported feature in
    that module.
User: Oh. Erm. Well. OK. What about some snow?
Sv: Snow? I believe you are referring to a rival climactic system invented
    by some person in Finland. We don't do that, and anyway, you'll find they
    release a different version of the atmosphere everyday. I'm sure sir
    doesn't want the hassle of re-installing the atmosphere every 5 days?
User: Umm. True.
Sv: Any other questions?
User: Yeah - can I download dirty pictures from the Weather?
Sv: No sir. You cannot. This is a family climate. However, if you perform
    the Rite of AsheKente backwards and say Our Beloved Leader's name three
    times, then a list of Weather 96's developers will scroll across the
    sky in an amusing fashion.
User: Wow, that's cool. <click>

<User performs said rituals slightly incorrectly and finds he has transported
himself to a planet with hot and cold running Meg Ryans, but which is shaped
like a rather embarassing part of the male anatomy. He decides to chance his
luck there>.

{February 96 - Netscape Inc release Weather support for their popular 
 Navigator. They write in fancy things like centred clouds and flashing rain.
 Bill is pissed because he didn't think of it and cunningly re-writes the
 RFC for Weather to sneak them in through the roof}.

April '96 - Things are starting to settle down now. Some cleverer users have
found the way to change the default sky from bright turquoise to some pretty
clouds. Copies of Weather 96 start appearing on alt.binaries.warez.earth, 
causing Usenet to crash horribly and overloading several small African
countries who decide to move to Venus as it seems a safer bet.
There are still a few glaring problems. Some weather won't run at all. Most
notably, Microsoft's Rainbow (tm). In this case, the Rainbows form perfectly,
but after a while of use start getting fuzzy and fall apart. All of the
bands of colour sort of drop off and try to merge with the rainbows
underneath them. Corrupted pieces of the atmosphere are starting to appear
and Norton Climo-Doctor has marked them all as unusable. Most noticable of these
appears over Antarctica.

June - Several places start having problems with the early versions of Summer
96. Suddenly, for no apparent reason a large box appears in the sky with
"General Protection Fault in SUMMER.EXE. Rain Dumped". The unlucky users
then get half of the Atlantic Ocean dropped on their heads in one lump.
Microsoft publicity agents admit on the quiet that there are one or two
problems with the Rain386.exe program. Rumours abound that this is because
this program is actually optimised for much older planets and was bolted
on as a temporary measure for Weather 96 because a newer version was
unavailable. People in Bangladesh notice the rain seems to flow very slowly.
Microsoft inform the President of Bangladesh to install more mountains.

In the same month, it's a quiet day in TCP Towers...

<ring> <ring>

Simes: Hello, TCP, how may we help you? - No, I'm sorry John's unavailable
       at the moment, he's having his body slowly rubbed with Coconut oil
       by three dusky maidens. Can I help?
(It's Microsoft Technical Support)
TS: Hi, one of your customers is having problems with Weather 96. The Hail (tm)
    module isn't working with your system.
Si: Ah yes, I remember - the problem is that the Hail module you've used
    isn't compatible with anything that anyone else uses.
TS: Ah - what can we do?
Si: Hang on... <clickety>-<click>... There, I've just hacked up a 700 line
    awk script which should do the job for all the people who want to use
    Hail with your Weather.
TS: Ah, cool. Now, could you add alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bill-gates
    to the news-feed please?
<Simes puts the phone down gently, bounces up and down a couple of times then
kicks a rubber-band ball the size of a human head around for a while, before
making some coffee. He dilutes it with strong Drinking Chocolate>.

September 96 - The Microsoft Propoganda machine is chasing down the last few
dissenters. People are now having problems with Autumn 96. The leaves appear
to be falling OK, but have problems about 7 feet off the ground. They suddenly
turn invisible and attain the density of lead. They then reappear on the ground
but aren't real. The polygon graphics that's used to make the illusion of
leaves isn't very good either.
Some mavericks are running an excellent weather over Australia using an 
atmosphere from this guy in Finland.
Big investors start to sell their Microsoft stock when they realise the wind
is blowing backwards (commonly known as sucking).
Microsoft release a patch called Weather for Solar Systems. It has a major
security bug which means anyone on Earth can access the weather for Jupiter.
Some nasty hackers download a thunderstorm the size of Maine into the middle
of Nevada. People now talk about Las Vegas in the way they do Atlantis.

November 96 - Mother, the CEO and sole owner of Nature Corp. announce the
contract for Weather 97 has been sold to IBM. People think this is strange
as no-one use volcanoes and dinosaurs anymore.

December 96 - More problems still plague the now few users of Weather 96.
For one, it won't de-install without entire destruction of the planet. 
Fortunately, Microsoft were nice enough to put an OK/Cancel dialog box on
that option. There were a few close calls with some of those stupid users
who click OK to everything no matter what, but the destruction feature
didn't work anyway. For some reason it caused a Page Fault in the REALITY.DLL
file. Everyone suspects that was ported directly from the original 6502 code
anyway. Bill Gates is hiding in a bunker, working on a smaller project - 
Microsoft Pub (tm).

1st January 1997. A bright new day. A few people are surprised that the
entire sky, the clouds, the snow and the sun are all blue. God[2] hopes he
doesn't have to reboot the Universe because he will have to enter all sorts
of strange parameters to the boot options to get Earth running again.

Microsoft Pub is released, and the first few users are surprised to find
their drinks floating exactly 97mm above the glass at all times. With the
right amount of stirring, the bubbles in a pint of Heineken form the names
of the developers...


[1] I'm a sort of apathetic atheist - and I'm sure 'God inc.' will offend
someone out there...

[2] Now, _there_ is a sysadmin who knows how to deal with lusers...


{Note, all Trademarks are duly acknowledged, and I deny all responsibility
if this document causes the downfall of civilisation as we know it...}
{Tell me if you think this is funny, and I may write the story of Microsoft
Pub - it's amazing what you think of when waiting for large programs to
compile under NetBSD...}

-- 
John Vaughan     (john@tcp.co.uk)     |   http://www.tcp.co.uk/
Technical and Sales Support Executive |	   Tel: (01703) 393392
Total Connectivity Providers Ltd., PO Box 454, Southampton, SO16 3WR
      "i still dream of lips i never should have kissed" - NiN