NOW UNDER DEVELOPMENT: MICROSOFT WINDOWS 2525
MS Windows 2525 is a revolutionary new concept: the "World Processor," an operating system to govern not only the cyberworld of computers, but the whole of human experience. If we wish to interface with the universe, to correspond with our friends, to advance our careers, to rear our children, to appreciate the marvels of science, art, music, literature, and philosophy, to get from life everything it has to offer, in the future we will find it a necessity to have Windows 2525 installed.
Windows 2525 will ship packaged in a sterile vial accompanied by a 500cc hypodermic syringe. The only documentation provided will be a simple one-page installation guide:
TO INSTALL WINDOWS 2525
1) Immediately before bedtime, inject Windows into any major vein (see map of human body, below.)
2) Nighty-night! Pleasant dreams!
3) Wake up to the wonderful world of Windows 2525!!!
As the users drift off to sleep, their inner organs will begin to quiver and twitch as hordes of nanotech molecular robots powered by the Microsoft Installer Program swarm through their nervous systems, rewiring neurons, diddling synapses, tweaking genetic codes, rerouting standard intellectual and emotional data flows in new and exciting ways to assure maximum compatibility with the new Operating System. In our dreams we will ascend effortlessly to a high mountain summit from which vantage we will gaze down with wild surmise upon the sprawling, gridlocked, polluted city built by mankind's inefficient former selves as the wicked city is mercifully and unceremoniously bulldozed into a lake of fire.
From the shining mists that arise around us, we will then see a new city miraculously appear, the great City of Gates, the fabled Windows City, and in our hearts we will know it to be our True Home. We will feel our bodies begin to shift and change like molten wax, our features alter, see the pigment of our skin modulate to blend in with the new graphical interface. From our lips will spill a torrent of words as our old, chaotic language is purged, to be replaced by the concise vocabulary of Microsoft Dictionary. Spelling and grammar checkers will spring to action in our cerebrums, Net Nanny will oversee our Superego to ensure that we are family-friendly, and our minds and spirits will be set ablaze with the overwhelming erudition achieved by the instantaneous downloading of Microsoft Encarta's ordered universe of data. Come the dawn, we'll hardly know whether we have awakened or are still dreaming, so transcendently perfect and dreamlike will seem the world of Windows 2525.
Not quite all of us will be so fortunate, however. A relatively insignificant number of consumers (some 23% of all users, according to one estimate) will, as they drift off to sleep with Microsoft Windows 2525 freshly coursing through their bloodstreams, be confronted by a pesky "hardware incompatibility" screen, a glitch about which Microsoft's legal advisors are somewhat concerned. These few users will be unable to enter the World of Tomorrow because their bio-systems are clogged with the Drek of Yesterday. Moments after the fiery blast of nanobot-rich nectar hits the user's veins, an immense dialogue box will appear in his mind. "There exists a serious compatibility problem with current hardware," it will say. "Dismantle obsolete hardware?" The user will mentally click the "cancel" button and get no response, then likely click it again and, frantically, several times more. Finally the "OK" button will highlight of its own accord.
"Dismantling current hardware may prove to be quite painful," the System will respond. "Are you sure you wish to continue?" This time there will be no "cancel" button. The user will pause for a moment, then click "yes."
The night of December 31, 2524 will be filled with the howlings of Microsoft customers suffering the tortures of the damned as their bodies are, atom by atom, dismantled by the methodical molecular nanobots of Microsoft, broken down into tidy packages of basic chemical elements, and placed in bins at the curb to be later collected and recycled. Finally, towards dawn, a hush will fall across the land, and we, the living, will step forward into the dawn of Windows 2525, so grateful to be granted a partition by the Operating System that we will not deign to notice the occasional crashes and bugs in our program. We will not complain when sectors of our memory disappear. We will scarcely notice when family members and friends are deleted without warning. We will not betray alarm when we suddenly find ourselves standing on the edge of a vast abysmal chasm that has opened in reality. We will not fret over the lost mornings we spend sitting at our desks drooling, having forgotten our names, staring at the keyboard and mouse, wondering what they might be called and whether they may be good to eat.
In fact, we will even come to look forward to these inevitable breakdowns in the System. They will give us an excuse to run eagerly to our Microsoft dealer, credit cards in hand, to pick up patches of code, bug fixes, system upgrades, anything to stick in our veins that will give us the rush of being recompiled. Eventually we will be found lurking there seven days a week, sprawled in the alleys behind Best Buy and Circuit City and CompUSA, shooting up like junkies, all else forgotten, seeking the marvels of The Gates of Perception anew as we are re-engineered over and over and over again, dipping into the humdrum "real world" just long enough to renew our Visa or MasterCard, then mumbling "Abort, Retry, Ignore" and rebooting ourselves to our digital Nirvana, taking it to the limit one more time.
MS Windows 2525 is a revolutionary new concept: the "World Processor," an operating system to govern not only the cyberworld of computers, but the whole of human experience. If we wish to interface with the universe, to correspond with our friends, to advance our careers, to rear our children, to appreciate the marvels of science, art, music, literature, and philosophy, to get from life everything it has to offer, in the future we will find it a necessity to have Windows 2525 installed.
Windows 2525 will ship packaged in a sterile vial accompanied by a 500cc hypodermic syringe. The only documentation provided will be a simple one-page installation guide:
TO INSTALL WINDOWS 2525
1) Immediately before bedtime, inject Windows into any major vein (see map of human body, below.)
2) Nighty-night! Pleasant dreams!
3) Wake up to the wonderful world of Windows 2525!!!
As the users drift off to sleep, their inner organs will begin to quiver and twitch as hordes of nanotech molecular robots powered by the Microsoft Installer Program swarm through their nervous systems, rewiring neurons, diddling synapses, tweaking genetic codes, rerouting standard intellectual and emotional data flows in new and exciting ways to assure maximum compatibility with the new Operating System. In our dreams we will ascend effortlessly to a high mountain summit from which vantage we will gaze down with wild surmise upon the sprawling, gridlocked, polluted city built by mankind's inefficient former selves as the wicked city is mercifully and unceremoniously bulldozed into a lake of fire.
From the shining mists that arise around us, we will then see a new city miraculously appear, the great City of Gates, the fabled Windows City, and in our hearts we will know it to be our True Home. We will feel our bodies begin to shift and change like molten wax, our features alter, see the pigment of our skin modulate to blend in with the new graphical interface. From our lips will spill a torrent of words as our old, chaotic language is purged, to be replaced by the concise vocabulary of Microsoft Dictionary. Spelling and grammar checkers will spring to action in our cerebrums, Net Nanny will oversee our Superego to ensure that we are family-friendly, and our minds and spirits will be set ablaze with the overwhelming erudition achieved by the instantaneous downloading of Microsoft Encarta's ordered universe of data. Come the dawn, we'll hardly know whether we have awakened or are still dreaming, so transcendently perfect and dreamlike will seem the world of Windows 2525.
Not quite all of us will be so fortunate, however. A relatively insignificant number of consumers (some 23% of all users, according to one estimate) will, as they drift off to sleep with Microsoft Windows 2525 freshly coursing through their bloodstreams, be confronted by a pesky "hardware incompatibility" screen, a glitch about which Microsoft's legal advisors are somewhat concerned. These few users will be unable to enter the World of Tomorrow because their bio-systems are clogged with the Drek of Yesterday. Moments after the fiery blast of nanobot-rich nectar hits the user's veins, an immense dialogue box will appear in his mind. "There exists a serious compatibility problem with current hardware," it will say. "Dismantle obsolete hardware?" The user will mentally click the "cancel" button and get no response, then likely click it again and, frantically, several times more. Finally the "OK" button will highlight of its own accord.
"Dismantling current hardware may prove to be quite painful," the System will respond. "Are you sure you wish to continue?" This time there will be no "cancel" button. The user will pause for a moment, then click "yes."
The night of December 31, 2524 will be filled with the howlings of Microsoft customers suffering the tortures of the damned as their bodies are, atom by atom, dismantled by the methodical molecular nanobots of Microsoft, broken down into tidy packages of basic chemical elements, and placed in bins at the curb to be later collected and recycled. Finally, towards dawn, a hush will fall across the land, and we, the living, will step forward into the dawn of Windows 2525, so grateful to be granted a partition by the Operating System that we will not deign to notice the occasional crashes and bugs in our program. We will not complain when sectors of our memory disappear. We will scarcely notice when family members and friends are deleted without warning. We will not betray alarm when we suddenly find ourselves standing on the edge of a vast abysmal chasm that has opened in reality. We will not fret over the lost mornings we spend sitting at our desks drooling, having forgotten our names, staring at the keyboard and mouse, wondering what they might be called and whether they may be good to eat.
In fact, we will even come to look forward to these inevitable breakdowns in the System. They will give us an excuse to run eagerly to our Microsoft dealer, credit cards in hand, to pick up patches of code, bug fixes, system upgrades, anything to stick in our veins that will give us the rush of being recompiled. Eventually we will be found lurking there seven days a week, sprawled in the alleys behind Best Buy and Circuit City and CompUSA, shooting up like junkies, all else forgotten, seeking the marvels of The Gates of Perception anew as we are re-engineered over and over and over again, dipping into the humdrum "real world" just long enough to renew our Visa or MasterCard, then mumbling "Abort, Retry, Ignore" and rebooting ourselves to our digital Nirvana, taking it to the limit one more time.
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