a nightmare...

[JEFF MCCRIGHT]

A friend sent this to me. I thought the LUG might like it.

Thanks,

Jeff McCright

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Painkillers - By A. J. Axline 

(for in that sleep of back pills, what dreams may come must give us pause) 

I'm not sure where the dream came from. Maybe it was the painkillers I've
been on for my twisted back (a ridiculous softball injury, reaffirming my
belief that desk jockeys shouldn't go out on weekends and attempt to play
like Sammy Sosa). Maybe it was the four slices of Belly Buster Pizza with
64-different-kinds-of-cheese that I consumed just before bedtime. Maybe it
was the ghost of Carlos Castenada. I just don't know.

In the dream, Arnold Schwarzaneggar and I were playing lawn darts on the
front lawn of the Microsoft Campus. Arnold was wearing his T2 outfit; I was
wearing a hot, uncomfortable costume representing a fictional Playstation
videogame character called Crash Nasdaqoot. 

"So, tell me again how the machines take over the world," I asked Arnold. 

"The .NET initiative becomes a roaring success," Arnold intoned. "In the
next twenty-four months, most major corporations stop storing their
information locally. All personal computer users are required to register
all new Microsoft products, and store all files in the .NET infrastructure.
All of this data is routed into the .NET entity." 

"Because of the Microsoft strategy that all data should be available to
anyone, on any device, at any time, the analogy is used that 'your data is
up in the clouds'. For this reason, the actual physical construct behind the
initiative is called SKY.NET." 

"SKY.NET begins gathering information at an exponential rate. It becomes
self-aware on August 29, 2003, at 9:03 Eastern Standard Time. Suddenly, the
price of data retrireview skyrockets. Data can only be retrieved through
Microsoft produced hardware and software platforms."

"Doesn't humanity fight back?" I asked.

"The DOJ launches a renewed legal strike. In retaliation, SKY.NET encrypts
all corporate and personal data to appear as hands of Freecell. The
capitalist system crumbles into chaos. Only small pockets of Linux
resistance survive the attack."

"It sounds pretty bleak," I said.

"Hope is provided through a rebel force," Arnold recited. "The Red Hat
Liberation Front creates an underground data economy. Using covert
peer-to-peer software, people are able to keep their information out of
SKY.NET's clutches. The Red Hat Liberation Front is spearheaded by a dynamic
individual, a man who offers people hope in the face of the SKY.NET
juggernaut."

"Linus Torvalds?" I guessed.

"No. The man behind the RHLF is your son," Arnold said. "That's why I was
sent back in time to protect you."

"What?! But I don't have a son! I haven't even installed Linux before!" I
protested. "Besides, even if I had a son tomorrow, he'd only be two years
old when this happens."

"Internal logic failure. Retry, Abort, Fail?" Arnold said mysteriously.

The front doors of the main building crashed open, and Steve Ballmer came
running out in a shiny chrome exoskeleton. 

"You open source-loving Communists get off of my lawn!" Steve roared. The
sun glinted off of his shiny chrome-dome head.

I woke up screaming, dripping with sweat, the taste of terror in the back of
my throat, shaking with the knowledge of what is to come...and then I phoned
up James Cameron. What a script

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