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Subject:RE: Word in 2010 From:Chris Borokowski <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Tue, 8 May 2007 11:18:18 -0700 (PDT)
It is the year 2010.
A grey haze covers the landscape of shattered
buildings and battered industrial wreckage. Distant
gunfire can be heard with the erratic cadence of
chirping birds, which are now extinct.
It started so innocently.
The dominant word processing program of the day,
Microsoft Word, had always been accused of "feature
creep." Each time a new paradigm or trend made the
rounds at the Microsoft coffee bar, it got added to
Word. It was innocent at first, with HTML and e-mail
functions and some formatting, but eventually it got
out of control.
Word became a structured documentation single sourcing
authoring tool (sdssat) and then expanded into CAD,
social networking, and TCP/IP diagnostics. At this
point, it commanded seventy percent of the worldwide
market... and it kept growing. Soon it had a 3D
shooter, a database engine, and became a full
development environment. Shortly after that, video and
still image editing. Within two years, all software as
we know it ceased to exist. Every function of a
computer was a plug-in to Microsoft Word, even the
operating system, code-named Microsoft Genghis.
Software developers were known to suicide when their
Word licenses expired, knowing that they could not
work until they spent 72 hours on hold with the
Microsoft helpline. As Word expanded into tax
preparation software, personal budgeting and stock
management, they would lose their life's savings in an
afternoon if the license key expired or a pirate copy
of Word (now totalling 16 TB of data) was found in the
neighborhood. People stopped watching television and
spent their time with the Live Channel content in
Microsoft Word.
As the situation got worse, government first became
helpless, and then was simply swallowed as it became
another Word plug-in (MS Total Control). From space,
it seemed a grey cancer had reached out with its
tendrils and infiltrated every continent, every single
aspect of life on earth. The parking meters ran on
Microsoft Word. The Space Shuttle was controlled by
the Word spellchecker. The President was created by
Word's 3D character animator. All human life was
enslaved.
Unit TD321-M, stumbling over the broken concrete of a
radioactive wasteland, took a momentary pause. "Base
Camp, this is TD321-M, taking aspiration break." The
smoothly synthesized voice responded in even cadence:
"You have 21 seconds... 20... 19..."
TD321-M was a Word technician, like every other
employee on the planet, but he was only a Word
technician level seven, which meant he was qualified
only to sort through debris for metal that could be
recycled to feed the MS Word war machine (Word had, a
year previous, declared war against Asia and the
Middle East simultaneously, since it was more
efficient to fight a two-front war if one considered
the office supplies costs). "My life is just about
over," grumbled the despondent TD321-M, kicking a
large chunk of concrete with a booted foot.
As the rumble of its rolling exit faded out, he turned
around to seek his next target, when the barrel of a
rifle blocked his path. "Terrorebels!" he gasped. He
seized his radio, "BaseCamp, I--" but was cut off in a
blast of gunfire. TD321-M looked down to see his radio
in pieces.
"Come with us, or you're doomed," said one of the
outlandish figures before him. Dressed in a camouflage
of rags and discarded Apple equipment, the terrorebel
like his cohorts was filthy and heavily armed. These
dissidents camped at the fringes of modern society and
struck violently against the dominion of Microsoft
Word. Years of warfare had conditioned them to be
heartless, and the rumors flying around Microsoft Word
of Warcraft had them executing prisoners.
"I can't," said TD321-M. "I've got Microsoft Word
Media Player implanted in my ear. If I leave the Word
empire, I will be remote-detonated."
"It's OK," said the second terrorebel. "We can install
Linux on it, and you will be free from remote
detonation, unless you get pwned." He waved to the
rear of what TDM321-M now saw was a line of
terrorebels. "Hey Gary, we need an installation here."
He picked up his rifle. "So long and good luck."
"But... where are you going?"
The terrorebel turned with a smirk. "The great
weakness of Word is that it is backward-compatible. We
found a wrecked ship on the coast of Indiana, and it
had a 1996 computer... with the first known Word macro
virus. We've found a back way in through the
ventilation shafts and we're going to blow this Word
into oblivion."
"But when you format the great Word hard disk, what
will be left of our society?"
"Who cares?" said the terrorebel. "I'm so bored with
this I could go for living in caves and eating roast
sabertooth." A shout of assent came from the line.
Gary, a short rotund man who was sweating profusely,
had attached two leads to the implanted protrusion in
TD321-M's ear. "All we need to do is TFTP over the new
ROM image, and we can bootstrap a LILO hybrid, and
you'll be good as new..."
It seemed to TD321-M that he had been there for hours.
"Oh, please hurry," he said. "They detonate after two
hours of no signal!"
"That's probably one hour," Gary grumbled. "Daylight
savings happens at Christmas this year."
Suddenly the first terrorebel came running back.
"We've got the virus in, and Word has fallen! That's
the good news... the bad news is that now spammers are
ruling our new technocracy, and we're late for our
required 18 hours of porn watching and Viagra-buying."
"Snap out of it man," screamed another terrorebel.
"Can't you see it's just a new guise of Word... or
whatever evil was Word... that controlled Bill
Gates... could it be Satan?"
"Uh oh," said Gary.
"What?" said TD321-M and the terrorebels in unison.
"Your remote detonator is older Dell hardware. Linux
can't find a driver," said Gary, putting earplugs in
his ears. "There's nothing I can do until someone
codes one up, which isn't likely since this is an
older model. Good luck pal."
"Bomb!" howled the terrorebels, taking cover. As
TD321-M staggered back over the rocks, he heard a
voice in his ear, counting down the seconds of his
life, while images of genital extensions, making money
fast and discount OEM software scrolled across the
grey, forbidding sky.
--- "Hickling, Lisa (TOR)"
<lhickling -at- Express-Scripts -dot- com> wrote:
> I read that the OP is wondering whether MS Word will
> provide at least
> some content+delivery functions in the near future
> so that smaller TW
> shops with limited budgets can have a low cost
> option for single
> sourcing.
(Yes, Microsoft-style, with SharePoint, inevitably.)
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