Microzone

Microsoft To Patch Hole In Ozone

REDMOND, Wash. (CAP)(CNN)(PETE) - ...Thank you Larry, this is Anderson Cooper reporting for Anderson Cooper 360 from Redmond, Washington where Bill Gates himself, the main man at Microsoft, has called for a press conference to announce plans to deliver a half dozen security updates next Tuesday, including patches for Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and the hole in the Earth's ozone layer. Besides, I was told by a computer programmer who requested anonymity or he'd be sent to a far, forgotten country where the Bill & Melinda charities have offices. This Robert Umo guy told me that Bill is sneaking a few iPhone apps that will be either useless, boring or just plain nasty, apps that will make your iPhone ring "La Marseillese" every time it rings; or that will make the iPhone run as fast as a kind thought in the mind of Pat Robertson. The update covers a total of 12 flaws to help protect consumers from malicious attacks (except those coming from Microsoft itself, of course) as well as an increased incidence of skin cancer and eye cataracts or crosseyedness.

"We acknowledge that there has been an ozone layer exploit in the wild for decades," told me Microsoft Security Response Center spokesman Jerry Bryant, also on request of anonymity might he be letting a cat out of the bag that was not supposed to be out just yet. "But we want to point out that running Earth in Safe Mode can mitigate this vulnerability and prevent the planet from becoming further compromised, or to fall in the hands of the republicans."

Technology bloggers and other pundits are applauding Bill Gates for patching the hole outside of the Microsoft's normal monthly security update schedule, which they say shows just how much the software giant cares about the environment, and "offsets all that hair spray Bill Gates used to use back in the '70s and '80s -- although the rumor exists that he still does."

"We're doing this for all the penguins and polar bears and abominable snowmen that live in Antarctica, and for Dick Cheney, for whom Bill is building a Summer palace complete with indoor-outdoor, temperature controlled swimming pool and fake coconut plants with fake monkeys climbing them." Bryant said in a recent blog post about the patching. "We're not saying this patch is going to fix global warming, but Al Gore may want to break out those flannel shirts again."

However, critics point out that Microsoft is late to the table, noting that in some European markets such as Germany and Austria, users have long been using an open source ozone layer plugin with decent success, but no bad (or good) apps for the iPhone. The European version is being criticized for letting the Apple iPhone app Phineas & Ferb's Ozone Generatorinator® secrete a puff of ozone gas from an oxygen atomizer located at an Antarctica research station, all while sitting on their duffs thousands of miles away.

"It has never been easier to save our planet than it is now," said CNN technology expert Rick Sanchez as he brought up a website on his laptop. "Let me just click here, and here. And then click this button, and ... there! I literally just stopped 15 square miles of rainforest from burning." Rick's smile soon disappeared when the computer went berserk and ended up displaying a result of 250 square miles destroyed across the planet.

"Now," Rick continued, "I just need to forward this to 20 friends and we should get a neat surprise to pop up on the screen. Hopefully with the answer to that little forest riddle."

For their part, Microsoft officials acknowledged that engineering a patch for the hole in the ozone has taken longer than they anticipated, but noted that "Christ on a crutch, we didn't make the damn hole." They did, however, accept responsibility for the collapse of the U.S. housing market, the earthquake in Haiti, and the difficulty you have trying to indent paragraphs in Word 2007. Not a word was said of the 250 square miles of forest lost.

"And we might as well let you know that there is no ozone layer fix for Windows Vista users," Bryant said. "You were fucked up when we introduced the miserable system, you might as way stay that way. Sorry, we gave up on you guys a long time ago. Care for a mint?" Bryant offered me a mint wrapped in foil with the Windows logo on it; I took five.

Supporters of the Linux operating system said they don't believe the Earth really has a hole in the ozone layer and if by chance it does, the hole is likely so small that no one would notice anyway. While the guys at Mozilla/Firefox said: "Huh?"