And what's the bet that some poor soul _won't_ take it seriously enough to actually make it work?
I think MS at this point is going to be buzzing with NT/XP people asking, "Now if we really wanted to, we could ..." I think it'll take on a life of its own, and eventually we'll _get_ a geNToo, like it or not! Wesley Parish Quoting Christopher Sawtell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Sat, 02 Apr 2005 18:19, Nick Rout wrote: > > Is only a week away at Robert's, but there has been some interesting > > developments. > > > > If anyone wants to run some free/open software on their windows box, > > they might want to bring their windows boxes for conversion to > geNToo. > > > > http://gentooexperimental.org/nt/ > > UM ... > > From the Gentoo Weekly News. > > Of the several pranks played at Gentoo this year, the GeNToo plot was > the > most elaborate, and actually dating back to a group of three developers > > splitting away from the rest of the lot at FOSDEM in February for a > spontaneous hacking and belgian fries session: Karl Trygve Kalleberg[2], > > Patrick Lauer[3] and Marius Mauch[4]. Under the influence of too many > Belgian fries, karltk was the first to point out the epiphany hidden in > > the name of the project: "You see, when you write 'Gentoo', it has NT in > > the middle," said the Norwegian developer. And thinking aloud: "Now if > one > took the NT kernel ... there is a POSIX layer for it ... put Portage on > it > ..." As he drew the surreal picture in increasingly shrill colors, the > three devs quickly realized that the only possible release date for this > > particularly fine piece of vaporware would have to be the first of > April. > 2. [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 3. [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 4. [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > So, with the idea floating since February, there was time to back the > story up with ample documentation and even screenshots (which were taken > > from VMware during a regular boot of Windows 2000 in "Safe Mode"), with > a > coating of a handmade bootlog text that was a rather good approximation > of > how emerge info might actually look on such a system. > > When the announcement was posted to the website and the topics of two > IRC > channels almost simultaneously around noon UTC, the traffic statistics > on > the website where the project description was hosted went simply through > > the ceiling. An amazingly constant stream of traffic, weighing in at > around one hit per second or 100MB per hour, was sustained over almost > the > entire day -- considering that the whole website is only 165KB, > estimations are that the GeNToo hoax got around 600 visitors per hour. > > Figure 1.1: Traffic load on the fake GeNToo project pages: Right after > the > announcement > http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20050404_bonsai.png > > Figure 1.2: Traffic load on the fake GeNToo project pages: Slashdot > effect > after 22:00 > http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20050404_slashdot.png > > To make the illusion even more believable, a channel on Freenode was > created, too: #gentoo-nt, the perfect place to discuss something that > didn't even exist. An interesting twist came about when some of the > first > to be fooled later turned into devoted GeNToo evangelists, perpetuating > > the myth in the IRC channel and taking the charade even further: One > produced "a patched NT kernel" and offered it online at his own website. > > When looked at closely, it bore a striking familiarity with a 2.6.11 > Linux > kernel, but nevertheless -- declared as a "GeNToo binary" -- found many > > curious downloaders. > > While the #gentoo-nt channel on Freenode was still continuing its > makebelief stance well past the dateline into Saturday 2 April, nobody > was > sad when the atrocities behind the other prominent Gentoo April fool's > joke were taken down again. People who had followed the announcement[5] > in > the Gentoo forums that the redesign had now been finished and could be > applied by simply switching the user profile, quickly complained about > headache, sudden bursts of claustro- and other phobia. Small wonder, > looking at the effect the "redesign" had on posts: > > 5. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-317053.html > > Figure 1.3: Kallamej's announcement, rendered in the freshly redesigned > > Forum layout > http://www.gentoo.org/images/gwn/20050404_forum.png > > Reactions were mixed, while some people figured out the joke pretty > fast, > others complained about eyestrain. While moderators were watching and > merging duplicated spawn to the central thread[6], they decided to > create > even more confusion by renaming moderators to "Ninjas" and > administrators > to "Ninja Masters". Bodhisatvas (the rank for ex-mods and -admins) > decided > not to follow this trend -- and were renamed to HAL 9000. How subtle > moderator interference at the forums really is was best displayed by the > > fact that it took almost all day before people started noticing[7] the > change! > > 6. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-317056.html > 7. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-317461.html > > -- > C. S. > > "Sharpened hands are happy hands. "Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands" - A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge "I me. Shape middled me. I would come out into hot!" I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press
