Posted on 01/03/2013 6:36:29 PM PST by BenLurkin
I blame Darks.
Couldn’t have been me.
I checked my calculations very carefully.
Even had a yard gnome verify them for me...
Um...
I’m waiting for the pics!
To those of you who were aware of my friend’s great-daughter and her battle with brain cancer, she has been given her Angel’s Wings.
Mathematics isn't my strong suit, but I can derive a proof that Division by Zero is a bad thing.
you have a deal T-c. Now if my brain can simply remember your last tagline. I think I remember and will discuss come the A.M. Was actually praying your post would read as it did.
Bob, when you find the Smart Aleck who did divide by zer0 could you save each of us here a piece. Please?
that's gonna leave a mark. Will have to wear a shirt all the time now.
I saved you a piece.
Zero’s followers are also know as the type of zealot that would “drink the Kool-aid”.
One should never drink and derrive...
Evening ThomasThomas. May I have a piece? Looks delicious.
Not an insult.
Evenin', "Rev".
LOL ... Thank You. That was a most unusual compliment.
LOL, the Grandma is waiting for him to show up so we can take some!
Good Night, everyone.
Series mode on....
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The original divide by zero routine was buried in the source code of an at the time little known prototype disk operating system (that went by the nonintuitive code name 'DOS') by two aliens who survived the crash at Rosewell. Story follows.
These two aliens had succeeded in adopting the appearance of genuine humans and had secured employment at a company named 'Digital Research'. In this capacity they helped develop an operating system for 8 bit computers called CP/M. As the customer base for CP/M grew these two aliens transferred to the software support division of the company and were charged with supporting Digital Research's largest customer, a company called Traf-0-Data headed by a couple of unknowns Paul Allen and Bill Gates.
Gates and Allen eventually found that the product they sold as Traf-o-data was no longer needed and reinvented their corporate selves under the name of Microsoft. Initially they sold BASIC interpreters to MITS for their Altair 8800 computers. At around the same time our two alien immigrants sensed that the furure of 8 bit machines might not be as bright as they hoped and left Digital Research for employment by a new startup company called Seattle Computer Products. Seattle Computer Products was one of the first manufacturers of computer systems based on the 16-bit Intel 8086 processor, shipping a S-100 bus 8086 computer about two years before IBM would release a thing called a "PC". SCP needed an operating system for their 16 bit machine but found that Digital Research could not supply one due to delays in their CP/m 86 project. Without a valid Op Sys, SCP was forced to ship their products with standalone Microsoft BASIC offered as an option, but no operating system was available. To solve this problem SCP looked inhouse, enlisted the aid of their two former DR employes and produced what they code named QDOS (quick and dirty OS...) QDOS was renamed 86-DOS when SCP began selling their units.
About this time, IBM woke up and decided to create a Personal Computer. Big Blue initially tried to get Digital Research to come up with an operating system for their new device. They met with the same schedule over runs that SCP had - DR just did not have a 16 bit version of CP/M available - yet. But we're working on it. Any day now..
Sensing the opportunity, Bill Gates at Microsoft, always able to sell vaporware, convinced IBM that MS could supply them with an operating system, knowing that Microsoft did not have such a thing in its product line. IBM asked MS for a 'sample prototype'. Gates tossed some dollars at SCP for the rights to sell 86-DOS to other companies and then sold 86-DOS to IBM as though it was a MS product. Shortly before IBM officially launched their 'PC', Gates and company tossed another pittance at SCP for exclusive rights to 86-DOS by using a weasely forecast of the future distribution volume.
What's this have to do with aliens crashing at Rosewell, CP/M, MS-DOS and hidden divide by zero procedure calls, you ask.. Well hold on, we're getting there. You see, after Gates and company successfully stole bought their operating system, now called MS-DOS, SCP went out of business and many former SCP employees were hired at the now rapidly expanding Microsoft, including our two alien crash survivors. Though they were still employed and still able to maintain their hidden identities, they harbored resentment for the way their product had been wrested from their hands. As a way to gain revenge - for want of a better word - on the evil Gates, they craftily inserted assorted lines of code that randomly produced a dividebyzero into the DOS product that have remained undetected for all these years. Some of the affects are noticible. Remember the 'Unable to read disk in drive A - Abort, Retry, Fail' error way back when? That was a result of their code. Windows3 freezing the GUI so that no method of command insertion functioned, yep, another example. The famous windows blue screen of death.. another example. (And, as part of the strategy to avoid detection, every time this process branch is called, there is a following sequence that runs after you manage to reboot the machine that says 'Windows has recovered from a serious error. How about you let us look for the reason..' If you allow this process to complete it updates the hidden code to the latest version and tells you that you probably have a driver problem so that you spend your time looking for updated drivers instead of alien code..
Another further impact of their tenure at Microsoft has been their influence on the over all product. Because they are aliens, and only appear human, they still posses the ability to control human minds. Using this ability they have influenced Microsoft to follow a pattern of Op System releases that produces a turkey with every alternate release. This process began during the deployment of Win 98 and continues to this day. Thus, Win 98 was ok, Win ME was a turkey. Win XP was ok, Win Vista sucked. Win 7 is ok. Win 8 -- well you get the picture.
So now that you have the history, here's how this affects us. Using their alien cloaking methods which have kept them undetected all these years, they have hidden their code insertions and divide by zero calls so well that no error trap routine catches them. They have also managed to include a user multiplier function that is produced when multiple Windows users converge on an external site - such as happens on Free Republic when there is an active FReepathon and simultaneously a quorum of users inhabiting the flying castle - the remote procedure user multiplier gains sufficient intensity as to overwhelm the receiving end and cause the equipment itself to develop permanent no-op cycles.
Because of the original history, this truly can be called a fatal DOS attack...
The preceding story is true, using the White House, CNN, NBC, WaPo, NYT, Dan Rather definition of true. No Beebers were stuned in the writing of this epistle. Any names used are copyrighted by their original owners. Aliens are cloaked but are now living in Rosewell and laughing at everyone. Did I mention that Microsoft Bob was their entrance into the world of comedy programing? Darksheare promised them coffee if they would take their code off of his machine because it seems to operate more often on his device. My brain hurts after doing all this indepth research. And I have No Tea...
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