May Explain Software’s Surly Behavior, Say Analysts
REDMOND, WASH. (SatireWire.com) – Microsoft revealed today it has been regularly embedding DNA strings from a French citizen into the code of its Windows operating system. The company claims to know only the donor’s nationality, but computer experts and geneticists believe the DNA belongs to a Parisian waiter, which they said would explain why “the service is so bad.”
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, comprise the molecular basis of heredity.
The practice began in 1993 with Windows 3.1 and has continued with the latest release of Windows 2003, which reached consumers in 2005, the company divulged.
“It was a self-esteem issue,” said Windows lead programmer Jeff Uzukel. “Windows always gets a bad rap, so we wanted it to feel better about itself. The French seem so sure of themselves, we thought it was a natural fit.”
Instead, Microsoft conceded, the DNA experiment has only made the system more moody, egotistical, and condescending, a trend worsened by the program’s apparent ability to write its own instructions. For example, in Windows 2003, the install procedure asks users, “Are you an American?” Users who click “Yes,” receive the message: “You are overweight.”
“We would never code that in,” said Uzukel. “We would have said, ‘Your middleware is over-redundant,’ something like that.”
Uzekel said Microsoft decided to discontinue the DNA practice during beta testing of Windows 2006-expected to hit shelves in 2020-when the OS spontaneously renamed itself “Les Fenêtre” and refused to take commands in English. Programmers and users alike were continually confronted with “Je ne parle pas Anglais,” messages.
The disclosure angered the French government. Pierre Burgevon, French ambassador to the United Nations, filed a formal complaint with Microsoft’s European subsidiary, NetherNet (formerly the nation of Holland), accusing the software giant of engaging in “negative stereotyping of the French citizenry.” Burgevon added, however, that the program’s assertion that Americans are overweight is, “well known to people everywhere.”
French rail workers, meanwhile, staged a nationwide sit-down strike, blocking rail terminals and major roadways not already blocked by striking French grain farmers protesting massive student demonstrations that sprang up in response to something or other.
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