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                                  6 April to 10 April, 1998 
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10 April, 3.07pm est: 
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    Primitive Volcanic Gods Choose BeOS Over Windows 
    On some isolated islands in the region of the world known as the "Ring of Fire" for its massive volcanic
    activity, time seems to stand still. Societies there often are at the same level of technology and culture
    as their great-great-grandparents. Not so for the Aletnu tribe, which has adopted advances in technology
    while retaining its cultural heritage. 

    "Yes, it is true in the past that our tribe, along with others, would throw young virgin girls into active
    volcanoes to appease the Gods that live within them," said B'nila Varuna, Chief of the Aletnu tribe. "I am
    proud to say that the Aletnu tribe abandoned such outmoded thinking as far back as the 1950s." 

    A group of Aletnu researchers in the late 1940s begin experimenting with other objects in attempts to
    appease the Volcano Gods. 

    "It was groundbreaking work, but we were driven. More and more people resented throwing perfectly
    healthy nubile young women into the volcanoes, and a substitute had to be found" recalls one of the
    researchers. "There were of course many failures before any success. At one point, several Gods seemed
    pleased with a mix of blenders, Playboy magazines and cheese sandwiches, but Zamplatlu, stubborn God
    that he is, showed his displeasure by dousing a nearby village with a coating of toxic volcanic ash." 

    The breakthrough came in the 1950s after several televisions were thrown into a volcano on the verge of
    erupting and engulfing the town below in molten lava. Immediately, the volcanic activity subsided,
    indicating the pleasure of the Gods with the sacrifice. 

    Since then, a dedicated team of Aletnu tribesman have followed technological trends and adapted them to
    appeasing their Gods. 

    Eventually the Gods would demand new sacrifices, which until recently, has mostly included personal
    computers running the Windows operating system. 

    "Windows was popular among people, and at first it seemed the Gods were happy with the sacrifice," said
    Chief Varuna, recalling several incidence of hurling desktop and laptop systems into the fiery abyss. 

    However, the task of appeasing the volcano Gods using Windows soon became a full-time hassle. It got
    to the point where tribal elders began collecting names of young virgins among the tribe, in case they had
    to return to the old ways to appease their vengeful gods of fire and destruction. 

    "In the old days, you would toss a virgin into the fire and not even have to think about a fiery rain of
    death from above for at least two weeks," said one tribesman. "Now, just days after tossing a Pentium
    300Mhz system into a volcano, I find myself trudging back up the mountain to update the sacrifice." 

    Return visits on an almost daily basis involved the ritual sacrifice of additional memory, software and
    peripherals. 

    "Sometimes you just had to give up and toss an entire new system in and hope it was configured correctly
    this time," said one tribe member. 

    "The cost, both in terms of raw hardware and the lost time of my people, was becoming too much. Young
    virgin girls were beginning to seem like a small price to pay," Chief Varuna reported. 

    Then, the tribe discovered the BeOS. 

    "We were impressed, and could only hope the Gods would feel as we did," the Chief said. 

    Results were immediate and astounding. After tossing several systems running the BeOS into the
    volcanoes on a small test island, volcanic activity came to a standstill. The BeOS was soon adopted on
    other islands and the result was the same. 

    "I tossed a BeOS system into a volcano two months ago, and I haven't had to return to offer another
    sacrifice since," one tribe member reported. 

    "I'm responsible for appeasing the Gods who live in this chain of volcanoes, and now I simply sacrifice one
    BeOS computer, whereas it took three or four Windows machines to appease all the Gods
    simultaneously," said another. 

    In a celebration last week, Chief Varuna named the entire Be team honorary tribe members. 

    "I would like to thank those responsible for bringing stability and order back to our way of life," Chief
    Varuna proclaimed. "It is a comfort to know our women will not once again be tossed to their fiery death,
    leaving them to their natural tasks of working in the fields, cooking our feasts and bearing our children.
    Progress is wonderful!" 

9 April, 1.07pm est: 
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    Be Inc. Commandos Take Sony Headquarters By Storm 
    In a daring pre-dawn raid, Be Inc. Commandos infiltrated and took command of the headquarters of Sony
    Music, a division of Sony, Inc. Their target: the massive CD reproduction facility. 

    Hit by a demand far beyond what was projected in even the most optimistic scenarios, Be Inc. is
    producing BeOS R3 CDs at an astounding rate in its attempts to keep up with orders. However, even
    contracting with every CD production house in the state of California was not enough to keep up with the
    demand. 

    "Drastic measures must be taken. You know who you are, and you know what you must do," said an
    internal Be Inc. email obtained by Be Dope. 

    "We received a call inquiring about renting part or all CD reproduction facilities," said Sony executive
    Jonathan Allevison, "we told them that was, of course, impossible. The caller then hung up, but not
    without an ominous sounding 'hmmmmmmmm' first." 

    Sometime after 2am, just after the cleaning crew had gone home, a Channel 7 news helicopter reported
    stolen earlier that evening landed on the roof of Sony Music headquarters, which included the CD
    reproduction facilities. Several unknown people quickly disabled the computer security at the roof entrance
    to the building and entered. Security tapes show most were dressed in all black and one was dressed in a
    tank top, khaki hiking shorts, jackboots, a backpack, and a matched pair of Smith and Wesson 9mm
    modified semiautomatic handguns. 

    Soon after, production on all music CD stopped, and the entire system was refitted to reproduce BeOS R3
    CDs. 

    "Not only did they bypass the computer security," said a Sony technician, "they quickly rewrote some
    algorithms so the machines would work more efficiently. Whoever they were, they sure knew what they
    were doing when it came to computers." 

    By 6.30am several hundred thousand BeOS R3 CDs had been pressed and loaded onto the helicopter. 

    Their one mistake: they forgot to remove the original BeOS CD from the copier. 

    Curious Sony employees reviewed the previous night's security tape after finding the BeOS CD left in the
    duplicator. 

    After meeting with Be Inc.'s CEO Jean-Louis Gasse, Sony decided not to press charges and settled
    instead for "an exchange of technology". Several sources report Sony officials leaving Be Inc. headquarters
    wearing Be t-shirts with copies of the BeOS R3 CD in hand. 

8 April, 11.30am est: 
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    New Be Dope Interview 
    This week Be Dope interviews Be's Dominic Giampaolo. 

    Mir Space Station: BeOS Inside 
    NASA astronaut Andrew Thomas knew that Monday's six hour space walk would occupy Russian
    cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin for more than enough time to carry out a clandestine
    mission for NASA while he was aboard Russian space station Mir: installing the BeOS on the space
    station's computers. 

    "Everyone at NASA agreed that the BeOS could alleviate many of the problems plaguing the space station
    for the past year," said Thomas. "But getting authorization to do anything on Mir is a nightmare." 

    While the cosmonauts were trying to finish installing a support beam for a damaged solar panel on the
    Spektr module, Thomas began the BeOS installation process. For the most part, it was trouble-free. 

    "I had to replace the video card, but that was the only glitch," Thomas said. 

    Upon return, the cosmonauts were first angered at the unauthorized upgrade, but soon relented as
    Thomas performed a spectacular demo. The space station now required less energy to perform its tasks.
    Additionally, life support functions ran more efficiently than ever. 

    "Of course we were upset at first, but soon the air was fresher, the lights brighter and control systems no
    longer stopped working every few hours," Musabayev reported. 

    Using the BeOS, the cosmonauts soon automated what used to be time-consuming manual tasks, leaving
    them more time for scientific research. 

    "Every morning, I used to wake up wondering what sort of crisis would need to be averted," said Budarin.
    "Now I simply wake up and enjoy watching the Earth rise." 

7 April, 11.59am est: 
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    Dilbert Adopts BeOS 
    Dilbert, the cubicle-hanging comic strip known world-wide for its painfully accurate portrayal of life in the
    modern office, will once again ride the "bleeding edge" of technology by running a storyline featuring the
    BeOS. 

    "Dilbert, the character, is the ultimate geek," said strip creator Scott Adams "and so it is only
    natural he adopt the most powerful and sexiest technology available. This obviously includes
    the BeOS." 

    The storyline will show Dilbert frustrated by the ever-increasing impossible demands of his
    boss and the inability of his current OS to handle the load. Dilbert gives up computers and
    tires his hand at suburban yak farming (which provides a wealth of comedic opportunities for Dogbert). 

    All seems lost when Dilbert is rescued by The World's Smartest Garbage Man, who shows Dilbert the
    BeOS, which ignites Dilbert's techno-lust once again. He sets the yaks free and returns to his geek
    lifestyle. 

    "I've been using the BeOS for some time now, so it was only a matter of time before it became part of
    the Dilbert universe," said Adams. 

6 April, 11.42am est: 
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    Elvis Presley Returns To Write BeWare 
    Elvis Presley, one-time "King of Rock and Roll" and officially pronounced dead in 1977, stunned the world
    by coming out of a self-imposed period of isolation and secrecy. His stated reason: to develop for the
    BeOS. 

    "Let's face it, by the 1970s my music career was a joke," Presley said at a press conference on Sunday.
    "The Vegas shows, the sequined jumpsuits - things were just totally out of control. I knew it was time to
    ditch everything and start over." 

    According to Presley, faking his death as the only way to get away from the fans and media and focus on
    music again. He moved to a small island off the coast of Canada, switched to a vegetarian diet and
    concentrated on his true love - creating music. After seeing a demo of music on an Atari 800 computer, he
    soon became obsessed with computer-generated music. 

    "The possibilities were just endless," said Presley. "I again saw an opportunity to be an innovator in the
    world of music." 

    Working in secrecy, Presley studied advanced mathematics and electrical engineering, building equipment
    when nothing available suited his needs. His algorithms, published under various pseudonymns, were
    soon adopted by many working in the field of computers and music. 

    Although unknown to all but a few, Presley's musical scores graced a fair amount of movies and
    videogames throughout the late eighties and early nineties. Soon, however, Presley once again became
    restless. 

    "There simply was not an operating system available that could merge my advanced pattern-recognition
    algorithms with my sound generation and output routines in real time," Presley explained. "I was working
    on a program that would translate the fractal patterns found in the natural world (waves on a beach, trees
    swaying in the wind, etc.) into complex multi-instrumental scores, but I had run up against a wall as far
    as computational power was concerned." 

    Everyting changed with the BeOS. 

    "I've been following Be since the beginning. I registered as a developer (#267) and began exploring the
    possibilities immediately," said Presley. "The BeOS is now at the point where my creativity is enhanced
    rather than crippled by the current state of computer technology." 

    Presley decided to come out of hiding in order to collaborate with others programmers and musicians on
    his latest project. 

    "I am now sixty-eight years old," said Presley, "I have no time for all this hiding and seclusion nonsense.
    I have to get out there, meet the people in the Be community and find programmers I can work with to
    once again change the way people think about music." 

    "Expect some of my programs to be up on BeWare shortly," Presley added. 

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