Lyndon Hood: Real Life Easter Eggs
Scoop Satire: Real Life Easter Eggs
Satire by Lyndon Hood
Computer programmers often leave 'Easter Eggs' in software - special features or surprises that can be revealed by some secret combination of events. Some early Unix systems, for example, responded to the command "make love" with "not war?". More recently, the 1997 version of Excel contained a flight simulator. And then there's the 'Exploding Lara Croft' trick.
In honour of the recent holy season, I present the list of little-know local easter eggs.
If you hold down the “Control”, “Shift”,
“Alt” (“Option” on a Mac) and “S” keys when
sending out a negative press release, you can “Slam”
your target. “Slamming” causes up to 50% more damage
than an ordinary attack, though it become less effective
with more use.
Type “campaign finance reform” into
the chat line to automatically receive five million
gold.
When playing “Real Parliament 2007”, we all
know the rule is that you have to address MPs by the proper
title. But if you called Bill English the “co-leader” of
the National Party nobody complains. This is more of a bug
than an easter egg, but some people enjoy exploiting it
anyway.
Hint: If you see David Benson-Pope putting out
a press release trumpeting a fall in unemployment, be ready.
Judith Collins is about to put out a press release bewailing
a rise in sickness beneficiaries.
Breaking the world
unassisted free-dive record, which among other things
involves submerging yourself in water and holding your
breath, might conceivably stop you smelling a rat when your
mayor decides his relationship with China is more important
than human rights.
It's been asserted that, if you
press the right buttons, John Key will make a 180 degree
turn, at the same time as spinning furiously. This is wrong.
He does that anyway.
Allow pathology services to be
privatised. Then, before the contract rows, uncertainties,
strikes and staff shortages kick in, get un-elected and let
the other people face the music. DO NOT hold on to power if
this is happening. That's just stupid.
If you
repeatedly hit your forehead against wall or similar hard
object, then letting politicians write the election spending
rules starts to seem like a good idea.
There is a
free, open source version of your life available. Advanced
users may notice that it lacks some features, but
considering you mostly use yours for work, email and the
web, I'd suggest you make the switch.
Go to a beach
(obviously not at high tide or in bad weather), dig a small
hole, kind of kneel down so your head is inside the hole,
and fill the hole in again, then human influence on global
warming will vanish.
If, while using any weapon other
than the pistols, you walk one step back, one step forward,
crouch, release crouch, spin around three times and do a
normal backward jump, then you probably don't have much to
keep you occupied during the Parliamentary recess
either.