The following are articles from The Winged Herald, the leading news source from Mount Olympus and the Elysian Fields.



Colourful, greener OS from Mount'O

Mt. Olympus, March 21 – Today, the Mount'O Gods release their Spring '09 operating system, boasting a more colourful and environmentally friendly interface compared to previous efforts.

"We promise a spectacular spring season this year," said Zeus, Mount'O Group chief executive officer and leader of the Greek Pantheon, at a press conference after the launch.

"The highlight would be a flower show geared to begin in late May. We guarantee riotous colours and pollen allergies. Get your anti-histamines ready."

According to Zeus, the flower show is the culmination of years of hard work – several seasons of extreme temperatures and droughts were needed for the hardier seeds.

He added that the flowers were part of the Mount'O patented Negative Feedback Pathway (NFP). The flower-linked NFP system lowers carbon dioxide levels in the environment, thus dealing actively with the climate issue.

"Critics have lambasted us over many matters,” said Zeus. “With regards to climate change, we've done our best to maintain a healthy, glowing world for people to live in. I stress once more that the NFP is environmentally friendly.”



See pg 10 for the feature article Zeus of Mount'O: 'Critics Schmitics'.



FEATURE

Zeus of Mount'O: 'Critics Schmitics'

Zeus speaks to Hermes about the Spring '09 operating system, flower-power and his contemporary view of critics and criticisms.


"Critics schmitics!" says Zeus, his brow beetling ominously when asked about criticisms mounted against Mount'O's latest offering, the Spring '09 season.

"Every product has issues, but I guarantee that anything coming out of Mount'O is perfect. That's why we don't have money-back guarantees – it's pointless. No complaints thus far," says the chief executive officer of the Mount'O group, sitting back in his chair and crossing his huge Herculean-pater arms.

Zeus is massive in both size and personality and sitting before an angry God reminds one about health insurance premiums. Thankfully, the success of the Spring '09 launch had placed him in a good mood. He speaks glowingly about the flower show due to commence in May.

The Spring '09 Flower Show, as it is dubbed, is the brainchild of Demeter, chief scientific officer of the Mount'O Division of Agricultural Research. Among some of the more clever innovations are the linking together of the flowers to the Negative Feedback Pathway (NFP).

The NFP is the mainframe of every operating system (OS) released by the Mount'O group. It made its first appearance in the original Mount Olympus OS (MOOSe), a classic mainframe mimicked by other pantheons. Basically, NFP codes that every action in nature would have to invite an opposite action in response, or die trying.

With regards to the flowers, Zeus explains that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the environment had led to a need to reduce it. "Plants...! Plants were the answer," he says emphatically.

"Demeter had her team working on extreme weather temperatures for several years now. The process was designed to whittle down our seed stock for the creation of hardier plants – evolution and all that."

In response to critics, the Group decided to release the hardy seed stocks a year early. The flowering plants that sprout would soak up excess carbon dioxide in the air and produce oxygen for humans to breathe. Zeus says that the flowers are also eye-candy, causing a "win-win situation for all concerned."

Critics are hard-pressed to agree. To begin with, they argue, the carbon dioxide levels had raised to unimaginable levels due to excess pollution by human action. "Agh, our critics kept saying that it was our fault that a certain God in our Group brought technology to people,"Zeus says irritably.

"But technology was an NFP response; we couldn't override the mainframe without causing critical system errors. If NFP hadn't stepped in at that time, vegetation would have overrun the world. Worshippers usually think that Gods are in their image – I don't look like a cabbage, do I?”

But with the appearance of a flower-linked NFP system, would the world once again be threatened with excess vegetation? Zeus laughs and answers, "No, here's a spoiler alert; we've got Category 9 zephyrs coming up at the end of the season, I won't say when to maintain the surprise.

"But I can say this: the zephyrs would smite all the flowers just when they start getting funny ideas," Zeus concludes with a satisfied grin.


Q&A:

Zeus answers to more criticisms:

Your OS is rife with viruses.

Oh please, not this again. In the first place, we're taking more hits from hackers because we're the most popular OS around. I mean, some of the more dogmatic Groups claim that the viruses in their systems are not viruses at all, but some internal "testing mechanism" or some rot like that. Boo! Their viruses are the same as ours. At least we're taking steps to prevent them.

What kind of steps?

Well, first, firewalls. We've built some sophisticated immune systems into humans. But they have to download the vaccination updates. It helps to get the latest patch consisting of Vitamin C and other herbs.

And we've developed some pretty decent anti-viruses. Our latest is made from the shikimic acid of the star anise. We're constantly working on more innovations.

Your user interface sucks, why bother with a pantheon when The One would do?

I believe this is a question of delegation. We've managed to successfully reduce our tasks into separate units via structured query language (SQL). I believe that the system allows for more rapid responses.

One word: interoperability

What a mouthful! I'm sure that's more than one word.

Well?

At Mount'O, we're one big happy family. Everyone gets along well. There's no lack of cross-platform operability. In fact, we're all on the same platform here.

Right.

(Silence.)

One big happy family? What do you say about the incest issue?

(Silence.)

What about all accusations of nepotism, cronyism and unfair distribution of titles within the Mount?

Well, Hermes, son... I've always been a strong believer in "to each his own ability". If they have the skills to do the job, well then, why not let them do it? After all, I let you be editor of this dratted paper, don't I?

I get your drift, Dad. Moving on...

Mount'O is a silly name.


I thought so too. But Mount Olympus was getting to be such a mouthful in this day and age of Gen Y. I mean, we have to compete with the likes of other, more youthful sounding companies, like Yahoo! or Google. It was a stressful re-branding exercise, but our investors seemed happy with it – our stocks went up and stayed up.  Can't complain.

Besides, weren't you the one who came up with the name?

Er, yes. (Cough.) Well, I do admit the name goes well with the tag-line.

Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo! Catchy stuff, that.

Mount'O Yo!

Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo!

Er, Dad? Thank you. I think that's fine.

Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo!

Dad?

Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo!

Dad! I heard you the first time.

Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo! Mount'O Yo!

Sigh. Thanks for the interview.

Mount'O Yo!