Noah and the Flood

People had been using the software that GOD had created for a while but something wasn’t right. They were using the software in ways GOD didn’t want and it wasn’t producing the results GOD wanted.

It was time to make a change.

A notice was posted on the website.

Notice of Service Termination
Due to abuse and misuse, the current system will begin termination in seven days. Select users will be invited to the new version via email.

Noah was the only user of the old system receive the email.

From: god@heaven.net
To: noah@earth.net
Subject: Invite to new version
------------------------------
Congratulations.
In recognition of your righteous and blameless life, it is with great pleasure
that you and your family are invited to continue to earth 2.0.

To take advantage of this offer, please begin backing-up all your details to
the Ark sub-system immediately.

If you have any questions about this or anything else, just pray.

Loads of Love.

GOD.

While Noah and his family were busy backing up all their details to the Ark sub-system, God also started backing-up copies of all the birds, and animals. Due to space limitation (storage space was less freely available in the past) only a single backup was taken of the less important (unclean) creatures, while seven copies of the important (clean) creatures were backed-up. (While the Ark was the only option available, I’m sure GOD would have had some off-site backups too if that been an option.)

Once Noah’s family and all the creatures had successfully been backed-up to the Ark sub-system, the forty day process of shutting down the old version began. It wasn’t a complete shut-down. The servers were left on and power to the Ark sub-system was maintained but all the old code was overwritten with water.

404: Dry ground not found.

Earth 2.0 took a almost a year until it was ready. As a first test, the Raven protocol was used but this was inconclusive. A decision was then made to switch to the Dove protocol. The first use of the Dove protocol produced an Empty result, but a week later, an OliveLeaf result suggested progress was good. Another week later and a SuitablePerchFound result meant the new version of Earth was almost ready for users.

All the users of Earth 2.0 who had been patiently waiting on the Ark sub-system but when Noah, his wife, their sons, and the sons wives were so grateful when they entered the new version, they offered a burnt offering to GOD.

(If Noah’s children had their own children this would have been the first documented example of users being “grandfathered into a new version.” But they didn’t so it wasn’t.)

The smell of animals and birds on the offering was so pleasing to GOD that he determined never to start over again. There would be no Earth 3.0.

Earth 2.0 also introduced some other changes. A new overload to the HumanBeing.Eat() method was introduced.

Class HumanBeing : LivingCreature
{
   Method Eat(IBearsSeeds)
+  Method Eat(LivingCreature)
}

There was also an addition to the terms and conditions of use.

If you shed blood, your blood shall be shed also.

Finally, a new branding element was added to the design system of Earth 2.0: a Rainbow. Its purpose was to serve as a reminder of what had changed and GOD’s promise that Earth 2.0 wouldn’t be destroyed and replaced with a third version.

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