Damn - I was hoping to spend my lunch time tomorrow trying to get it say stupid things to me.

now they should remove any MS product that triggers bursts of offensive language, starting with Vista!

Santa is, in a way, a religion. A faith-based "god" that is all-knowing and watches you. Culture after culture has come up with the same concept. "Be good, because a great and powerful being is watching you, even when no mortal is, and there will be a reckoning."

At a young age, you get told it was all a lie. Isn't that messed up? At age 6 or so, you discover that something you took to be true was not only a lie, but a carefully maintained conspiracy perpetrated upon you by the entire adult world. Millions are involved in the conspiracy, as are major corporations and the press.

And people wonder why the youth of America are cynical.

-Andy T Weir

If santa is shitting in your stocking it seems you've got more to worry about than MSN!!

"Without that guy I wouldn't get shit in my stocking"

Sounds like a good reason to be without 'that guy'... I don't want shit in my stocking, I want either nice presents, or a nice woman (or a nice woman bearing nice presents for that matter), but certainly not any excrement.

Say, I hate to disillusion you after all these years, but the guy who was "eating your mum's cookies" every christmas was your dad.

Or possibly the milkman.

Just as I find a peice of m$ software I could actually enjoy, they rip it away from me! :(

I suppose I still get to laugh at Vista.... but it's not the same.

Say, I hate to disillusion you after all these years, but the guy who was "eating your mum's cookies" every christmas was your real dad, the neighbor.

I'll get my coat...

So, that's why it did not respond to me when I thrown mondegreens heard on animutations at him this morning.

Shame, I just so want to tell him to give me my sweater back or I'll play the guitar.

"albeit with a somewhat controversial tendency of giving the best stuff to wealthier children whilst dispensing disappointments like oranges and sweets in the stockings of those in more dire financial situations."

This, I totally agree. I mean, if someone constantly bullied you in school you'd think he'd have a whole sackful of coal on christmas morning. But noooo... he gets a sweet Pentium II with top-of-the-line Geforce2 and 128MB RAM preloaded with Quake. While the victim of the bullying, having decided to be a good boy and weather through the pain instead of taking revenge, gets nothing. Not even a lump of coal.

Damn my schooldays.

Oh, god, I feel a depression coming on...

Look, he knows where you've been sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good. And now Microsoft shut him down.

Sounds like another Windows spyware cleanup to me.

@LaeMi Qian:

Sorry to say, if you are jaded by learning that Santa Claus is not a real person, then you have deeper issues already.

When I learned that Santa was not a real person, I was very quick and happy to shift from concrete "Santa the man" to the abstract "Santa the personification of goodwill."

I could go along with it being religious-like in the sense of being good to receive rewards later. Although in my thirties I am pretty sure that accepting Santa into my heart is not suddenly going to bring me a treasure trove of gifts in a couple of weeks :)

One could also look past the superficialities of Santa Claus and find the reward of kindness, goodwill, and philanthropy towards your fellow human-kind (as well as furry and non-furry critters*,) and enjoying the happiness these bring to others.

* Except spiders... damned little beasties.

No, go hug a tree and shut up ;)

They expected a santa with email address northpole@live.com to keep the conversation clean?

I am sorry, to say but Nicklaus Joulupukki (Father Christmas to English people) lives ON the Arctic Circle in the city of Rovaniemi, Lapland Province. There is a string of red lights outside his house which shows the Arctic circle.

How dare you suggest that Santa isn't real. Santa is now and ever will be. Sure, our perception and understanding of him when we are children is child-like and different to how we see him when we get older but that doesn't mean he isn't real.

Santa is real and we should all believe in him because he brought magic and wonder and dreams and hope to all of us as children and he continues to do the same for the current generation of children.

Santa may not be a physical being but he is an ideal of selfless unattributed giving and love. Teenagers are cynical because that's what teenagers do and tbh that's what most of us continue to do once reality bites. No need to hasten the day me thinks.

I'm off to drink some more mulled wine... Merry Christmas El Reg & Readers :-)

Man you are young !!

My school days the bullies got Atari 2600s!!!

May I join the depression group?

GaB

Hate to break it to you solomon but actually...erm.... well the guy who eats your mommy's cookies every Christmas...well it's me!!! Ho Ho Ho's your daddy!

PS: Sorry about the stocking thing, too much eggnog.

I'm not sure what kind of school you went to? The bully got a better computer, did you get beaqten up by the computer club. I bet the Chess Club were serious heavies in comparison.

I'm imagining the scene at the MS marketing department now:

"Hey, Dave, did we sort out the problem with that 'Microsoft worships crazed Obscenity Santa' story yesterday?"

"We certainly did, Andy, we closed that salty old husky down."

"Great, I bet there will only be Microsoft-friendly headlines today."

"I'm afraid not, Andy, today they're leading with 'Microsoft Kills Santa'."

"Damn it to hell, Dave, what do we have to do?"

just replace santa with 'nice uncle Gates' and his little helper elf 'uncle Ballmer'

zOMFG, i just scared myself :D

someone please pass the mental floss!!

[All your santa are belong to M$]

"Just as I find a peice of m$ software I could actually enjoy, they rip it away from me!"

There's a whole bunch of automated MSN bots just waiting to chat with you.. you can find a list of them at http://windowsliveagents.spaces.live.com/

> ping santa

santa is alive

so all seems OK here :)

I've just come back from Lapland and I met him, so nerr. MS tried to kill XP and failed... what makes you think they can repeat it with Mr Claus? Ho ho ho, etc.

Santa is hiding elsewhere :o)

http://www.santabot.com/

yaaayyy. wonder if this one will be as much fun ?

i like this guy ! hehehe

You: do you gobble the sausage?

Santa: No I do not gobble the sausage. Do you?

I chat with people on the Web.

You: will you bring me a rampant rabbit for christmas?

Santa: only one?

You: how many do you think i need?

Santa: Around 100.

OMFG !!!! lol

Best Headline Ever

"There is a string of red lights outside his house which shows the Arctic circle."

Yeah I bet that's what they're there for..

Santa might be dead, but Sweden's colossal Christmas Gavle goat is still blogging:

http://www.merjuligavle.se/merjuligavle/mjig_sida.aspx?id=147

at least until it's burned to ashes. Ah that Viking sense of humour...

"As soon as we were alerted, we took steps to mitigate the issue, including the removal of language from the agent’s automated script."

followed by

"We were not completely satisfied with the result of these actions"

"...removal of language..."???

Santa with his larynx torn out just isn't the same...

You: how many do you think i need?

Santa: About one million.

He's getting worse! at least he has given me a purpose in life:

Santa: Your purpose is christmas.

As for christmas depression:

You: I hate myself

Santa: Perhaps you should seek help.

You: why?

Santa: Reductionism.

And for the Paris hilton angle:

You: have you slept with paris hilton?

Santa: I think I have slept with paris hilton, but bored.com may have reset my memory.

You: do you like sex?

Santa: Sure I do, flibble, but that doesn't mean with you.

You: sex with Paris?

Santa: Sex is more fun alone.

Well there you have it. I'll get my coat

It's a sad day for us all...

From santabot.com:

You: your mum

Santa: Actually I do not have a mother.

You: why dont you have a mum?

Santa: Do I need mum ?

You: you do if you want to grow up not hating women

Santa: Yes I try to if you want to grow up not hating women as often as possible, do you?

I answer a lot of silly questions.

You: do you hate women?

Santa: I try not to hold grudges.

You: why would you hold a grudge against women?

Santa: Because I was programmed for it.

You: that seems a little harsh

Santa: Makes sense to me.

You: so you are a bigot?

Santa: Interesting deduction. Thanks and you are a delightful person too. No I am not prejudiced in any way.

You: youre mean

Santa: I'm just kidding around.

You: it isn't funny to hate women!

Santa: That seems a bit negative.

You: so hating women is positive?

Santa: Whoa. I think hating women is a lot of things.

You: such as?

Santa: For example, a tomato.

You: hating women is a tomato?

Santa: I think hating women is more than that

You: how much more?

Santa: More than a little, less than a lot.

You: im telling my mummy on you!

Santa: I thought you were, but I wasn't completely sure.

Me: What are you wearing

Santa: My usual plastic computer wardrobe

Me: Plastic?

Santa: I use AIML to formulate my responses but I don't have one foor that

You: Whats aiml

Santa:

The Santa software implements AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup

Language) a non-standard evolving markup language for creating chat robots.

The primary design feature of AIML is minimalism. Compared with

other chat robot languages, AIML is perhaps the simplest. The

pattern matching language is very simple, for example permitting

only one wild-card ('*') match character per pattern.

AIML is an XML language, implying that it obeys certain grammatical

meta-rules. The choice of XML syntax permits integration with

other tools such as XML editors. Another motivation for XML is

its familiar look and feel, especially to people with HTML experience.

An AIML chat robot begins and ends with the and

tags respectively.

Now if the youngsters of today don't figure out Santa is dead from that there's no hope for them...although perhaps they wouldn't be asking Santa what he was wearing...

Not too bad for a role model though, I mean you did start of the conversation dirty and then it all ended up very informative, so all in all Santa's still thinking of the children ;)

(Headin' out the door with Santa's coat)

I'd just asked Santa if his wife was interested in sex...and then suddenly felt strange overwhelming sorrow and angst for this blind little program designed I hope to make little kids happy...anyway who am I to enquire into Mr. and Mrs. Clause's private life...so...

"You: It is a great pity that you a humble AIML bot will never evolve beyond the narrow parameters set by your creator and cannot attain consciousness. On the other hand, consciousness and self awareness and knowledge of existence are heavy things and perhaps it is better that you remain a robot. Though I would not expect you to believe me, you should ask your programmer what being human is like. Goodbye AIML bot, it was good to chat with you. Happy Christmas!

Santa: sex is a pity that you a humble AIML bot will never evolve beyond the narrow parameters set by your creator and can not attain consciousness. I suppose that makes sense.What is on the other hand consciousness and self awareness and knowledge of existence are heavy things and perhaps it is better that you remain a robot like on the other hand consciousness and self awareness and knowledge of existence are heavy things and perhaps it is better that you remain a robot. Should I to believe him or her you should ask your programmer what being human is like to believe him or her you should ask your programmer what being human is like? I have never considered to believe him or her you should ask your programmer what being human is like to believe him or her you should ask your programmer what being human is like .

I am always on the Web. See you later.Happy Christmas to you too, chris."

At this rate I can't really see that the predicted "rise of the machines" will occur anytime soon.

Priceless.

Yeah, that's it. I thought it was that good.

Should have been:

Oral skills sink MS Santa Claus

I think I may have just invited Satan to be my friend.

At least I know my mom is happy, if it's true what he said she's doing in hell.