MICROSOFT ========= _________________________ Microsoft: Contract programming house for IBM, and primary sustainer of the clone market. IBM pays MS to write fancy software, then MS tweaks it a little, slaps the MS logon on it, and sells it to all the clone folks so they can keep competing with IBM. There is no truth to the rumor that former Mafioso procure the IBM contracts for MS. All products are given generic names (Word, Project, Works, Windows, etc.) to (a) confuse everybody unless (b) the name "Microsoft" is constantly repeated. Made the founder $300,000,000+ in one day. _________________________ From: zoinks@netcom.com (Chris Blackwell) This friday I go some comp tickets to the annual Computer Bowl. Usually a pretty dry affair, but I just had to share this one with you all. (This is from memory, so the text may not be 100% verbatim) The question posed was "What contest, held on the Internet, is dedicated to examples of wierd, obscure, bizzare and really bad programming?" (They were referring to the Obfuscated C contest) For about 30 seconds the participants thought about it, and it was apparent that nobody knew the answer. Then one of the French contestants buzzed. His answer - "Microsoft Windows" The expression on Bill Gates face (he was one of the judges) was classic. _________________________ Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: None: they just redefine darkness as the industry standard. _________________________ As you may be aware Bill Gates is about to launch Microsoft Wife. After 3 years of marriage, Bill may upgrade to Wife 2.0. _________________________ From: Sherri.Alashari@Eng.Sun.COM (Sherri Al-Ashari) Remember that Microsoft joke that someone sent out last week, the one that says it doesn't take any Microsoft engineers to screw in a light bult because they'd just redefine darkness to be the standard? Well it was amazingly prescient. Seattle's Saturday newspaper carried a front-page story about Bill Gates' most recent traffic ticket. Rather than pay the $47 fine for turning left against *three* "No Left Turn" signs, he had his lawyers challenge the legality of the sign! And not only that sign; they asked the city to prove it has the legal right to post any traffic signs!! Can you believe it. The challenge didn't work, but the city was so slow about proving the signs okay--it's not like they do it every day--the traffic judge dismissed the ticket. _________________________ Monday morning God decided that the world had reached the point of no return. So, he called Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and Bill Gates to the gates of heaven. He informed them of his decision and told them to go back to their people and prepare them for the end of the world on Thursday. Boris Yeltsin gets on state television and tells his people that he has bad news and worse news. After decades of telling the Soviet citizens that there is no God, he now realizes that he was wrong. He has seen God with his own eyes. Worse yet, God has decided to destroy the world and each person needs to prepare for Thursday as each sees fit. Bill Clinton calls a press conference and says that he has good news and bad news. After centuries of telling the US citizens that there is a God, he has proof that we've been right. He has seen God with his own eyes. But the bad news is that God has decided to destroy the world and each person needs to prepare for Thursday as each sees fit. Bill Gates calls an all-hands meeting. He says that he has wonderful news and even more wonderful news. God, by calling him to the gates of heaven with the leaders of the two most powerful nations in the world, has just confirmed how important Bill Gates really is. The even better news is that on Thursday, IBM will stop shipping OS/2. _________________________ Could've been written about Microsoft products: "If you have a knife 9" in my back, and you pull it out 3", that is not progress" --Malcolm X _________________________ 1980's fortune: Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. The answer is yes. 1990's fortune: Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. The answer is "Just Say No!" _________________________ "My view of Microsoft is that they had two goals in the last 10 years: to copy the Macintosh and to copy Lotus' success in the applications business. And they accomplished those goals. Now, they're kind of lost. I've told Bill [Gates] that I think it's in Microsoft's best interest if NeXT becomes successful because we'll give him something to copy for the rest of this decade." -- Steve Jobs _________________________ There once was a super Windows NT salesman that travel the world with a great "can do everything and all" Windows NT demo (but the real stuff was vaporware). He sold it lonely Windows NT'ers like me and made lots of money. One day while dashing through the O'Hare Airport to catch a flight he drop dead of a heart attack. At the gates of heaven he was judged. He had lived a borderline life and was given the option of heaven or hell. He could look into the doors of each and choose. As he opened the door to heaven, wonderful music harp music played, he saw people floating on clouds and all was bright and white. Next he opened the doors to hell and saw nude people drinking beer and dancing to rock and roll music. Everyone was partying to the max. It was just like his one year at college. As He met with his maker again, he said, Heaven is great and wonderful, but other is more my style. Think carefully he was told but the other was his wish. As the doors opened for him the intense heat hit him and he was pulled in. He stood before the devil and saw pain and sorrow everywhere. He shouted at the devil, "Where is the party and beer?". The devil laughed, "that was the demo, this is the real thing!" :) Bruce _________________________ Since we can't make it good, we try to make it look good. - Bill Gates _________________________ > Can you explain the mysterious popularity of Billy Joel?? Could he be > the Anti-Christ?? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } No, because there's only one Antichrist, and Bill Gates has applied for } the post. It's really obvious. Whenever you install a M$ product on a } computer, all the speed goes straight to hell. } } You owe the Oracle a harder question. _________________________ > Dear Oracle, master of all knowledge, what does UNIX stand for? And in response, thus spake the Oracle: } Ken Thompson claims that UNIX is "a weak pun on Multics," but this is } a lie. UNIX is a weak pun on eunuch. Look around you. Are any of } your male peers ever going to reproduce? And if their significant } others DO become pregnant-- will you not doubt the identity of the } father? } } UNIX is not all that impressive an operating system. Why, then, is it } so popular? *UNIX is addictive!* And, just like heroin, the UNIX } drive quickly displaces the sex drive. (Oh, sure, computer geeks talk } a lot about wanting to get laid... but do they ever *do* anything } about it?) } } Yet terrible as UNIX addiction is, there are worse fates. If UNIX is } the heroin of operating systems, then VMS is barbiturate addiction, } the Mac is MDMA, and MS-DOS is sniffing glue. (Windows is filling } your sinuses with lucite and letting it set.) } } You owe the Oracle a twelve step program. _________________________ An addition to the list of Operating Systems as rail systems: MS-DOS is like the US rail system. It's there, but you gotta find other ways of getting where they want to go. _________________________ Fortran is the cockroach of programming languages MS-DOS is the Fortran of operating systems MS-Windows is the MS-DOS of windowing systems. _________________________ About a year ago, a study published in _Academic_Computing_ entitled "Student Writing: Can the Machine Maim the Message" suggested that college freshmen using Macintoshes wrote poorer essays than students using DOS-based computers. The researcher ran the compositions through the Unix Writer's Workbench and tallied the scores. She also graded them by hand. Apart from inferior writing quality, she also found that students using PCs, generally speaking, created more coherent work on more serious issues (like crime, the death penalty and abortion) as compared with Macintosh users, who wrote about fast food and graffiti. Notice that this was a while ago, before Windoze. What do you think freshman students who used TeX wrote about? _________________________ _ /| \'o.O' =(___)= U THPTH! ACKHH! Join Bill the Cat in the President's war against DOS. DOS JUST SAY NO _________________________ Movie titles: The Primeval Terror -- MS-DOS Revenge of the Mutant Horror -- OS/2 Windows NT -- The Nightmare Continues _________________________ Seen in the "women seeking men" part of the "Phone-Match" section of the San Diego _Reader_ (freebie weekly newspaper): ARROGANT ENGINEER WANTED. Educated, savvy brunette seeks tall, extremely intelligent, engineering type. Ex-geeks welcome. Social skills not necessary; will train. No drug or MS-DOS users. _________________________ "MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years of careful development." ---dmeggins@aix1.uottawa.ca _________________________ Bumper Sticker: "Help stamp out progress, Run Windows" _________________________ From: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) In <2i3vau$e43@news.duke.edu> rcml@acpub.duke.edu (Robert Lonon) writes: >I'm looking for a utility that will slow down my 486 enough that >I can run some of the older games I've got that are simply >too fast to play on a 486. Does anyone out there know >of a site I could download such a program from? It's called MS Windows. _________________________ "When you say 'I wrote a program that crashed Windows', people just stare at you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the system, *for free*'" - Linus Torvalds _________________________ At Microsoft, Quality is Job 1.01 -- _________________________