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I agree with enjoying tutorials that include video and so forth.

But the implementation didn't fail because animated characters are retarded. The implementation was retarded because Clippy, Bob and the Pathetic Fucking Search Puppy(*) just launched by themselves as an annoyance, not in response to a request for help. Further, as another poster suggested, the so-called help guessed very poorly what it was that was being worked on. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1078567&cid=26299781

Given that it's completely retarded and evil to have software work that way, it's actually internally self-consistent that these components are displayed in the most retarded fashion possible.

If they had done "a proper, professional, and serious implentation" as you suggest, then this dung would have never infected our minds.

I find the very same can be said of the company's commercials and several of their products (Access, anyone? That now-missing member of the Office Suite?)

The avatars were born in Bob, noted as the 7th worst product of all time, an open joke as the MS campus, and unfortunately not the dumbest idea ever at Microsoft. Links, in their respective order:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob
http://www.pcworld.com/article/125772-3/the_25_worst_tech_products_of_all_time.html
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/clippy_update_now_with_organiz.php
http://blog.tomevslin.com/2007/05/microsoft_memor.html
(yeah, I know how to inline the refs in html, but I prefer to let people clearly see where they're linking to)

(* Pathetic Fucking Search Puppy - Ask for it by name!)

It's not only gamers and users of VoIP who can't tolerate the latency of a geostationary satellite; neither can ordinary web surfers or many other users of TCP. Ask anyone who uses Hughes DirectNet or WildBlue. A modern web page builds in many transactions and is "optimized" for latencies in measured in milliseconds; not half a second as this satellite will have at best. File transfer protocols also depend on interaction altho less so. Latency can be MORE important than bandwidth in determining the usefulness of an Internet connection. More at http://blog.tomevslin.com/2008/02/japans-internet.html

The net of this dated article is that geostationary satellite is fine for the Internet except for those pesky users of TCP who will be killed by latency. LoL; TCP isn't going to go away because a few people are using satellite. More at http://blog.tomevslin.com/2007/10/broadband-pri-2.html

Locking is not illegal to remove in the US, in fact it is allowed by an excemption to the DMCA law.

Also it's very easy to unlock your phone, you just call customer service (the hard part) and get an unlock code. Enter that unlock code into your phone, and magically your phone works. At least on T-Mobile in the us that is how it works.

Quote from the linked article: "That cell, anticipating Bill Gates by three billion years, separated itself from the community and refused to share."

Bill Gates is one of the most disliked people on earth for his refusal to finish his products, and his reliance on adversarial business tactics.

See Microsoft Memories. See Another Bill Gates Meets Satan story.

Several years ago, a short piece in The Atlantic Monthly, a respected U.S. magazine, compared Bill Gates to Satan. I'm guessing Satan found that quite annoying.

A rich person can give a lot of money to charity to try to give people a better impression of himself. With Bill Gates, that isn't working.

Sure can:

Sugar Ethanol
http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironm ent/wm1074.cfm
http://forums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php?t=247http://fo rums.wsj.com/viewtopic.php?t=247
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/09/sugar-ethan ol.htmlhttp://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/11/27 /061127ta_talk_surowiecki
http://blog.tomevslin.com/2007/03/tax_gasoline_im. html
http://www.iags.org/es82905.htm
http://www.forbes.com/2005/11/15/energy-ethanol-br azil_cx_1116energy_adams.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8769619/site/newsweek
(there are tons more links all over)

USA Gas Mileage Standards:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/cafe/overview. htm
http://zfacts.com/p/414.html
http://www.epa.gov/fueleconomy/
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/FEG2007_GasolineVeh icles.pdf [Warning: PDF]

There are tons and tons and tons of links, data, charts, .pdf files and things you can pour over if you research the topic via Google, local library, watch CSpan, etc.

And to the AC earlier: Yes, corn farmers helped influence the decision, as did domestic sugar producers, but, oil companies are also to blame for this, as they don't want competition from ethanol PERIOD.

I know that in your small occipital cavity a phrase that contains both "Bill Gates" and "bully" is one to be cherished, exploited and regurgitated endlessly to enforce your "M$ sux" routine. But really, stop "evangelizing" and start thinking for yourself. Things in the real world (you know, where most of us live) are different, and something that in yours might be cause for dispairing outrage and golf claps from your friends are nothing more than normal. I don't know Gates and I have no idea what he really is like, though I do know that I would never want to work for Microsoft (various reasons that are irrelevant here). But if this article is anywhere near the truth, I have counted people very much like Bill Gates as leaders and mentors that have taught me many valuable things about how to succeed in what I do. "Bully" does not necessarily translate into your mental image of the term, regardless of how much you want that to be so.