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Call the Apple Store and Get Bill and Melinda Gates
oosid writes "The area code in Seattle is (206). Right across Lake Washington in Bellevue the area code is (425). If you're trying to reach the new Apple Store in Bellevue from Seattle, don't forget to dial the area code or you'll find yourself talking to the reception desk at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The 7 digit number, coincidentally, is the same for both places. If you make the mistake I'm sure that the Foundation will be able to suggest some solutions to all of your Apple problems."
From the Gates Foundation contact info page:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
PO Box 23350
Seattle, WA 98102
Phone: (206) 709-3140
For general questions or grant inquiries, please contact the foundation via email, info@gatesfoundation.org
From the Apple Store page:
106 Bellevue Square
Bellevue, WA 98004
425-709-3100
Someone please tell me, am I missing something here?
"I won't mod you down - I feel the need to call you a twit explicitly, rather than by implication."
There was a coincidence involving a phone number for an Apple store and some foundation involving Bill Gates, the name most associated with Microsoft, Slashdot's favorite target to blame for the ills of the world.
What's the discussion? Does this matter? To anyone? At all?
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Just because it's funded by Bill G doesn't mean that the people working there deserve to get a phone call from you inquiring about Apple products.
They're a charitable organisation for crying out loud. It's not much different from harassing the local hospital - the less time and money they waste, the better.
why isn't this under slashback? i'm struggling to imagine this as a flourishing and insightful topic.
I remember hearing recently that about 470k votes didn't get counted for American Idol because if you dialed a number wrong your phone would ring up some poor little church. Watch those phone numbers people.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
If you're trying to reach the apple store and get the Gates foundation, great. while you're out buying the music you'd otherwise probably be pirating, go ahead and contribute to the Gates Foundation. Even though Microsoft is often seen as the Great Satan here on slashdot, they are one of the most giving charitable organizations in the world. Support a good cause. buy some music, fight aids.
Wow! If I try to call Steve Jobs, I get Bill Gates instead! ROTFLMAO! Kikikiki! LOL LOL LOL LOL! Hee Hee!
God, it IS so damned funny!
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
"Hi, I'd like to speak to Steve"
"We don't have anyone working here"
*laughs* "Sure you do, it's _the_ Steve that I need to talk to."
"Nope. Sorry. Can I be of any assistance?"
"Yeah, tell him that the apple machine I got didn't work"
"Uh, this is the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation."
"That's nice but I really need to speak to Bill. I guess next time I call you'll answer Pizza Hut right?"
"No sir. This is a charitable organization."
"Stop screwing around - I need to tell Steve that my computer messed up."
--click--
Apple is so rude...
There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
Just... hold on a second. Listen, I used to think exactly that same way, and there's obvious tax advantages, etc. in what Gates does with his charity work.
Having said that, did you happen to catch the recent Salon article about the Gates Foundation? The man is planning to give away 98% of his wealth. Just ponder that a moment.
You can yell about Microsoft's business practices all you want - and I'll agree with practically every nasty thing spoken about them - but Bill is a different story. When I read about Bill Gates, I don't agree with a lot of what he has to say about technology, but he is a man who has clearly understood that his position in the world is unique. He speaks quite a bit about poverty in the 3rd world and particularly about hunger and disease control. He is probably already the single biggest money donator in history in terms of pure monetary value.
Now, as I understand it, the physical limit of wealth is somewhere around a hundred million dollars. That's literally the breaking point where, short of creating orbiting death platforms or underwater citites, you cannot spend more money and see a difference in your lifestyle. Perhaps Bill recognizes this and has decided to put the rest in places where its needed most. Perhaps, this merits a little better mention than "call me when he gives until it at least itches". I hate sounding so preachy, I'm sorry about that, but it bears mentioning. Look into the Gates Foundation, you'd be really surprised. I was.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
... something that Bill Gates did first!
I too am going to give away 98% of my wealth. Oh wait actually I'm going to give away 100% when I die. That's what a freaking will is!
If he wanted to truly make a difference he would create companies to do research and open their findings to everyone (a la free patents). Think of what good a free pharmacutical company could do for the world? How about fuel efficient engines that could bring inexpensive power to the 3rd world? Or any number of other things.
Everyone gives away their money when they die. I give mine while I'm alive. 1/400000th of your wealth doesn't mean crap to me. That is like an average millionaire giving $25. Really would you feel giving 25 dollar away if you had 1 million dollars in your bank account. Doubtful.
So is it possible to get slash-phoned? I imagine that's what's happening to the foundation right about now...
This just in. If you intended to get to Stuff that Matters but you accidentally typed slashdot.org into your browser, you'll end up at a site with nothing better to post but inane stories about how to dial an area code.
Trust me. This is an inactive account. Regardless of what the
Coincidences like this are just a copy and paste error in the matrix.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
...you can call either number and reach a result of the generosity of Bill Gates.
That is, if you believe that Apple couldn't have made it without the IE/Office deal of several years back.
Sorry to break it to you, but the B&M Gates Foundation will let you buy any hardware / software you want. They're really not interested in MS at all. I went to a school that received a nice large grant from them and all the Mac heads (me included) were worried when the grant went through that our G4s were gonna disappear. We ended up getting 4 more. (We had 250 PCs and 3 Macs. 4 more was a big deal). Right now I'm typing this on G4 that was purchased using my paycheck from this school (summer work) that was funded by billy boy. So if you think about it my G4 was bought using money from the profits of Windows. Kinda funny.
Tim Smith - Ramblings from Nerd Land
Well, the "call Steve, get Bill instead" thing is okay I guess but here's a better one:
1-800-SOS-APPL (apple assistance center)
1-800-S0S-APPL (a different kind of assistance center)
note that the second Save Our Ship contains a Zero, not an Oh.
In July 2002, the New York Times reported that George W. Bush had saved Africa. That bighearted lug proposed giving African and Caribbean nations half a billion dollars for AIDS drugs. Combine this with Bill Clinton?s deal with the pharmaceutical companies to practically give away their AIDS drugs to Africa at 75 percent off their list price and I was ready to concede that private enterprise without regulations could, at times, perform miracles.
But just when I was ready to announce Christmas in July, I came in to possession of a twelve-page document from Argentina. It appears to have originated in the Office of the United States Trade representative in Geneva (which does not deny the document?s authenticity). The confidential official missive, dated June 2000, threatens Argentina against opening its borders to the drug trade ? not the fun stuff, but sales of legal, licensed medicines. If Argentina did not end its commitment to free cross-border trade in pharmaceuticals, wrote the U.S. trade rep, America would keep Argentina on the ?Section 301 Watch List? ? a kind of death row fro trading partners.
There?s more to the World Trade Organization than GATS and combat over water ownership. The WTO treaty most pertinent here is the psychedelically named TRIPS: Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights.
If you read the gospels of globalization apostles, you might get the impression that the WTO is all about doing away with tariffs and trade barriers. Only in your dreams. In the real world, the WTO is the mechanism for privatizing the tariff system. Once, countries protected their workers and local industry behind taxes and national borders. In the new world trade order, global corporations may demand levies against nations that sell or buy products outside the zones they have marked out by brand names and market segments. TRIPS is the WTO?s penal system for countries caught importing or exporting in contravention of marketing plans of corporations that own ideas.
The story of TRIPS, Africa and Argentina begins with this unfun fact: 25.3 million people in Southern Africa are going to die of AIDS unless medicine arrives now. Luckily, Brazil, India and, most aggressively, Argentina can make the necessary drugs dirt cheap and ship them to the dying. But U.S., British and Swiss pharmaceuticals giants howled about the proposed cross-border shipments.
During the Clinton administration, the U.S. trade cops, led by then-Vice President Al Gore and backed by Big Pharma, halted the life saving plan of selling cheap Argentine drugs to South Africans ? Nelson Mandela?s pleas, Nobel Prize and flowered shirts notwithstanding.
Unfortunately for Gore, who was running for president at the time, the let-them-eat-aspirin policies he was advocating resulted in packs of enraged Gay-mericans protesting his every campaign stop, hollering about his killing more Africans than Michael Caine did in Zulu. This did not make good TV for Al.
In response President Bill found a few billion to quell the restless natives. However, the billions came with strings attached ? or, more accurately, chains and manacles. South Africa had to buy 100 percent of the medicine from the United States and pay back all the cash at ?commercial interest rates.?
On the supply side of this scheme to stop South Africa breaking the de facto embargo on free trade in pharmaceuticals was the U.S. trade rep?s poison pen letter to Argentina. South Africa hoped to use a loophole in TRIPS that permits the importing of patent drugs in extreme emergencies, even without the patent holder?s approval. Initially, Clinton retaliated against South Africa by taxing some of its imports to the U.S. ? until the anti-Gore demos. The U.S. trade rep?s threat against Argentina indicates that the Clinton administration re-aimed the sanction missiles at Argentina to avoid the impolitic Mandela imagery, while still cutting off South Africa?s AIDS drugs supply at the source.
If Argentina hadn?t backed down, there would have been an expected WTO
Most people do not dislike billy because of his vast oceans of cast, but rather the methods he employed to get the cash. I'm amazed that this is continually overlooked.
m$ has left a trail of corpses of other vendors over the years that they've pummled into insignificance: novell, lotus, word perfect, borland, dr. dos, etc...
there's no way in hell i'm gonna feel bad for gates. and i'm also not going to treat his philanthropy as some 'awakening' to the humanitarian plight. this guy is directly and indirectly responsible for probably ruining as many peoples lives as he is helping. his and m$' biz tactics are deplorable yet smiled upon by various other biz people because the name of the game is to win uber alles!
frankly i might start to believe that most of his motives don't have some back door clause to m$ when there are contracts and such - in writing - that specify that there is free money to charities with no strings attached and the software and computers come with signed documents stating that the charity/school/whatever will have free, unlimited upgrades for as long as either m$ or the particular institution exists. and they're free to sell any of the stuff they want at any time without and bullshit reprocussions.
bill and m$ are kings of lock in. at some point, they've done it to everyone that's used any of their products. why should i think that his philanthropy is much different and ultimately doesn't benefit him in the form of various tax breaks (ya know, if you have a shitload of money and don't get rid of a percentage of it via charities/donations, then u end up owning a bunch of taxes).
for me, this guy's got a long way to go to wash away the mud. his company is still as predatory and unethical as before. and while i'm glad there are entities out there receiving money - from ripped off customers i might add -, i'm still suspect that there is some hidden.... something. time will tell and i'm not giving the guy anything that he hasn't given anyone else.
And so what if he wants prestige?
I don't get it. The man has probably donated more money than anyone alive today and he still gets hacked to bits here for being a greedy bastard. I'm pretty amazed.
Random is the New Order.
ROFLMAO!!!
When the support number for Apple was 1-800-SOS-APPLE, and you put a 0 (zero) in place of the O (letter) in SOS, you would get a phone sex line.
In a twisted way, if I were in Bill's position and wanted to further my self-interest, I would similarly give away a vast majority of my wealth.
Why? because I want my children to do well and I have some suspicion that too much money may be quite a hindrance to that.
Unfortunately, I'm not Bill, and I haven't found any takers on my debt yet.
Also, isn't it true that any obscenely large number divided by any countable scalar is still a really obscenely large number?
It really makes you wonder how much he expects to have at the point of death. Let's assume modern medicine keeps him alive till 100. And let's assume he manages to keep his investments clocking along around 10%, which is far less than his twenty year average. His principal will double about every 7 years, and that would make it double about 7 times before he dies. 2^7*$40 billion*2%. I suspect that Bill is expecting to keep more than $102 billion, even after giving away 98%!!
Cheers!
I'm going to call up old Melinda right now (collect of course) and tell her a story I just found:
Three women were sitting around talking about their husbands' performance as a lover.
The first woman says "My Husband works as a marriage counsellor. He always buys me flowers and candy before we make love. I like that."
The second woman says, "My husband is a motorcycle mechanic. He likes to play rough and slaps me around sometimes. I kinda like that."
The third woman just shakes her head and says, "My husband works for Microsoft. He just sits on the edge of the bed and tells me how great it's going to be when I get it."
(cheers)