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."

Comments

Re:Is there a number I'm missing?

[squant0]

Most businesses have more than one phone number, and they are usually close together, so it is fairly likely that the apple store will have more than just the one 3100 number, and the Gates foundation lists a few numbers on their contact page.

Thus it isn't that hard to believe that the two businesses would have the same last 4 digits.

Give to both

[rumpledstiltskin]

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.

Re:Give to both

[Mononoke]

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.

I decided to give 0.001% of my net worth to charity once, but they didn't accept pennies.

It literally isn't costing Bill anything to buy your admiration here. So he goes out back and shovels a load of thousand dollar bills into a wheelbarrow and gives them to charity in a box with his return address on it. Call me when he gives until it at least itches, ok.

Re:That's not fair.

[msouth]

Just to fill in where you speculate on his motive:

I heard Warren Buffet talking one time and he said that he and Bill agreed on the fact that leaving all that money to your kids was a Bad Idea. I don't know if they pointed at the Kennedys specifically, but I remember it that way :). Anyway, the theory was, "leave enough to your kids so that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing.". Buffet said that his kids didn't agree with his theory.

Gates really is planning on giving that money away. I used to believe many bad things about Bill Gates. I certainly saw how bad things were happening as the result of MS dominance. Then I read some very interesting stuff and changed my mind about him as a person.

First, there is that conversation where he is arguing that windows 98 wasn't just a "bugfix release". He says that's a stupid reason to do a realease, that people wouldn't pay for it, they only pay for features. Then the interviewer says something about all the bugs in '95, or in MS software in general, and Gates bristles and say "did you ever here of user error?"--suggesting that there were not bugs, but just people incorrectly using the software and thinking that there are bugs as a result.

That's point 1. Point 2 is something that a Mac advocate (I'll call him Bob, no idea what his real name was) said about a conversation with an MS sales person. Bob's company was going to all-Windows because it solved compatibility issues, eliminating Bob's beloved Macs. Bob mentioned this to the MS sales rep. The rep went ballistic. "Who's telling them that? We're not telling them that!" and I think there was also an assertion that Windows is extremely compatible with other platforms--I could be misremembering that part, but I know that the MS sales person was very peeved at the idea. The point of the article or website was that this Mac advocate had shifted the point of blame in his mind from "MS conspiracy" to "bone-headed tech managers".

Point 3. The anti-trust case. There was a Wired article called "The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth", about the anti-trust trial, by a guy who had a lot of access on the condition that he released none of it until after the judge's ruling was out.

In this article, there are a couple of interesting things. One is that he talks to some random engineer in MS's cafeteria, who says "I think everyone's just mad at Bill because he has so much money." But far, far more interesting than that is the fact that, after the legal process gets started and Gates meets with the board, he actually seems to be genuinely in disbelief that it is happening.

I know, I know, he could fake that. Would he fake crying? I don't think so, but that's exactly what he did. I think it might be in the same article that he says something along the lines that the other players just aren't trying hard enough--"If I had AOL's position, or IBM's position, [maybe he names another in here, etc]" that he could knock MS off the top. He really (I think) believed that--that IBM or AOL or maybe even Sun could beat them.

Now, _we_, on the outside, look at that as being ridiculous. But have you ever seen how other people behave around a person with a lot of power? They generally either fear them or fawn over them or fawn over them in fear. That was why I put in the story about the engineer in the cafeteria. Gates was undoubtedly surrounded by people who would do anything to prevent him from knowing about a bug that their department had introduced, etc, etc.

Now, I'm not saying that MS never did anything wrong. But I am saying that, (a) a lot of the fault for the total dominance of MS lies in the way people behaved, like deciding to eliminate all Macs even though the same number of PCs took two to five times as many people to look after them, etc. And (b), even if Bill did engage in and/or sanction things that were illegal given the monopoly, I don't think he ever really believed that he was i

Re:This is a front page story ...

[oosid]

It's just kind of funny. I was calling to find out about a product at the Apple Store and I get the Gates Foundation. I thought that I'd share the humor. I actually know lot's of people at the Foundation, and happen to also use a powerbook as my personal machine. It's a great organization that does lot's of good. Nothing political, just funny. Not every post needs to change the world.

Oh yeah. I posted the original message.

oosid

Re:That's not fair.

[eet23]

Then the interviewer says something about all the bugs in '95, or in MS software in general, and Gates bristles and say "did you ever here of user error?"--suggesting that there were not bugs, but just people incorrectly using the software and thinking that there are bugs as a result.

Gates blames the users for Windows 95, and that made you think he was a nice person? It gives me the exact opposite impression.

They let you buy anything

[York the Mysterious]

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.

Re:That's not fair.

[mbbac]

Now, _we_, on the outside, look at that as being ridiculous. But have you ever seen how other people behave around a person with a lot of power? They generally either fear them or fawn over them or fawn over them in fear. That was why I put in the story about the engineer in the cafeteria. Gates was undoubtedly surrounded by people who would do anything to prevent him from knowing about a bug that their department had introduced, etc, etc.

Do you think Bill Gates is using a Macintosh for all of his work at Microsoft? No, he's not. He eats his own dogfood. He knows about all of the bugs and crashes. When I worked for MS, I remember hearing about a meeting with Billg and all of his product managers. The Windows product manager was telling Bill that Windows really doesn't crash as much as people say it does. Bill said that was bullshit and that it crashes on him about three times a day and ususually when Outlook was running. Obviously, this wasn't a good day for the Outlook PM.

Anyway, my point is that he knew about the bugs, crashes, vulnerabilities but he never did anything about them! It took way too many years before he started their "trustworthy computing" initiative to address the vulnerabilities in Windows, and the motivation behind that is questionable. I think it has more to do with providing a good environment for digital restrictions management than for eliminating vulnerabilities.

Re:Slash-Phoned?

[micq]

Nah, for the same reason your too lazy to call and see if it's slash-phoned, others are too lazy to call and slash-phone.