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Bill Gates Gives $20M to CMU for New Building

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you-must-reboot-before-taking-this-class dept.

touretzky writes "Carnegie Mellon University announced on Tuesday that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had donated $20 million toward the cost of a new building to be called the "Gates Center for Computer Science". Some faculty have suggested that in acknowledgment of Mr. Gates' profound influence on the computer software industry, the building should be painted bright blue."

12 of 919 comments (clear)

  1. Before you ask by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, the building will have Windows, but the Office will cost extra.

    1. Re:Before you ask by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      And plenty of back doors.

    2. Re:Before you ask by baywulf · · Score: 5, Funny

      And whenever ask someone for help inside the building the paperclips start dancing.

    3. Re:Before you ask by freakmn · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...and the exit will say start...

      --
      warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
    4. Re:Before you ask by tiredwired · · Score: 5, Funny

      And it is going to look just like a building Apple built 5 years ago.

    5. Re:Before you ask by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Once you're inside you have to push the door marked ENTRY to get out.

    6. Re:Before you ask by Ingolfke · · Score: 5, Funny

      So true. And actually there will be three buildings built only one used. They'll start with a single design, but a left handed architect will decide that they really should have a doorknobs for left handed people so he'll copy the plans, rework all of them for left handed folks and start his own building project.

      Once the contractors are brought into the picture they'll wage a holy war over which building materials are the best. The original design will be built in steel b/c it's such a robust and flexible choice. One of contractors will completely reject the rigid structure steel requires you to work in, instead he'll choose a more flexible material, clay, because he used that once to make this wonderful outdoor grille. The left handed building will use brick b/c they're different and don't want to be mainstream.

      The tenets will show up to help build the building b/c, this is a community project right. 98% of the tenets will walk around the construction site complaining about how nothing is done and how this and that need to be changed. Occassionaly people will jump in by building out their offices, or enhancing the restroom facilities near their office.

      After 6 months a sign will go up announcing the completion of the project in 3 weeks. After another 6 months the sign has will still be there. 3 years later the clay project will have fallen in on itself several times, eventually becoming a worthless pile of unsightly clay. The left handed building will be completed, and will be loved by all left handed people, but will never be used by the faculty who tend to be mostly right handed. Teh left handed building will gain no mainstream acceptance. The steel building will be completed as well. Unfortunately it is the most sterile unsightly building you've ever seen. Minimilism could learn a thing or two from this building. There are no electrical outlets in the offices, only bare wires that "allow you to interface directly with the electrical module". Nice feature.

      The residents of the Gates building have been watching for four years while these building were built. They'll talk about how much more robust steel is and how they wish they had more of it in their building. They'll talk about how nice the brick is, and the left handed tenets will dream of a day when they'll get left handed doors and talk about banding together and migrating all at once. Several people will talk about all of the space over in the steel building, but will complain that the tenets are hard to talk to because they're always fixing things in their building and all that manual labor makes the whole building wreak of sweat, the hygeine habit of the steel building's tenets is generally questioned. One of the women complain that when she went over to the steel building and asked to use the restroom, she was pointed an empty room, when she asked why the room was empty she was met w/ a nasty look and a sharp "Hey it's free lady! Build it yourself. We can't do everything for you... newbies."

      Slashdot - News and commentary on par w/ CBS

  2. Blue by oskard · · Score: 5, Funny

    They can write BSOD in big white letters on the top of it.

    --
    Sigs are for Terrorists.
  3. Re:Blue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Blue Screen of Death.

  4. Re:BSOD jokes by oskard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ahhh stop. You're killing me. No, really STOP 0x0000000A BAD_BSOD_JOKES

    --
    Sigs are for Terrorists.
  5. Other building features by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. To enter, you push a button and 5 minutes later the door opens
    2. All digital locks can be opened with the admin password 1-2-3-4-5
    3. Vibrating Window panes will cause random crashes
    4. All wall decorations are essential and directly integrated into the building and cannot be removed without destroying the entire structure

  6. Re:Poor Bill by math+major · · Score: 5, Funny

    Of course people go to the recruitment events. Free food! A handful of people actually go because they want to work for Microsoft, but most of the people are there to heckle and get free stuff. Microsoft shirts make great rugs. I always wanted to win a laptop in one of their raffles just so I could say I got a free laptop from Microsoft and put Linux on it. At last year's recruiting speech, one of the people asked "How many of you have heard of the Blaster virus?" Everyone raised their hand. "How many of you hate Microsoft because of the Blaster virus?" The guy sitting next to me: "Just because of that?" Applause.