Slashdot Mirror
Paul Allen's Microsoft Experience
theodp writes "Just in case Microsoft bashers don't have enough ammo, Robert X. Cringely has a couple of interesting tales in this week's column. The first explains how Bill Gates used Paul Allen's moonlighting at MITS to justify awarding himself 64% of Microsoft's stock vs. Allen's 36% (and Gates' failure to adjust the shares after he accepted a $10/hour part-time MITS job). The second heart-warming tale concerns a conversation Allen reportedly overheard late one night (as he was finishing up DOS 2.0) between Gates and Steve Ballmer discussing how to get Allen's Microsoft stock back if the Hodgkins disease Allen was battling killed him. Yikes."
oh come on, this isnt news this is flamebate, get it off the front page!
Any Bets that Allen uses Linux now?
echo YOUR_OPINION >
Waahhhh I am a billionaire but i want more ..... um who the hell cares?
I think you need to read the penultimate paragraph of Cringely's article before dismissing this as just another personal attack. What he is suggesting is extraordinary - so extraordinary that I find it hard to believe, but it's certainly news that he wrote it. By any standards, it belongs on Slashdot.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
First of all, Cringely doesn't even attribute this information to a real source in his article, so there is no way anybody can even verify this. He just says two good sources, which mean almost nothing.
The second thing is, this sort of planning happens all the time at every big company. I know most of the slashbots probably never worked a real job, but it's good planning in the corporate world to know plan for where such a huge share of stock is going to go.
In short, this article is such a hack job looking for biters, I don't even know why it was posted to slashdot. Wait, actually this was a perfect article for slashdot.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Try reading the article. Allen in no way "cries". Generally, he has kept his mouth shut, and the only way this article was written was based on third party information and other research. He has shown a lot of class over the years... but it is easy to take a cheap shot, isn't it?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Let's say, hypothetically, Allen had died of Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1982, as discussed in the story. At that point, he owned 36% of Microsoft. The shares, as his personal property, would have been deeded out in his will (let's say to hypothetical party X), gone through probate, and then X would have them. How would Balmer and Gates have "gotten them back"?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Not that I like Bill or his business tactics, but to be fair to him, isn't it true that the B&MG Foundation has donated a few billion dollars to worthy causes? Not to mention Bill's public and well known intention to give away as much money as possible before his death? I mean, sure, the guy is a shark in business.. but he's not exactly Darth Vader, y'know..
think about it; there's nothing definitive from any of the parties involved in this, and it's not like you get to be a multi-billionare by being nice and cuddly. i don't reckon that gates is satan, but you do have to have a certain ruthless streak to be that much of a success. let's face it; he *is* a success - he's all but won the OS wars. i don't like it much, and i'm not a huge fan of the product involved. i like win2k, xp's ok. DOS is nice, in a single-thread kinda way, but i am a *nix fan through and through. to be completely even-handed, it's not like the article said that gates was heard saying "let's kill him", he was apparently overheard discussing what should happen if he, a sick man, *were* to die. not a nice topic, all the same, but one that would be preying on their minds, given the situation. FFS, the dude was working himself to death!
http://xkcd.com/313/
This article is complete hearsay. Any rational person would question the veracity of the sources and, possibly, the motivation of the author.
Is anyone who criticizes this article an "MS assmonkey" or a rational, thinking person? Is anyone who disagrees with George Bush a "terrorist" or a rational, thinking person?
If you have dealt with MS for any length of time. Truth is, this stuff is putting BG in a better light than what he truely deserves. One interesting note, is that most people who are invited to BG's birthday only go, because it would be an insult to not go. Few really wish to go. Basically, BG is a SOB. Few who have worked with him, have a kind word to say about him.
OTH, many love going to Paul's because he really is a nice guy.
I wonder if this is the root of all of Bill Gates's philanthropy - giving to assuage the guilt wrought by past malfeasances. Like this.
:?
Couple that with the fact that Ballmer is clearly a psychopath (*ducks*) and the Gates-Ballmer leadership looks quite scary. Microsoft truly are evil.
iqu
For every published story, there are thousands more.
A person I know well and trust was a WordPerfect sales
rep at the big CeBit show in Germany, before Microsoft
knew how to do an exciting show. WordPerfect'sreps
were putting on a show that was drawing
huge crowds. But then were visited by thugs from
Microsoft who told them they would be killed if they
did not shut the show down immediately and go home.
So they did.
Eventually there was a letter of apology from Gates
over the incident. Really small-time thugery compared
to their corporate behavior, but you don't hear a lot
of the incidents publicly.
Lets keep perspective before we feel too sorry for him.
Recent internal Microsoft memos confirm that the company, despite popular belief, solely exists for the purpose of acting as whipping boy for the website slashdot.org. Sources confirm that the company has recently held meetings about finding new ways to stir the coals including mention of developing more stories that involve reasons to despise the company's execs. Gates was recently quoted as saying, "We're not getting any great flamebait anymore, they're all pretty apathetic and mundane these days. They're just repeating the same stuff. We need some fresh blood out there!" Sources close to the matter, indicated that leaks were being set up for personal information about the companies founders to "put a face" on the object of the vitriol, and to drive and develop Microsoft's interests at Slashdot through the coming years.
;-)
When asked for comment, Slashdot posters likened the news to an extension of Microsoft's embrace-and-extend methodology that the company applies to product development. "We won't be duped by this one, we can't let Microsoft to develop a monopoly on sarcastic and derisive commentary." Other posters used lots of exclamation points and mixed caps, and thus were excluded from this press release.
(It's a joke guys, I'm not intending this as flamebait
Your comment is generic enough, but also specific enough to Cringely, that it could be made regarding any of the many 'articles' by 'Cringeley' (not his real name) that have been posted to Slashdot. He is a hack writer of the same journalistic stature as Matt Drudge or the National Enquirer.
But he posts contrived paranoiac screeds that the 'Slashdot community' just laps up. Yay banner impressions!!
As I said above, same as it ever was, in the case of Cringely.
Stories about corporate backstabbing would be much cuter with yesterday's pink skin. And ponies.
Evil sig is livE.
From TFA:
Climb high enough in the organization, and it becomes clear that Microsoft's success has not always been based on legal or ethical behavior.
I have to admit, we need more of these articles out there. Here in Slashdot we know all about it, so we'd get the typical captain of the obvious or "no sh*t sherlock" responses, but we need the general public to read more of them.
I'm about as anti-Microsoft as you can get. I hate them. I hate them for making bad software and forcing zillions of people to use it instead of letting those people make a choice. I hate them for essentially undermining the best qualities of capitalism.
Many times I've wanted to believe "this is the end" and Microsoft is finally going to have the reputation in the general, non-techie public eye that they deserve to have. Heck, I'm still hoping the Vista debacle will be that trigger.
But to believe that one lawyer in Iowa is going to bring them down, when the full weight of the U.S. Department of Justice couldn't do it, and the E.U. is still trying to do it, is wishful thinking. Maybe Cringely just had to end with something dramatic.
The Internet is full. Go away.
Always easier to mod a troll than to criticize.
While there is justifiable scepticism of something told by an anonymous contributor, this incident happens to be true, and were there a significant stake involved I would prove it. It happened to real people.
Now we'll speculate as to why he would position himself this way, about how anti-establishment he implicitly is, how visionary and rightous he is about the computer industry. By stooping so low, he is only hurting himself and attributing intent to people who obviously have better things to do. Whatever, most of us already take his pieces as entertainement anyway. Doesn't mean he didn't cross a line and isn't responsible for his actions. I don't think he's important enough anymore to be noticed by the mainstream press, but his opinions are not merely disparaging, they can be attributed to plain and simple mischief. What's infuriating is not that he wrote it, it's that people will link to it and discuss it while it's not deserving of any attention. Fool me once, you can't fool me twice as the post-modern saying tells us.
No matter how much you have, you can always use a little more.
This is known as dilution - and is a disturbingly common way of later investors to wash out the shares of founders that they disagree with.
A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. Proverbs 13:22
To clarify--since I didn't quite understand at first--you want to install the "slashdotter" firefox extension, download the slashdotter.jar file that is linked to, then find where it is in your extensions folder (.mozilla/profilefolder/extensions/{some gobbledy good}/slashdotter.jar) and replace the file.
Next you go to Tools-->Extensions-->Options and select "OMG! PONIES!."
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
I'm offended!
Cringley is a troll, just like Dvorak and a number of other idiotic "technology writers" whose drivel gets posted to slashdot on a regular basis. News for trolls. Stuff that's useless. But, hell, it drives up the page hits and brings in those advertising dollars. I guess we should be happy Jon Katz doesn't post articles here anymore, at least.
this is pathetic. i didn't bang the 'gats is evil' drum, so i get the closest there is to censored? i don't recall supporting him, but we're getting third-hand info here, and everyone takes it as gospel? this worries me. a lot.
http://xkcd.com/313/
you know i have always wondered about the engineers and code monkeys who work for MS.
// [ from project leader: didnt you get the memo, ethics??] remove. redundant.
making_money
making_money
climbing_the_greasy_pole
making_more_money
GOTO line_2000034496864;
.
.
ethics
professional_pride
can you imagine after finishing Windows ME, the Systems Architect lighting a big fat cigar, leaning back in his chair and saying softly to himself "damn fine Operating System that, damn fine",
the engineers in the local bar having a celebratory drink, chinking bud lights together "thats one for the Resume alright!!"
I know some will disagree with this, but being an owner of serveral technology companies, one of which doing classified work, ownership is something I have to worry about. If, God forbid, something does happen to one of my partners, and that ownership is given to the family, or lands in probate court for years, it has a chance of seriously hampering operations of the company. For one thing, the family is not involved in the operations, and could make incorrect decisions, or worse, sell off their ownership to anyone with the finances. Now, I do have some say in the sell of ownership, as a clause of the original agreements, and they do too, but these kinds of things really are a problem to fight. It sucks having to entertain those thoughts, but it is necessary. I think Cringley is always looking for fodder on Bill any chance he can, myself, I could care less. I use Macs as my primary machines, but have a Dell/Windows for games (if I ever have time for them) and my database sandbox is on Redhat AS 4.
oh come on, stop feeding the professional troll
After Ballmer stepped in, support for fringe platforms (i.e. not strictly PC-compatible) was pretty much dropped, up through 2.0, MS-DOS ran on quite a variety of 8086/8 boxes.
Now to think of it, MS dropping Xenix happened about this same time frame.
Oh wait, nevermind.
Melinda Gates is the driving force behind all that philanthropy. Before he married Melinda you would be hard pressed to get him to donate five bucks let alone millions to charity.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
If I shot someone yesterday, but I gave an old lady on the bus my seat today, would that make me a good person? Or would I have to give a million seats away.
Trying to cast Bill Gates as a 21st century Robin Hood (takes from the richest and gives to the poorest) to defend the various critisms of him is suspect at best. In fact, I like calling it, the Gates defence, being a subset of the chewbaca defence.
Giving money away, if you have enough of it, is easy. Being truely forgiven for past sins (and in this case, personal attacks), isn't. As much as your wife/gf/etc. would like a diamond ring everytime you fuck up, it doesn't cut it (unless the fuck up was buying a terrible gift, then the new one also acts as an "I'm sorry."). That and they would eventually run out of fingers. Of course, there are always gold diggers as the exception.
In summary, you can't buy forgiveness, only earn it.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
If the point is to get people to subscribe, well, (1) this kind of juvenilia makes me even less likely to subscribe, (2) it stinks to let people pay money and thereby get the privilege of vandalizing the site, and (3) if they want people to subscribe, they might want to do a more professional job of running the site (eliminate dupes, and get people to select science articles who actually know something about science).
Find free books.
Pointing out that microsoft has done some unethical things is fine... although extremely old news. This is 2006, the anti trust thing started when?
What I don't like about this article, is that it tries to demonize the Microsoft leadership, and that it comes from Cringely. To my knowledge Paul Allen has never complained publicly about getting screwed out of majority shares. Furthermore, Cringely *regularly* comes up with bizarre conspiracy theories that do not pan out. He has no credibility whatsoever. Why should I believe him if he says that he overheard some story? He once proposed that Microsoft was planning to break IP compatibility...
Why is slashdot still posting his articles anyway? All of the ones I've seen have been bullshit...
Yes, I'll believe that Allen is disenfranchised with the executives in ms, but there was no evidence that the stories he told was the reason Allen sold his stock and quit.
The ambiguous line in my mind was:
"but it didn't go over well with Paul Allen"
Is Cringley asserting that, or is that what he heard?
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Courtesy of the Oxford American Dictionary.
Remind you of a certain chair-throwing lunatic at a certain large Redmond, WA-based software company?
iqu
From what I've studied of Microsoft over the years I'd have to say that if Paul Allen was still the guy in charge I might not be using Linux as my primary OS today. What originally drove me away from Windows and commercial software in general was the attitude that companies had when you had problems with their product. This all stems from the attitudes of the owners of these companies and most of all Bill Gates who is largely the founder and role model of the commercial software industry.
This bad attitude is at the center of the poor customer support, poorly designed and implemented products, and general lack of concern for what effect they're having on their customers and society at large. If Paul Allen had kept the reigns of the PC revolution the entire world could be a very different place now.
By being so extremist in his position Bill Gates created his own worst enemy in the form of free opensource software. It was his influence that created the need for a counter-influence. Someone more centered would never have created such a strong counter-culture.
Apple had a similar experience between Jobs and Woz though so maybe it's just something that was bound to happen.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Bill, is that you?
-- Paul
I have this story about, um, Richard Stallman... or maybe Linus Torvalds. I am not staking my reputation on the accuracy of the story, but I am saying I have it from two good sources. I'll just throw it out for you to consider. Ready? Here it goes:
So there was this goat, right? One night... [please visit my blog for the rest!]
Bill Gates is spending billions to help eradicate diseases in the Third World and has no doubt saved thousands of lives already. Paul Allen helped get the Seattle Seahawks to the Super Bowl.
The world would probably be a better place if Gates had gotten full control in 82.
I know few people here like or appreciate Gates, but must we make shit up to slime the dude?
How ignorant (or perhaps downright legally retarded) do you have to be to consider questionable business tactics on par with the holocaust, Cultural Revolution, the gulags, etc.? I'm not sure what's more disturbing: that one person was dumb enough to actually say it, or that a number of people agree with it. Not making a good show of intellect for Slashdot here, guys.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
...and what do you have to say about the microsoft FUD against linux?
When you compare that to the historical record of capitalists who brutalized their workers, raped the third world, manipulated governments at a whim, and so on, Bill is a saint.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
This is interesting. I did not know that Gates and Allen had split the entire stock of the company between themselves. At a 36/64 split, this leaves zero shares for any future employees or investors. What happened when they needed to award stock options to other employees? Or to sell stock to investors? Usually founders of a company start with around 5% or so, and leave the rest for investors, and stock awards for employees. I wonder how that all got sorted out.
There's just no end to the thick-skulled people who don't understand that the *source* of riches is an important piece to evaluate. (I'm referring the parent poster, in case it's not clear.)
This is a non-article. It has a pompous title, "Prisoner of Redmond", followed by some tittle-tattle from 20-30 years ago that only gives one side of the story, then it cuts to today and a court case that has no real connection with the rest of the article. The end is pure opinion: "Based purely on character (or lack of it), I confidently predict that Microsoft is going down."
I'm no fan of Microsoft (Linux here) but you don't get to where Gates is today by being a man with no talent or qualities. I'm still waiting for a lot of Cringely's oh-so-confident predictions about Google and their alleged container-size data centers to pan out. He seems to have gone very quiet on that front lately. Spinning a highly dubious yarn from yesteryear is no substitute for some journalism. Just my 2 cents, but I think Cringely is getting lazy.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
I just want to point out to anyone who wasn't following the (pre-2001) anti-trust suit that it is not a crime to have a monopoly. It is perfectly legal and what all companies aim for. What Microsoft got in trouble for (before the Bush administration basically dropped it) was that they were using their monopoly power to limit competition and leverage their way into new monopolies, i.e. Windows-->Office, Windows-->Browser, Windows-->Internet Provider...
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Is Bill Gates the way he is now because he didn't get a pony when he was young?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If the two founders never sold any stock, they wouldn't have any visible riches.
Just like all the people who think George Bush is stupid. Stupid or not, he beats Democrat ass on Election day. Microsoft haters spend their free time trashing Microsoft, while Microsoft spends its time making everything you do or say totally irrelevant.
Mod away people, I got Karma to burn!
Seriously if Paul Allen didn't have the billions he got from MS stock, how could he have invested in all those failed ventures (Metricom), pay for his overpaid and underperforming basketball team (Portland Trailblazers) and still be able to afford the second biggest yacht in the world?
To Mud, or not To Mud, that is the Question?
Is Cringley throwing mud?
Or is Cringley reporting corroborated facts?
Or is reporting facts equivalent to throwing mud when the facts are ugly.
I don't know.
You don't know.
But I'm not the one concluding that because the purported facts are ugly that they are automatically equated with Mud.
Given Bill Gates access to lawyers, and Cringley's relative poverty and valuable reputation, I'd say RXC is certainly erring on the side of caution and has good reason to have said what he has said. Bill Gates, and Paul Allen who is also party to this, may not be as litigious as, say, Tom Cruise, but who wants to find out first?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
> I mean, sure, the guy is a shark in business.. but
> he's not exactly Darth Vader, y'know..
Bill Gates is doing this in a (futile) attempt to repair his reputation.
But you cannot rip of hundreds of millions of people; lie to your employees, to the general public, AND under oath before a court of Law; and continue to practise illegal monopolistic business practises, and not end up with your reputation totally in shreads.
Gates is only giving away money that he's gotten by ripping other people off.
I saw William Gates say, "OS/2 is the future".
Sorry the Apple flip-flops is a none story. Apple II forever? No one really thought that was going to happen. Notebooks have a limited market? They did in 85 when he said it.
News flash. History changes.
While the story about Microsoft has very little to do with the company. It does have a lot to to say about William Gates. If you can not judge a person by his actions what can you judge them by? If he really did everything in this story I would have to say that he seems like an untrustworthy person.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This is such trash.
I mean other than the fact that the article is information from a friend of a friend whos like really really good friends with the friend of Paul Allen but it also sounds suspiciously made up.
Ahh hes sold shares that must mean he hates Microsoft. Nooo Bill Gates has also sold shares a hell of a lot of them. His total stake in Microsoft was less than 10% in 2005 thats been dropping for a long time and hes still selling. Doesnt mean he despises his company now does it.
What about the punishing work while ill? Maybe he actually got Hodgkins in 1982 but he was diagnosed in 1983 DOS 2.0 came out in March doesnt exactly leave a huge amount of time for his aparent slave labour and his heroic completion of the O/S.
Oh but he left the company forever, he must have had a bad experience at the hands of evil Bill. Not quite. He is still an advisor to MS to this day. Now sure that isnt exactly a large role in the company he created but how many people with billions of dollars would stay in any position at a company that, according to this site, drove you near to death and conspired to destroy you when you were there?
I mean his leaving couldnt possibly have had anything to do with the fact that he had to work really hard before, but was now a rich man recovering from a life threatening disease. Yeah I can imagine he was raring to jump back in to long shifts at MS, but theres no chance of that with evil Bill standing guard.
Finally, the oh so familiar, Microsoft is going down, comment. Take a quick look at just about every article that guy has ever written involving Microsoft. Nearly all of them contain some way of Microsoft going down. Nearly all of them are speculatory trash often including a list of 'funny' scenarios.
This is pure flamebait from someone clearly biassed against the company. I mean trying to get me to feel sympathy for the 6th richest man in the world who has spent a large portion of his entire life living off the company this site claims crushed him...
Oh and unlike his hearsay you can do a quick search in Google and youll find information backing up every point I made. (Some of which actually came from the site he used to support him, forbes.)
You're right, but there are always workarounds. Here's how I might do it.
Presumably Gates, Balmer and Allen had a certain class of shares, probably along with some other early investors, which were not held by the general shareholders.
So, for the fiscal year 1983 (after Allen left), they could create a new class of shares and match 1:1 with shares from the new class to shares in the old class, for people actively involved in the betterment of the company (not Allen) as an employee stock incentive. Then they could dillute the class of shares that Allen held, including Gates and Balmer's shares (but they don't care, they have the new class).
Of course, IANAPSM (I am not a professional stock manipulator), but it seems if there's a will there's a way.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I don't think BG ever looks in the rear-view mirror at the wrecks he leaves behind. All his good works are to soften things up for the present/future.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Heh, MSFT is going down... break up that big bad ole monopoly... like they did to AT&T! That'll learn em!
I think that pretty well reflects MSFT's corporate character. Petty, greedy, and paranoid.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Its all speculative but it sounds like this may have come from the same people who brought us the public character assasination of the former CIO of Massachusetts Peter Quinn (who proposed the adoption of an open document format).
, 00.html), who was judging the US anti-trust case against Microsoft.1 957219) in its on going anti-trust court case.
Coincidentally personal attacks of character seem to happen a lot when dealing with Microsoft. Peculiarly though they all share the 'same theme' where they seem to only occur when Microsofts profits are at stake.
- There was a direct attack on the character of U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson (http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/0,1551,45914
- Microsoft also charged the EU Commission of conspiracy and collusion (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/02/
- Another personal legal attack on "the Brazilian government official credited with developing the country's open source strategy" (http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50944/)
Just sounds like another case of an attack on a persons well-being for the sake of profits.
....and I don't do Windows.
PGA
Anonymous Coward, dude, you drank the cool-aid. You shouldn't do that, it's bad for you.
You sound a bit cranky. I was like that a lot until I dumped MS WinXP for Linspire Linux, now I'm pretty easy to get along with.
I lost my sig...
He actually carries an Ipod around whenever he has to sit in a meeting with Ballmer...
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
That is not an unusual agreement among principals.
I think you misspelled jackal
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I heard it was the other way around.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
A captain of industry is a greedy capitalist? I'm shocked, shocked.
Everyone but you is telepathic.
From the Article: "Based purely on character (or lack of it), I confidently predict that Microsoft is going down. It should be interesting."
Prehaps correct in the foretelling but completely off in the reasoning. If anything is going to kill Microsoft, it'll be OpenSource. Although, I doubt Microsoft will "die" but rather merely fade into an important but not critical role as IBM has.
Yes, they did donate. But the charity that occurred afterwards was not about their being good guys. Like BG, it was about trying to buy people's good feeling about them. Melinda started this WRT to BG. And like the robber baron's of old, it is working. Basically, ignorant people forget about the harm that BG has caused to society. Sadly, that is most of them.
Was it Steve "I'm going to kill you" Ballmer? :-)
Broken window fallacy.
"I'm not religious, but at the same time I don't get why science always has to have something to prove."
So to summarize, the richest man in the entire f-ing known universe donates a wad of cash and is -- wait for it -- still the richest man in the known universe. Oh the enormous sacrifices he's made!
The true measure of his generosity would be not how much he gave away, but how much he kept, afterward.
-a.d.-
I'm Erwin Schrodinger and I approve of this message, and I do not approve of this message!
I got a kick out of this:
I did that once myself. I didn't want to drive across the street from my office to the Taco Bell late one night so I just walked. It turned out that only the drive-through was open. So I took my turn between the cars standing in line. It took about half an hour before I got to the front of the line. I felt a bit idiotic standing there.
I never saw or heard of anyone else doing that until now.
I also used to regularly go through the drive-up line in the bank on my bicycle. But that didn't feel quite as wierd as standing in line at Taco Bell.
It gives a valid fair character description of the Psychopathic nature of Gates, Ballmer and the loyal people/companies they have screwed over from the beginning, and continue to try and screw over. It's a valid snapshot of greed. Scrooge picking through the bedding and going through the pockets of Cratchet. Family heirlooms can be sold at a tidy profit before the reading of the will if you get to them in time. If you think they are going to die anyway, you can pay the doctor to cut back the dying partners medicine and up the pain killers (and save that way too). I would not even be surprised if BillG has a clause that if Paul Allen dies, Allen's estate goes to Gates instead of Allen's family (or if not to Gates, then back to Microsoft the company). That way, expenses come from Allen, not out of Gates' pocket. Nice people, you know, like the Borgas.
No it wasn't. It was a beautiful, lean, authentic UNIX v7. The first release was not much more than s/UNIX/Xenix/g.
Certainly more of a purebred than any Linux. Ran OK too. You could keep 16 users quite happy on 256K of RAM.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I am going to examine each of these points one at a time. Some of them just make me cringe.
Disclaimer: I was a PC user up until a couple of months ago, when I got a powerbook. I've barely used another computer since.
10. Apple II Forever: The 1984 introduction of the compact Apple IIc, at a boisterous celebration in San Francisco's Moscone Center, is interrupted by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake. The party, called "Apple II Forever," doesn't miss a beat because loyal Apple II users are already shaken up by their belief the company is focusing too much on the Macintosh, even though the Apple II is generating the bulk of sales and profit.
Unfortunately, nothing is forever, not even the Apple II -- although it comes close. On Nov. 15, 1993, more than 16 years after it was introduced, and with over 5 million units shipped, Apple quietly drops the last of the line, the Apple IIe. As a gesture to the faithful, Apple continues offering Apple II technology through an expansion card for some early Mac LC and Performa models.
What type of computer
sells well
for 8 YEARS?
I mean, seriously, am I the only one that thinks that's one hell of a long time for them to be selling what's essentially the same computer? It most likely got too expensive for them to keep selling it, and they dropped it.
9. Portable predictions: Apple chief Steve Jobs is lauded for his forward thinking, but he misses the boat on notebook computers. "(Smaller portables) are OK if you're a reporter and trying to take notes on the run," he tells Playboy magazine in February 1985. "But for the average person, they're really not that useful, and there's not all that much software for them, either."
He eventually changes his tune but Apple's first stab at a laptop, a 15.8-pound behemoth dubbed the Macintosh Portable, isn't much to write home about. Apple finally gets it right in 1991 when it introduces the truly portable PowerBook. Despite the PowerBook's popularity, a dozen years pass before Jobs declares 2003 "the year of the notebook" for Apple. "Many users are going to wonder why they even need a desktop computer anymore," he says then.
I'm not that old, and I can't really remember 1985, so I can't say for certain. But I gather from his quote that all the "portables" in that day resembled somewhat different hardware and software configurations to their desktop equivalants. I doubt that the macintosh in that form could be minaturized to a "portable" in 1985, either.
By the 1990s, there were companies selling laptops with 68k processors, that, with the addition of a ROM chip ripped from a mac, could run Mac OS. This arrangement was, obviously, very expensive for anyone who wanted an apple laptop, yet these clones were still selling. Did apple really have a choice about it?
8. Consumers cool to Cube: Never one to shy away from hyperbole, Jobs pronounces the G4 Cube as "simply the coolest computer ever" at Macworld New York in 2000. Apple gushes over its latest creation: "An entirely new class of computer, it marries the Pentium-crushing performance of the Power Mac G4 with the miniaturization, silent operation and elegant desktop design of the iMac. It is an amazing engineering and design feat, and we're thrilled to finally unveil it to our customers."
It doesn't turn out to be all that cool. Although praised for Jonathan Ive's innovative industrial design, the Cube fails to catch on with creative professionals because it's too expensive ($1,800), not powerful enough (450 MHz) and hard to upgrade. The Cube is put on ice in July 2001.
The cube was cool. Admit it. It had problems. I can admit that. It wasn't selling, so it was cancelled.
I will take a break at this point to point out that two of these three are nothing other than apple discontinuing products because they weren't selling. Yeah, shocking, isn't it.
What's next? Oooh, a real one.
7. Death to CRTs: Introducing the flat-panel iMac at Macworld San Francisc
"What Would Turing Do? Computing was gay right from the start off."
I think the better question in this case is "Who would Turing Do?"
You'll find a more thorough treatment of this in "Titan" by Chernow. None of it justifies Rockefeller being a "monster", furthermore, the Standard Oil days in 1914 were a thing of the past, and Sr. had retired - Rockefeller Jr. was running the company. Even the wikipedia article talks about Jr, not Sr. They are different people.
That would have made a huge culture difference right there.
"Google!?!?! I'll... OWWW. Damn, I think I tore my rotator cuff. Shit this hurts. Someone call me a doctor. You. Get me an ice pack!"
Biiig difference in the leadership example there....
Your physics textbook is excellent. I've been using it to review basic quantum mechanics, and it's the most readable textbook of any kind that I've come across.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
I was reading about the evil Bill Gates, when suddenly the thread became all about the evil Steve Jobs.
You have to suspect the motives of those who jump in to discuss the polar opposite of the subject of the thread.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
There are these things called "OS-tans." Anime-styled anthropomorphizations of the Microsoft operating system line. The one representing Windows 98 (First Edition) is, in fact, a cardboard box with computer-like symbols painted on it.
Did you know that W. H. Gates also burnt crosses, desecrated the most holy Eucharist and was accused of blood libel for kidnapping a three year old girl and using her blood to make pashka? He also copulated with witches on full-moon Saturdays, fathering baphomets and stole the Spear of Destiny on behalf of the Satan. His latest dark deed was to kill Pope John Paul II which he did by poisonong the wells of the Vatican. Last week te Lord of Hell instructed Bill Gates to travel to the Antarctica and summon the clone Hitler and their reptile-nazi army of flying saucers to start the Armageddon, so he can best his 9/11 achievement.
So evil is Bill Gates the polygamist child abuser cannibal. The fight to defeat him and his forces of darkness will be a difficult one, since every Windows disk is a horcrux which contains a split part of his soul, so the Gates of Hell cannot be destroyed until every single Windows installation of the world is replaced. However, all Windows installations are protected from removal by means of powerful marketing charms and those who tried to ban Windows have been obliterated by unstoppable hexes.
Only when sandal geeks start reading Harry Potter instead of The LoTR can we close the Gates of Hell and vanquish the Dark lord forever.
And if you believe any of the above then you are a gullible open sourced money-hating pseudo-anarcho-communist fanatic, which is even worse than being a taleban jihadist! Shame on you for reading...
"Long after the oil has run out, after the banks called in their loans, on the deserted Anerican streets, the few stragglers scuttle about to Fortress-like McDonald's only accessible through the drive-in"
Nah, the Chinese will wake up to find they've go nothing but paper back by nothing but oil, without oil they've only got paper! We'll all be driving through the MacDonalds on our magic pink ponies, silly.
"I'll have a Big Mac, Large Fries and a Tinkerbell will have a bail of straw".
"Trott up to the Window, Please Mr Taco"
The pony in front lifts its tail and takes a dump.
"Oh and add a chocolate milk shake to my order"
When questioned about Apple's Slashdot strategy, Steve Jobs answered: "Well, the switch to Intel generated some pretty good responses. We'll probably switch to AMD's 64 bit processors by October and then back to PowerPC in 2007. That should give us the general image of being completely batshit loco, which directly translates into -1, Flamebait and +5, Funny. You see, we're not focusing on Flamebait alone. This work is fucking boring and we really need a good laugh once in a while."
Another steady source of unwarranted criticism has been the iPod product line. "We have teamed up with Sony to create the iPod Phono, a pocket-sized gramopone that only plays Sony's patented trade secret Universal Record Disks, which are essentially one-inch records, only more expensive. The fanboys will be all over it - and so will be the Slashdot crowd."
Rumors about Apple planning to switch back to Internet Explorer have not been confirmed yet, but analyst A. Coward is confident: "they finally found out that microsoft is better than everyting including my penis"
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I remember writing for the Amiga and the menus were actually associated with the application window, like Windows does it more than Macintosh. If multiple applications shared the same screen, then, yes, each window on that screen would have its own menu.
But....
The difference was that you could have multiple full screen windows because each application could create its own screen, and you could slide multiple screen sections up and down. Amiga used display list interrupts to essentially switch display modes on the fly. So you could have a 320x200 at the top, and a 640x480 at the bottom.
And who could ever forget: "GURU MEDITATION ERROR".
This is my sig.
The Court of Appeals threw out the punishment part of the verdict, but let the verdict stand. Microsoft remained a convicted illegal monopolist in the eye of the law, and only when the Bush team came into office and criticized the effort to go after Microsoft did their punishment get eviscerated. Had the Bush team not done that, serious punishment could have followed.
Keep in mind that this is different from having a wavering mind that accepts any new information without critical thinking, or altering views based upon popular opinion at the drop of a hat. That type of action is detrimental.
Sometimes people will change their minds for the better. Sometimes they make mistakes. But the people who have the ability to change will always have the advantage over those lock-stepped into a particular idea. I say good for Apple.
--Chag
...it's very easy for users to get their stuff into it quickly.
...it was a limited availability product, produced to have something cheap for the education market, which was very important to Apple. IIRC you have to be a student or educational institution to buy one. Besides, I doubt it will be making the Intel transition and all mainstream Macs since that announcement have been LCDs (as are basically all PCs sold now, so he was only very so slightly ahead of himself.)
Neither is the multi-mouse, I think Macs still come with the one-button by default, so big deal Apple produce an optional add on (other companies had for years.)
Good refutations BTW.
(Windows's Taskbar has a similarly annoying flaw regarding multi-monitor setups). ...it extends the taskbar onto the secondary monitor, along with a host of other things - invaluable for multiple monitors.
http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/
The crucial part of any good lie is believability. I mean, come on! An "exciting show" about [a word processor] was "drawing huge crowds"?! Believabilty just flew out the window!
^_^
I...I'm attacking the darkness!
Yes they do. They were only too happy to do that.
kill 10's of thousands of people and wash thier hands of it
You don't think software they provide to help China find dissidents won't lead to thousands of political murders? We're talking about a country that harvests organs from political prisoners, on demand and brag about it. (short version).
You might be able to rationalize that by all the cool things you can buy for cheap down at the Walmart, but that's what working with a Communist country supports.
If that's not special enough or bad enough for you, why not look at the very negative influence his greed worldview supports. Massive propaganda in support of the DMCA and other abominations of law. The BSA and lawsuits against US public school systems for copying a text editor. How about their current stupid fight against the best the internet has to offer, Google and Wikipedia, because free information does not fit into their greedy world view? How about fighting the internet itself and pressuring ISPs to reduce their services based on their own crappy software? Microsoft has retarded US computer technology by a decade and ultimately are enemies of knowledge. That's evil.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Didn't Allen fund one of the X-prize contenders? Whatever became of that?