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Microsoft To Announce Jerry Seinfeld Ads Cancelled
An anonymous reader writes "Valleywag says the Jerry Seinfeld ads are over — In a phone call, Frank Shaw confirms that Microsoft is not going on with Seinfeld, and echoes his underlings' spin that the move was planned. There is the 'potential to do other things' with Seinfeld, which Shaw says is still 'possible.' He adds: 'People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected.'"
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/15/
How we know is more important than what we know.
"People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected."
As if anyone understood the ad at all, let alone were happy about it.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
I for one actually enjoyed those ads! To see those two together in a commercial was uncanny.
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
Well the ad wasn't exactly imaginative. If it was supposed to compete with Apple's Mac vs. PC ads, which many people apparently find comical and true, it didn't do a very good job. They really need to come up with something better than that.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
I toldja - they shoulda gone with a real comedian.
I was looking for them working their way back through the comedic genius of history ... perhaps W.C. Fields next. All the way back to Aristophanes.
Or, in a more famous joke:
"Vista's slow, it's fat, I can't get drivers, my network grinds to a crawl when I play an mp3! What do you call that?"
"... The Aristocrats!"
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Problem was that the sexual tension between those two guys was too intense - it would never have ended well.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
"People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but this was not unexpected."
That sentence makes George Orwell roll over in his grave. All that "not un-" faked vocabulary and smugness, just say "People would have been happier if everyone loved the ads, but we expected it" and get it over with!
...I'm seeing those ads all over the place; I've only seen the Seinfeld ads twice, I think.
What's strange is this --didn't MS drop the ad agency that came up with the Mojave ads because they were a flop?
I guess when you've got nothing ...you've just got nothing.
No one wants to see that!
Where's that pose of sexy young Bill on his desk?
Boy, doesn't this come as a surprise to everyone!
I thought the first ad was limp, but I actually enjoyed the second one and was looking forward to more. Not that it would have made any difference to my OS-buying proclivities, but I thought they were at least interesting.
FADE IN
A Chair
VOICEOVER: Vista. Use it. Or Else.
FADE TO BLACK
I think the alternative version where Bill does a massive fart along to his butt wriggle must have made at least some impression.
Still you gotta laugh.
They are just too rich to connect with regular folks. Besides, it has nothing to do with Vista, it is just an exercise of the cilt of personality of Bill Gates.
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
"We made these ads because we knew you wouldn't like them. Yes, it was all planned. We made them so we could pull them. Now Vista's sales are not going to improve in any way. This is also planned. It's all part of a very clever plot in which we look like a bunch of idiots wasting time and money. Amazing! Fantastic! This is why we're number 1."
I had an old file server running XP, and for yuks I put on a spare HD and installed Ubuntu. For me, Ubuntu is slower to boot and slower when operating. Particularly the GUI responsiveness. It might seem fast to you, but probably because your XP machine was running 25 tray icons and two anti-virus programs.
Yeah, Ubuntu really blew me away:
- Every time an update occurs, it takes more and more space on my hard disk, and the boot screen is filled with 100 versions of linux kernels.
- It took me one week to get my wifi card to work properly with wpa, with all the incomplete/outdated documentation available. Eventually, I found, by chance, a message on a forum.
- After a kernel update, my wifi card couldn't work anymore. My card is not an alien from another planet. It is a well-known card model.
- So I went back to the older kernel. What happened? Nautilus didn't work anymore!
- A certain indexation service (I forgot its name) runs regularly. Then my computer does not respond anymore. It's a modern computer (AMD64 quad-core with 3 Gb of RAM).
I am a software engineer for a living, but when I use my system, I expect it to run out-of-the-box,
I want to feel like the base customer, not the software engineer.
It was an advertisement about nothing.
Haven't you guys ever seen an episode of Seinfeld?
Now there isn't a chance to buy the new Konqueror (tm) boots that can be worn in the shower. :(
...I for one LIKED the ads, with its 'nothingness' agenda... Surely they would have known that this brand campaign would need TIME and COMMITMENT to have a payoff!
....
I'll repeat that: Surely they would have known that this brand campaign would need TIME and COMMITMENT to have a payoff!
Maybe at least it's not too late...
For everyone who hasn't already committed suicide based on the promptings of the "fail" parent, please see this.
Well parent is a little flame-ish, but the point he makes is correct. The link is rather biased, and does seem to be making a planned move seem like msft having failed, without providing evidence. But hey, this is the intertubez who said we have to provide evidence for what we report right ?
blog plug -> The Darker Side of Light
They got people talking. The last two TWiT podcasts, for example, included long discussions of the ads. The discussion was critical of them--but the ads got Leo Laporte and his guests to spend something like 30 minutes of some of the most valuable podcast time on the...er......uhm..,pod(?) talking about them.
One of the guests, not quite seriously, did a detailed symbolic analysis of the second ad. He said the old lady represented Steve Jobs--she had been living with the family for the same amount of time since Steve came back to Apple.
I must be missing something. Cancelled?
Cancelled is what happens when a contract is revoked. As far as I know, Microsoft is continuing with Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
Cancelled is what happens if they were planning to make more of the same vein. I see no indication of that, but of the expectant bloggers.
Microsoft had always said that the Bill & Seinfield ads were not a campaign unto itself, but an icebreaker, or rather, "phase one". Indeed, it would not surprise me if Microsoft's announcement was all about the new ads, and didn't mention Bill & Seinfield at all.
Me thinks Valleywag focused on what they wanted to hear, not what was actually said overall.
Maybe it is because I'm from the UK and I've grown up with Monty Python but I thought these adverts were great though pointless. If they were designed to make me laugh they did a good job. I guess some of the fanbois here can't look at them subjectively. Oh look its Bill Gates we hate him, Oh look its Seinfield, he sucks as a comedian. So in their mind these are already gonna suck, everybody said so before they aired and nobody should change their opinion for fear of being weak minded. I doubt Seinfield wrote these adverts and I don't care if he did anyway, I enjoyed them and I'd rather see more of this than the next crop of ideas from MS, at least they were lying to me telling me how great Vista is.
Jonathanjk.com
Microsoft says Vista is over â" In a phone call, Steve Ballmer, confirms that Microsoft is not going on with Vista, and echoes his underlings' spin that the move was planned. There is the "potential to do other things" with Windows, which Ballmer says is still "possible." He adds: "People would have been happier if everyone loved Vista, but this was not unexpected.""
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
As a mostly Linux user, I don't actually give a toss about this topic anyway - in much the same way that I really didn't give a toss when IBM used a white-haired kid to advertise Linux a few years ago.
I think you'll find that the majority of Linux people on here aren't fanbois but computer techies who treat Linux as a useful tool to get stuff done in, just like any other OS.
Yes, you can't beat Linux and scripting for being able to embrace the power of a computer - but you also can't beat XP as a games platform and as a platform for knocking out training slides in Powerpoint and whilst I don't do much graphics or video editing work, there's nothing on Linux to compete with Photoshop etc. (though The GIMP does everything I need from a graphics editor).
So please don't tar us all with the same brush.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I hope the could have said the same about Vista ..
"People would have been happier if everyone loved the Vista, but this was not unexpected."
I read this and thought we were still talking about the US dumping it's IT waste overseas. So now we can look forward to seeing these ads on Indian television? Although I probably would pay to see a bollywood version.
And if Rule 34 doesn't apply, Rule 35 will.
Just keep in mind to periodically check if someone has registered "billjerrysteve-fanfic.com".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
a show about nothing?
I saw the awful Gates & Seinfeld commercial last night where Gates does the Robot, and commented to my wife that Microsoft must have the lowest advertising ROI of all time. It's mind boggling that a company with that much money could do so poorly with their advertising campaigns. They can certainly afford to do better, so why don't they?
It's surprising that Crispin Porter is their agency, since they're about the highest rated in the advertising game. Perhaps it's something about Microsoft that exudes a lameness that overwhelms all else.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
...does not use that form of marketing preferred calculation... you insensitive clod!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Ah, so you agree, it is much better than Vista.
(Damn Ubuntu fan boys always pointing out how much better they have it;-)
I knew that! Who said I didn't?!
Oh, I did.
Clicked pie.
When you aren't sure what an Ad is trying to sell you, there is a serious problem with the Ad.
The commercials seem to be about nothing. We don't learn about the product. I don't get how this was suppose to be helpful to Microsoft.
I think a better idea, for a gimmick, would be, "Try Windows Vista. If you don't like it after 30 days, we'll buy you a copy of Ubuntu."
(Yes, I'm trying for humour here.)
Haha! Fix it yourself asshat!
Vista was designed for five-nines reliability, but due to a specification error the decimal point was shifted.
Availability specified as a number of nines is often seen in marketing documents.
Now, tell me again why should I commit suicide? Because I don't know some marketing hype buzz words?
these ads were tipping point for me.. seeing how pathetic Gates was in them, I'm pretty sure now that no one at microsoft cares anymore.. neither about ads nor about developing operating systems..
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
I loved the ads. I stopped fast-forwarding (while watching a DVR'ed Fringe) to watch the commercial, and it made me smile. I actually wanted to see the prequel and sequel commercials.
So what? Sue me.
I think you'll find that the majority of Linux people on here aren't fanbois but computer techies who treat Linux as a useful tool to get stuff done in, just like any other OS.
I'm afraid that you are projecting a bit there. At least I hope that you are projecting and not just painting it pink.
Let us disregard for a moment that this is a topic where people ridicule Microsoft.
Take a look at the front page. The left side.
Do you see a Microsoft section? How 'bout Apple? Linux?
Now... take a look at this post's icon. Bill Gates as a Borg.
Apple and Linux meanwhile have their regular logos.
This is Slashdot.
It is a social norm to be a Linux fanboy and to a lesser extent an Apple fanboy while hating Microsoft, Bill Gates and everything they stand for.
And the best part is - management promotes such behavior.
Microsoft and Gates are evil, Apple is shiny and Linux is cute.
Its not a law (yet) but its a very good idea to keep in mind if you like posting above 0 level.
Nothing kills karma faster than going to a Apple or Linux topic and suggesting that "it ain't that great".
Sometimes, just asking is there something LIKE THAT which is talked about in the post can get you bad karma.
This is Slashdot.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"Microsoft To Announce Jerry Seinfeld Ads Cancelled "
Even Digg managed to find a more appropriate headline:
"Microsoft's New Ad:Seinfeld and Gates out, Hodgman Lookalike"
linking to the NYTimes article "Echoing the Campaign of a Rival, Microsoft Aims to Redefine 'I'm a PC'"
To those who actually think the Gates/Seinfeld got canceled: the commercials played for one week each. Now in the third week and today we get the 'new' style. Do you honestly think they scrambled to get something done within a week?
I know the Slashdot crowd hates MS with a passion but don't let your hate cloud your judgement.
Wow. You express a lame joke with tortured English and suggest that everyone who fails to get it is too stupid to live.
Now that's how you turn defeat into victory, baby!
Phiwum's law: anyone that names an obvious law after himself and then puts it in his own sig is just pathetic.
... shrinkage!
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
The symbolism seems sufficiently obvious. But it leaves me with a major set of questions. How did Steve Jobs manage to bribe the ad agency to come up with the idea? How did they manage to get Microsoft to fall for it? Does the Jobs reality distortion field really extend that far?
I guess, since a lot of creative ad people are still Mac fanboys, the first part might have been easy. But the second part must have been the pitch from hell. Perhaps it only worked because the Gates mansion is so vast that Gates has never found the TV room and so never seen the programme.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Thanks... having learned my multiplication tables by rote in primary school, I was wondering what 'forty five of population' meant...
Oh, and the author needs a battering for talking about sentence parsing in a sentence with a missing definitive article.
I am definitely tagging this "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense"
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
This was planned. They are releasing these ads on a Thursday schedule - and the release for today has obviously been in the hopper for a while.
Way off-topic here, but, out of interest, have you tried PC-BSD? I've been using FreeBSD on my laptop for a few years, and had no problems with it (WiFi works, multiple programs can play sound on the cheap AC97 sound hardware, 3D works, kernel updates don't break things). PC-BSD is based on the same core, but is a bit more user-friendly.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Call me old fashioned, but I was taught that when extolling the virtues of a product, the marketing should be able to answer the 'so what?' and 'prove it' tests.
The Microsoft ad seemed more of an indulgence by a person, agency or client that just wanted to so 'do something' without wanting any return on investment.
Totally forgettable.
AT&ROFLMAO
I guess some of the fanbois here can't look at them subjectively
No, we're trying to look at them objectively. As a comedy short, they were okay. As a Microsoft advert, they were pointless, because the conveyed no indication of why you should buy their products. Still, they're not as bad as the old MSN adverts which had 'Homeward Bound' as the theme, and cut just before:
Tonight I'll sing my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend.
But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me.
Shades of mediocrity, like emptiness in harmony, sums up MSN pretty well, but it probably wasn't quite what the advertisers were aiming for.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I saw them too and I enjoyed them. Now give me some karma as well.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
If they wanted to make commercials in the vein of Seinfeld, they should have hired Larry David. He seems to have been the real genius behind that series.
That's probably the thinking at Microsoft. Apple has these ads with two guys talking to each other, and that's cool. We should do the same. And, who's cooler than that 1990 comedy sensation, Jerry Steinfeld?
The problem is that Apple had two people, one young and cool, the other old and not-so-cool. Microsoft's ads had two old, not-so-cool people in them. I'm sure that all of them college kids really related to two 50+ years olds wandering around and talking about random stuff.
I can hear them now: "Hey, that's just like my grandpa! Right before we put him in the nursing home."
The first one in the shoe store was funny-- it played very knowingly off Window's drawbacks. The joke was that these two billionaires were cheap and practical, not fancy-pants Apple users. Windows as the populist platform. The ass wiggle at the end was too much, but whatever.
The second ad was insulting to exactly the salt-of-the-earth base that they were appealing to in the first one. "Is that car still in the driveway?" "Have you tried scalloped potatoes?" "That's Bill and Jerry's mustard". It made average American families seem priggish, unsophisticated and nasty. It was also funny, but it wasn't gonna make anybody feel kindly towards Windows.
It's definitely not an issue that the ads were "about nothing". The whole point of advertising is to make you feel kindly towards the product. Communicating information about it comes in a distant second.
/. wins again.
Remember Windows 95?
"If you start me up
If you start me up I'll never stop
You make a grown man cry"
Oh, wait, they left that last line out. Wonder why...
He is just using a tried and true family response.
Francis X. Shaw, White Star Line spokesperson: "Passengers would have been happier if everyone had a seat in a boat, but this was not unexpected."
Franjiu Shatsima, Mayor of Hiroshima: "Citizens would have been happier if everyone had not been turned to ash, but this was not unexpected."
Frank Shaw, Jr., Undersecretary of Defense: "Voters would have been happier if everyone loved jingistic bloodletting, but this was not unexpected."
The show was not about "nothing", as joked about in some episodes, it was about four *extremely* *unlikeable* people *doing* nothing.
The last episode was the clue-by-four to the head for all those viewers who didn't get it; they bring back all the people whose lives had been casually wrecked by the main characters, and in the end (SPOILER ALERT, if you care), they end up all locked in a cell, the ultimate punishment that they have to spend their time together.
And from this Microsoft thought they could improve their branding? If anything, it's somehow appropriate, Microsoft is the company that casually wrecks your (digital) life.
Who the fuck is Valleywag?
Claims another victim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld_curse#The_.22Seinfeld_curse.22
The show was about nothing, so the ads made no sense, thats the only amout of logic I found in all of this, isn't that irony for ya
if they were discordian. penny hits the nail on the head. i have no idea what shoe squishing, churro munching jerry seinfeld is trying to sell, or for that matter what bill "wiggle-ass" gates has on the horizon besides hip displacia and a completely unrealistic scenario of him being spotted in the local mall by a million dollar celebrity.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Todays Crossword Puzzle..... Down ...
6 Best Operating System, 5 letters starts with L
Answers
Down ...
6 LINUX
No one is interested in your dud os vistcrap
No one is interested in your has been comic
With the epic failure of this campaign I would expect:
1) ad agency fired
2) ad agency employees fired
seinfeld can be funny as a comic at times, sure, in that stupid show.... nope.
and as for the puppet master behind the comic larry david, well I don't find him or his show that funny. The only reason to watch it is for Cheryl Hines who really needs to be in other projects more often....
we've all moved on to Linux and its time the rest of the planet catches up. the ads only confirm it your out of touch with reality and time to just go away, please.
Get Linux
Get your computer back
Get things done
1311393600 - Back to Black
From my Google QTOD gadget. No kidding:
Where lipstick is concerned, the important thing is not color, but to accept God's final word on where your lips end.
- Jerry Seinfeld
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Seinfeld show was a show about nothing, Microsoft's ad was an ad about nothing. Now, the reason it didn't work is simple. It wasn't funny.
(Bill shakes his ass)
That whoever wrote those ads will never be allowed to inflict that kind of stupidity on the world again.
The two ads I saw made less sense than Seinfelds show ever did.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
to support the felonious corepirate nazi execrable billionerrors FraUDulent follies. thou shalt not... blah blah blah. that must be for all of us little peepoles?
greed, fear & ego are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of yOUR dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children, not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one. see you on the other side of it. the lights are coming up all over now. conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/05/severe.weather.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/02/honore.preparedness/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212638400&en=744b7cebc86723e5&ei=5087%0A
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/05/senate.iraq/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/middleeast/03kurdistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080708/cheney_climate.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080805/pl_politico/12308;_ylt=A0wNcxTPdJhILAYAVQms0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080903/ts_nm/environment_arctic_dc;_ylt=A0wNcwhhcb5It3EBoy2s0NUE
is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=weather+manipulation&btnG=Search
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying
'The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native
It is all part of the plan! This is actually another ad! bewware!
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
What's the fixation with changing the kernel all the time?
This isn't Windows. You don't have to patch everything constantly.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The quote is from Genesis. But otherwise OFF TOPIC. ( very interesting links ). Power Down Troll.
> - A certain indexation service (I forgot its name) runs regularly. Then my
> computer does not respond anymore. It's a modern computer (AMD64 quad-core with
> 3 Gb of RAM).
This sounds like the Lemming Troll's flavor of the month.
It's interesting how they can find more obscure excuses why
their Linux installs are allegedly running poorly. Many of
us would not know of some of these "services" if not for
this whining. It's a sort of perverse public service in a
way.
Many of us torture boxes far more persistently than any
unnamed indexing service. That's why we tend to use Unix
in general and Linux in particular.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You sound like you may have tried Ubuntu a while ago -- have you tried a recent version? I say because I feel your pain when it comes to wireless difficulties, but I honestly haven't had those problems in Ubuntu for about the past two versions.
And here's a tip -- if you get the latest version (8.04) and it works for you, keep it -- do NOT upgrade to the next version. 8.04 is a long-term release and will be supported for years.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Hell for me would be listening to lawyers and advertising people talk. However, marketing is the art of calculated manipulation. If people understand what the marketer wants understood, it is highly functional, regardless of how many "rules" it breaks.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Microsoft actually cares what people think of them? Wow, I'm impressed.
Apple could probably doctor those videos to insert Justin Long as Mac, maybe do a few minor voice overs and BAM you've got a Mac/PC commercial. Those commercials were horrible.
Even further than that the Windows Vista commercials where they introduce it as the next version to "real people" and show their reaction. Ridiculously bad.
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
Your post was a glimmer of sensibility until you got to the "Vista sucks, so give it away for free" part.
That's like saying if Microsoft gave away all the unfixable Xbox 360s that RRoD, people would not care about the red ring problem anymore.
Wouldn't the fastest route to fix the Vista image is to polish up Windows 7 as quickly as possible, get it on the shelf and sweet Vista under a rug?
Power Down Bill...Now stay that way, until you decide to ship a DECENT Product.
So they cancel something that was bad, back to something that made no sense to me the first time. The OS/2 Warp ads where all they show you is a bunch of people sitting around saying "wow, that's cool, I didn't know you could do that" didn't work for IBM the first time. Not sure their marketing is heading in the right direction with all this.
The commercials were lame, but as far as crap commercials they're far from the worst. I feel like a good 75% of commercials have been developed not for the sake of the client but rather so that the advertising company has yet another portfolio piece.
Sales of Vista are supposedly strong. Apparently Microsoft really didn't need the ads.
It also makes sense that Microsoft couldn't do much direct Vista promotion in the ads because they're already doing this in other ads and because they've announced that Windows 7 is coming out early next year. If, on the other hand, the ads attempted to promote Windows 7 this might appear to be at odds with representations that Vista is a great product as is.
So maybe all of the potentially substantive content for the ads was eliminated to remove the appearance of conflicting information to the less discerning customer.
I know next to nothing about software. I've been using Ubuntu since for years and have never had a problem with anything.
You say you're a software engineer? Interesting.
For those who don't know, during the last season of his TV show "Seinfeld", Jerry Seinfeld was offered $200 million US ($100 per season) for 2 final seasons of the show. He turned it down. Since the show ended, Jerry has used his voice in one animated movie, done a few American Express commercials and a few TV appearances. I think it's pretty safe to assume that Jerry Seinfeld is rich and that if you are going to get him to work for you, it's going to be expensive.
So we can assume that getting him for the commercials wasn't cheap. Now the Microsoft shill tells us that this was "not unexpected" that the commercials failed. I guess the meetings on the spots went something like this:
Ad agency: Yeah, these ads are going to cost a lot of money because Jerry Seinfeld is probably the most expensive guy you can get for an ad. And preliminary test audiences have shown us that 60% hate the ads and 70% don't understand the point of them.
Microsoft: Sign us up now!
Just gives a whole new meaning to "clueless" when it comes to Microsoft. Maybe it would have been better to have just said "Look, we knew the ads were quirky, but we hoped they would catch on" rather than saying essentially "We knew most likely it would fail but we spent the money anyway because we are idiots and our shareholders won't hold us accountable".
These ads remind me of the "slice of life" ads from the '80s where this guy wearing nothing but a towel (or a pair of boxers... it was a while back) walks by the breakfast table. I don't even remember what they were advertising, cigarettes or something. That was "avant garde" 20 years ago, but now it's just tired.
Or maybe it's related to this "Halo" easter egg?
I didn't quite get the "hip wriggle" thing at the end of the first commercial. Was Bill Gates basically saying "I'm a billionaire, kiss my ass"?
I use Windows... like a two dollar wh.. why don't I just go ahead and not finish that sentence.
I used to sit staring out over the M4/M5 interchange in Brizzle. Best advert I ever saw there was on the side of a giant truck, doubtless bound for a supermarket. It read (in HUGE letters)... "EAT MORE CHIPS"... Well, you can't say fairer than that really, now can you... eh?
Well, I personally always perform the upgrades (Gentoo here) because I love having everything as up-to-date/bleeding-edge as possible. That's just my personality. I like things new, fresh and up-to-date.
Personally, I'm willing to put up with some of the issues that may result, and I do try to provide feedback if I do find a potential issue.
Some people just want things to work. And, to be fair, I'm the same way. For my "normal, everyday use," I use Windows Vista. For whatever people may say about it, it does just work with everything that I want it to. For my technical tinkering, I use Gentoo.
Sales of Vista are supposedly strong.
In Soviet Russia, sales of Soviet goods were good, they had great market share, they were the only product on the shelf. You think the "Mac Tax" is bad, what if you had to buy Macs with black market dollars?
Heck, you pretty much have to buy XP with black market dollars. You can't buy it on anything but a mini-notebook, officially, you have to buy Vista and use downgrade rights.
And yet... that's what people are doing. Not only that, but enough people are specifically demanding XP that companies are STILL offering it as an option through various licensing tricks.
Vista selling well? With XP still shipping despite everything Microsoft's done to prevent it, months after XP has been discontinued? You gotta be kidding.
I am completely guessing here, but I gotta think that this cancelation is part of the campaign. This announcement will probably get as much exposure as the ads themselves.
Either that, or this has been a gigantic embarrassing blunder by a company that actually has a lot at stake on this.
Seinfeld's motto was: "No hugging, no learning." Microsoft's motto is, "Embrace, extend and extinguish." No wonder Jerry and Bill have gone separate ways. One hates hugging, the other insists upon it.
Seinfeld Look Alike: Ever notice that Churros and shoes are funny ... ... ...
Mac: Who's that guy?
PC: I hired him for $10 million to distract people from noticing how bad Vista is.
Mac: Is it working?
Seinfeld Look Alike: Ever notice how funny commercials about nothing are
PC: Not really
[Insert pithy quote here]
What blows my mind is what raging idiot at Microsoft green lighted this ad campaign? they KNEW that it was a flop from the above statement. yet they still spend the outrageous cash to have written and shoot and print those horrid commercials? Holy crap do they also wallpaper the walls at Microsoft with 100 bills just before they repaint them so they can figure out how to waste money even faster?
Hmm... well, there HAS been a lot of discussion about these terrible commercials. Now there is discussion about them being cancelled.
Would we have given them this much attention otherwise? Maybe the intent was exactly that, to raise the "WTF" and to get people to speculate what they meant. They just failed, and nobody really cared all that much.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
What about the rumors that the replacement are going to be a "PC Guy" lookalike kvetching about how Windows is so misunderstood?
One part of his statement resonates with me... the kernel update. I went through one of those that "broke" my TV video card. By that point, I had forgotten that the recovery was a few simple steps, so I set about to reinstall the OS. But why should a kernel update break that?
Still, I prefer any Linux of Microsoft Windows. Why does Windows still force the user to use a single partition? Doesn't it make sense to have a programs partition, an OS partition, and a user (or documents) partition that is easily setup and made default during install? That way, I won't lose the other two when one goes down. (This one among many Windows gripes).
Are you a slave to karma? If I spin the wheel will you be a king reborn? Will you be coming back, coming back for the last time?
Bow-ties are cool.
people would love the ads...if they were discordian.
No, at least some of us think the ads are completely f'tarded too. Hail Eris.
- Every time an update occurs, it takes more and more space on my hard disk, and the boot screen is filled with 100 versions of linux kernels.
So, you've been using Ubuntu for 100 Linux kernel upgrades? You must really love it!
Modern versions hide all those past kernels, and if wasting a few megabytes every kernel upgrade is your complaint, I can't imagine you like Windows any better.
- It took me one week to get my wifi card to work properly with wpa, with all the incomplete/outdated documentation available. Eventually, I found, by chance, a message on a forum.
Mine worked out of the box. When I've tried other laptops which don't, I hit the forums right away -- it's called "Google", have you heard of it?
- So I went back to the older kernel. What happened? Nautilus didn't work anymore!
I use Kubuntu, and I barely browse files, so I can't speak to that. But I've never found downgrading a kernel to break anything.
- A certain indexation service (I forgot its name) runs regularly. Then my computer does not respond anymore. It's a modern computer (AMD64 quad-core with 3 Gb of RAM).
First: "Not respond" is utter BS. It does respond, just slowly.
Second: Sounds like you don't know how to build a computer. Quad-core with 3 gigs of RAM, and I'll bet it all runs off a single 7200 RPM drive.
And finally, updatedb can be disabled easily -- and even if it couldn't, newer Ubuntus come with a version that only does partial sweeps.
And I have to agree with the other AC -- sounds like you would agree that it's an upgrade from Vista.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I can see Apple's response to this admission of failure, now.
Mac: Hello, I'm a Mac.
PC: An I'm a PC.
Mac: What's wrong PC you look a little down?
PC: Well, Mac's got this slick advertising campaign-thing going, so...
Mac: You mean like how the benefits and ease of using a Mac is explained in contrast to the competition?
PC: Yeah, and--
Mac: And your new ads don't represent any of that?
PC: Well, yeah, but--
Mac: In fact, the only thing your ads really did have was a shoe-squeezing, churro-munching, butt-wiggling figurehead and a worn-out comedy act that's staler than month old toast.
PC: Well, it's not all bad. It got people talking--
Mac: Yeah, "WTF" maybe, that's not good talking.
PC: But, those ads did do wonders to show off the capabilities of the Mac, y'know?
Mac: Wait, what?
PC: Yeah, the ad agency uses Macs for all of their productions.
Mac: Gimme a break.
PC: I will not. I'll have you know the entire campaign was done in iMovie.
Mac: That's bull--
PC: Oh yeah. That horrible ad campaign? We wouldn't have been able to get it done without the ease of use of a brand new iMac. I guess it's really your fault.
Mac: Oh jesus--
PC: Do you feel it, Mac? The darkness wriggling inside of you?
Mac: I'm gonna be sick--
PC: This is your fault, Mac!
*Mac doubles-over and throws up on the floor.*
PC: Yeah, that's it. Now bend over and take your Vista install like a good little--
The future. Deceitful.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Now that's odd. I don't seem to recall 'the Soup Nazi' throwing any chairs on Seinfeld. I thought he only did that in the M$ board room?
And here is your head. *woosh*
His show was based off his stand-up. Simply put, it's comedy by observation. He see's something odd and then mentions it.
There's a show called 'Seinfeld' with a character named 'Jerry Seinfeld'. That show is not about that character.
I'm sure there's some formal term in literary criticism, perhaps in latin, for the use of a narrator to give us a peek into a world when the focus of that world is not the narrator, but some other character the narrator observes.
I don't know the term, but that is what we have here. In this case, Jerry is just a vehicle to transport into the world of George.
The show originated and was written primary (in the beginning) by Larry David. George is Larry's alter ego. The show is about George.
The show had very little to do with Seinfeld's comedy. The bits of stand up at the start and end of the shows was time filler.
[Comedian] is a little dull (particularly considering when it's about comedians) but there are some pretty true parts in it.
That sort of like saying a documentary about weight room workouts isn't as entertaining as a football game. Comedian, like The Aristocrats, is not a comedy. It is about the business of comedy. If you're only interested in what comedians do on stage, both these movies are dull. If you're interested in what happens before (and after) the short period of time comedians are on stage, they are not dull at all.
I'm really glad they pulled them. I emailed MS customer support last week telling them they were extremely stupid and begged them to pull it off the air.
So, you can thank me later.
The commercials were almost as bad as having to program using the DirectShow API. Both must have been invented by a PHD who is so smart but actually can't do anything.
You're a software engineer and can't figure out how to uninstall unused old kernels? You don't even have to open up a configuration file. Just uncheck the kernel in synaptic. If you manage to get an internet connection make sure you update everything and get at least 8.04 (Hardy Heron). There are TONS of fixes for damn near everything on the ubuntuforums. If you are a software engineer you should REALLY be able to fix anything in ubuntu with little trouble. Not to mention you should be used to having to tinker with shit to get it to work exactly the way you want it.
Is there anybody left who will put up with your special brand of crazy?
Every Seinfeld episode I ever saw exploited at least one character's inablity to recognize irony in the mirror.
On reflection, you succinctly make the humor case for the Vista ads, the Seinfeld show AND Slashdot itself in a single overtly rational geek rant.
I'm awed, Dude!
Gotta go -- time to read the FA.
Guys, guys (and gals), I got it. It was all a meta-advertisement campaign. The advertising firm has to be a Linux/BSD/OS X/other non-Microsoft shop and they got asked to make ads for Vista. The pay was right, but they couldn't bring themselves to write good ads for Microsoft.
So they took advantage of the fact that Bill Gates and the rest of Microsoft's upper management are so out of touch with the common man. They made these incomprehensible ads and assured them that they wouldn't look like complete tools when Gates and Seinfeld were reading these lines. Oh, and Seinfeld. He's still popular, right? At least, as far as Microsoft knew.
Thus, they wound up with these ads only barely advertising Vista in any way, shape, or form. But that's where the advertising firm controls the game. It wasn't about Vista; we're all in here talking about the ads, not about Vista! The firm was advertising themselves ! Look how much attention they've got now for making these complete nonsense commercials! They completely faced the world's largest software company, AND they got one of the world's richest men AND Jerry Seinfeld in on the act! Hell, with credentials like that, I might hire them if I had something worth advertising!
Only, it backfired when they forgot that Microsoft probably isn't going to tell everyone who the firm was. Ah, well. Can't blame a guy for trying.
</sarcasm>
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
We had one of those for Alesse around here. It never actually said what it was for, except that it was obviously targeted at younger females. Apparently it's a form of birth-control, but I had thought it was cosmetics or something of that sort as the ads never mentioned what it's for.
but even i use any chance that i can find to piss on microsoft.
well, after all those years of suffering through their shit, my willy doesnt want to miss the chance to at least do something when they come up.
Read radical news here
Great to see average Windows user finally switching over to Linux!
I'm so glad I wasn't the only one staring at my TV, minutes after the end of that commercial, mouth agape.
This report turned out to be anti-Microsoft bullshit. Why is slashdot propagating lies? Is the McCain campaign running this site now?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Seriously, it's just a series of commercials. If it were anyone but MS this wouldn't even be on /. let alone have everyone up in arms about it.
Move along, nothing to see here...
I could do it. But I don't want. If I'm a software engineer, does it mean I have to fix all the problems of all the software I use? No. Does it mean I must shut my mouth? No.
In general, I'm astonished by the agressivity of most of the replies. If I had enumerated all the problems with Windows, I would have been probably congratulated. Did I say that Linux is bad? No. I simply told my experience, without the vulgarity I find in some replies. I stop here this discussion. I already know that I will get a reply such as "ahah you're a (insert a four letter word) bad engineer", and the like. But I don't care.
http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=1181231
Well... non-MS/Apple OS's always seems to work best on slightly older hardware. I don't install Linux on any hardware less than a year old and not normally less than two and expect not to have issues.
Linux/BSD/Whatever-other-OS are not high priority targets for most hardware manufactures. In my experience, hardware manufactures generally take longer to produce drivers for non-MS OS's, if they produce them at all, and do significantly less updating to them. Quite a bit, the community ends up reverse engineering them, using wrappers, or using the most similar available FOSS driver.
As for wifi; Linux wifi support is, in general, bad; though this seems to be more of an issue with the hardware manufacturers rather than the OS.
[insert witty comment here]
Very easy. Buy a computer with Ubuntu preinstalled. It's not what you do with Windows?
Is how quickly they were to turn around and cancel them... specially since the second one was better received. They were generating a lot of interest, and the intent was clearly not to sell stuff, but to portray Microsoft as out of touch but willing to listen and learn. Canceling something so drastically gives the impression Microsoft are genuinely clueless as to which direction to follow, it's not a good sign.
I think it's safe to dismiss that annoying list of yours. If not for the sheer number of invalid and made-up "facts" in it, the dollar sign crapflood, the comments on there or even the hilarious 4chan image linking is more than enough to write it off as propaganda and dismissed "without further thought", as you say.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
OK, maybe it's because I actually didn't pay much attention to them, but they seemed consistent with Bill Gates' sense of humor. Remember the "Da da da" ad with the he and Ballmer driving around and finding a discarded SUN workstation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrwnJDQy0ic
I can't really imagine what a "good" Microsoft ad would possibly look like, so I think the WTF ads we got were kind of neat, considering they came from the former richest man in the world probably as part of some ego-stroke / lifelong dream.
Of all the things we've seen and expected from Bill Gates, I'd have to say this ranks as "cool" . Strange, but cool.
I spell BS. 100's of kernel versions, no specifics on the wifi card or "indexation service", and he's a software engineer? This is a classic:
[i]I want to feel like the base customer, not the software engineer.[/i]
So it take to "Geek Squad" and open up your wallet. Viola, you're now a Microsoft Vista "base customer". Feel better?
http://gizmodo.com/5051682/microsoft-ads-featuring-bill-gates-and-jerry-seinfeld-not-canceled
There is no sig...
Who are the ad geniuses that came up with this one?
That's nothing. It actually took me 20 minutes to open up a document in OpenOffice. And I'm not running some piece of crap machine either.
Except I tell them it wasn't an ad for Microsoft, but rather was an ad for American Express, Tennis Shoes, weggie free undies for middle aged men etc.
The last one is my favorite at the moment.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Random, disconnected thoughts:
Were they anyone besides Jerry and Bill, these commercials would have disappeared without fuss after America collectively went "Huh?"
I heard a comic the other night say that humor was pain + time. Bill and Jerry probably have the necessary pain, Bill with the botched Vista release (regardless of what you think of the product) and Jerry, well, he lives in New York. But I think a better equation is that humor = pain + time + learning, and I think learning might be the key missing component, and the real reason the commercials fall flat.
I'm having a hard time believing that this ad campaign was just a misstep or a failed experiment. Microsoft has the best marketing talent money can buy, surely they could have done something better with this, had they anything to work with. Could we be seeing the sunset of two institutions? Microsoft, well, we already know that story, but I'm thinking that the world may be growing tired of Jerry as well. (I mean, "the bee movie"??)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
We know one thing for sure Bill Gates himself bought off on the idea. He would have never agreed to be in front of the camera if he didn't like the idea. So with Gates giving the thumbs up to the project everyone at Microsoft was scared shit-less to say it was a bad idea. So only after it was on the air and it was so obvouisly pointless could they remove it.
I know what Gatets was thinking too. I tried being on film once too. It was fun trying to act but then I saw the result. Man was it bad. After that I decided to work only in back of the camera. I do much better there. Likely Gates saw himself on TV and thought "OMG this is bad", just like I did. So they spent $10M on it. To him that's pocket change.
He did his routine, now it's time for the next comedy act.
I thought his routine was a stinker, but then again, he didn't have good material to work with.
Yeesh, no need for the ad hominem attacks - the guy had some legitimate concerns, namely about working "out of the box."
You shouldn't need to have to rely on a search engine when installing an OS and making the basics function (especially if it's something like network connectivity - can't do much searching on google if you can't connect to the internet)
I use ubuntu myself but by no means is it absolutely trivial to get everything set up the way you like, especially with more obscure hardware configurations
- Every time an update occurs, it takes more and more space on my hard disk, and the boot screen is filled with 100 versions of linux kernels.
This seems to happen on any OS. The 100 versions is an obvious exaggeration (unless you installed every kernel available and you're using 6.06LTS) Also, why are you selecting the kernel by hand instead of letting the boot process move forward? That's not very "it just works" of you.
- It took me one week to get my wifi card to work properly with wpa, with all the incomplete/outdated documentation available. Eventually, I found, by chance, a message on a forum.
- After a kernel update, my wifi card couldn't work anymore. My card is not an alien from another planet. It is a well-known card model.
Yeah, you're probably using 6.06LTS, 7.04 through 8.04.1LTS have all been great with broadcom cards (which are the worst wifi cards known to man, even on windows). Gnome does almost all of the work for you, even prompting you to use the restricted drivers. You still have to know your WPA passphrase; maybe that's where you needed forum help?
- So I went back to the older kernel. What happened? Nautilus didn't work anymore!
I have no answer for this one. What happens when I forcibly use an older NTOSKRNL on my winxp machine? No booty computey.
- A certain indexation service (I forgot its name) runs regularly. Then my computer does not respond anymore. It's a modern computer (AMD64 quad-core with 3 Gb of RAM).
Probably beagle; the bane of good sense. This one I'll agree with. Beagle must stop being auto-installed along with gnome; not everyone uses RAID5 with 3+ drives in their desktop (although I did, and I _still_ had to turn beagle off).
Guess that settles it. The defenders of these ads kept claiming "If the ad itself is being talked about, then it has been successful". (and apparently a few moderators agreed)
Apparently the people paying the bills don't agree. Getting slashdot to talk about Jerry Seinfeld isn't worth hundreds of thousands of dollars after all. Who knew?
And finally, updatedb can be disabled easily -- and even if it couldn't, newer Ubuntus come with a version that only does partial sweeps
By the way, does Linux have disk I/O prioritization like Vista does, and is it enabled by default?
For example, Vista indexing service also generates a LOT of disk I/O, but it runs with 'background' I/O priority, and the impact on the disk response time is not nearly as significant as running an add-on indexing service for WinXP.
Most add-on indexing services for XP (Google, Windows Desktop Search) will stop indexing if the user is using the keyboard/mouse for exactly that reason (no way to prioritize I/O).
throw new SuccessException("Sig read successfully");
Can someone explain how this was modded insightful?
I really hope someone got the axe for coming up with such an awful commercial and wasting all that money.
Bullshit.
Here here. Those are actually valid criticisms, with the exception of a kernel breaking Nautilus (this is either a red herring, or caused by some other secondary problem).
Wireless networking in Linux can be very spotty, and is sure a pain to set up. I've had no end of problems with a rtl8187-based wireless card. This isn't necessarily limited to Ubuntu per se though, I think part of problem is that some wireless cards do not have persistent firmware and need to be flashed with firmware on boot, and finding this firmware is a pain. Also, since Linux is still not even a blip on the radar for most consumer-level hardware manufacturers, most drivers end up being reverse-engineered, so it is a wonder they work as well as they do.
That being said, there are wireless cards that do work well in Linux. Uninstalling old kernels isn't done by default because newer versions may have driver issues as you found out. And you can always install xubuntu and/or kubuntu if you don't like the default set of services that runs with Ubuntu.
I've been trending towards the view that all OSes suck recently :-)
Today, I awoke in Bizarro Universe - I could tell because I found a path where the Gates/Seinfeld commercials make sense.
It seems like it's part of the *marketing* plan to prop up whatever MS is going to do with Vista - or its OS future in general - Bill Gates is going to return to head Microsoft. As the commercials suggest - and cater to the mass ignorance - Bill is a genius, knows design, knows what kids want, has connected a billion people - and the problem is he's retired and out of touch.
Once you solve out of touch, you can solve retired.
Further, future news releases have Balmer stepping down due to health reasons, in the best traditions of the Soviet.
Vista will equate to Non-person, its successor to Gates - the perennial hero, the everyman, the genius that no one can live without.
Bill wiggles and computer industry convulses in rebirth. Bill has the answers to the questions. We are in dire straights with his Jupiter-sized brain locked away in his moon-like mansion orbiting above Seattle - but he is about to come back down to earth and solve all.
I think the rest of my day is going to get worse, until I awake and discover it was all a bad dream - and as I awake I'll look out my bedroom window, I'll see it burrowing into the ridge behind my house and no one will believe me - until it is all too late.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
I like Windovvs Vista beckause it ise so easie to ckopie.
The add$ weren't really intended to $ell anything $o much a$ to $ubcon$ciou$ly change people$ feeling$ about Microsoft Corporation and the executive$ team. I never bothered to watch any of the add$, thankfully and have $pecifically avoided them.
There i$ thi$ really weird idea going on at Microsoft Corporation among$t ballmer and hi$ cronie$, that the only rea$on people di$like and don't want to u$e Vi$ta i$ becau$e they don't like Microsoft Corporation or ballmer. $o if they can alter people$ view of Microsoft Corporation and Ballmer, all of a $udden automagicaly people will love and want Vi$ta.
The executive$ at Microsoft Corporation ju$t can not accept they blew it with the late$t ver$ion$ of their O$ and Office $uite, they are really lo$t in their own little world, where they never make any mi$take$ and it i$ alway$ the cu$tomer$ fault. $o you end up with really $trange add$, you can;t really blame the add agency, they ju$t $old Microsoft Corporation and ballmer the only thing they were intere$ted in buying.
I suppose intelligent Ads are hard to sell ..
And I hear Seinfeld was huge here in Norway :-D We have similar humour.
Gizmondo - Rumor Crushed "In fact, Crispin Porter has another completed spot featuring the lovable, affluent couple in the can, ready to air (even though it won't quite yet). And while the agency has prioritized development to the anti-Mac ads, there are still full plans to go ahead and produce more Seinfeld/Gates spots unless Microsoft were to pull the plug first (which, once again, they have not at this time)." - Gizmondo
I beginning to believe this is a secret conspiracy to ruin Windows and benefit Apple. That's my only explanation for these ads and how completely crap Microsoft has become (even though they have the BEST and most popular OS out there - XP)
Instead of those pointless commercials they ran for Vista it probably would have been funnier if they had truly geeked out, having Seinfeld and Gates say take a tour of sci-fi movie sets, like go on the old Enterprise from the original Star Trek by Forrest Gumping them into old footage. Gates and Seinfeld could be sneaking around, Gates in a blue science tunic with really fake looking Vulcan ears and Jerry in red. Jerry:"Hey, why do I have to wear the red shirt? I know what happens to the guys wearing red shirts!" Gates:"Ssh!" and the trubolift doors open and they nervously sneak out onto the bridge and Gates could point out that old hooded viewer of Spock's on the bridge. Jerry:(whispering)"You know, I always wondered what he saw when he looked in that thing!" Gates:"Take a look." Jerry sidles over and peers in and sees the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death, "Uh, Houston we have a problem!" Gates looks in, sees the BSOD. "Oh no, they're still running Windows98!" and hits a button and there's the sound of MS reboot. Cut to a shot where the whole bridge crew turns to look in their direction. Gates and Seinfeld smile lamely and nervously and Gates says "Well it's not completely perfect, Hey nothing is. Besides they're still running Windows98." Stock shots of Nimoy raising an eyebrow in disapproval, Kirk doing the worried chin rub, Chekov and Sulu look at one another smiling, Uhura tweaking some buttons and hearing the AOL sound "You've got mail!" Gates:"Come on, we have to get to Engineering." One last trick matte shot of them exiting while we see the original cast in a wide shot as they leave. Of course they'd probably have had to pay through the nose for the rights to something like that, but it would have been far funnier and some self-effacement to acknowledge that Windows isn't perfect Cobble some stock shots of them in Engineering, Gates with a Vista box and Gates inserting an installer disk in the old Engineering monitor console. Jerry:"We're gonna get caught!" Gates:"Relax, it's an upgrade, they'll love it." Shot of the old engineering core, lights flicker, sputtering sounds, shot of Scotty looking alarmed or annoyed, then everything goes back to normal. Jerry scowls that they've almost been caught again. Gates:"Well this hardware is over 40 years old." Jerry:"So now what? We go install Vista on the Death Star too?" Gates:"Why would I do that? They're the bad guys." Jerry:"Oh yeah, right." Gates:"Besides, the Death Star is incompatible." Jerry:"Incompatible?" Gates:"It runs on an old Macintosh." Jerry:"Oooh!" Vista logo, fade to black. Of course I'd rather see Apple do this commercial the other way round. Or Ubuntu frankly, I'm just saying what would be funnier.
They should get the guy that did the Enron Metal Man ad. That totally made sense and sold things.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I only hope that i would have been partner in that advertisement company. 300 million dollars pure money with a cost of less than 200 000 excluding Seinfeld reward.
Had to go to youtube to see the two ads...they are so bad that slashdot is doing them a huge favor to even have a story about them. What's wrong?
1) Too long
2) Nonsensical
3) Weird
4) Patronizing
5) Boring
6) Confusing
It's hard to believe that a major corporation like Microsoft could produce these...what a waste of money. Even harder to believe that these ever were released...is everyone at Microsoft a clueless moron?
According to their sources, these commercials are still a go.
It is a solemn thought: dead, the noblest man's meat is inferior to pork.
The ads were not funny and made no sense, yeah pretty much sums up Vista.
Sounds like they're replacing Seinfeld with Pee-wee Herman: "I meant to do that."
I'm glad the ads are down.(If they are down) The Gates/Seinfeld ads reminded me too much of the Enron "Why" ads.
YIA
Microsoft partnered with the much cooler IBM, and that was all it took to have an OS monopoly.
These ads are all about Gates partnering with Seinfeld. The secret is in the partnership. Gates plays dumb while Jerry tolerates his presence.
What better way to spell out Microsoft's strategy for success than that?
Hasan
Wait till you see Steve Ballmer hanging out with Gilbert Gottfried.
While I disagree with the "crap" assessment (see Hoi Polloi's comment just above), I will say that Gilbert Gottfried does a hilarious, spot-on Seinfeld impression. If you enjoy impressions, that's a good one to check out. I remember he did it on Penn Jillette's short-lived radio show a couple years ago, and you'd have sworn that Jerry Seinfeld was actually there in the studio. The voice, as much as the content, was right on.
Guess that also goes to show the Gilbert's grating, supremely annoying "stage" voice is really just that. A stage voice. I wonder what he sounds like in private? He's been remarkably good at always using the stage voice in public situations.
Windows users are cranky like that.
How can you not get Seinfeld and get The Larry Sanders Show? They both had the same concept entirely, only one had stronger language and a lot of big(and not so big)-name cameos.
Both shows are about characters who are so deeply flawed that they're completely unable to consider anyone else but themselves. That's what makes them both so hilarious.
Did any one notice the comment "which was expected". The ads were intended to be bad. It was Microsoft's attempt at "Cocaine Style Marketing"; which worked. They have recieved plenty of press over the ads. No press is bad press. Trust me, I know :)
Jamey Kirby
"Yes, me. Me, me, me, me."
"Me too."
It's all about you, isn't it, Twitter? You are the great defender of Free Software. You are so important to the movement that a company large enough to rent a baseball stadium for their annual corporate meeting has targeted you. You think the rest of us are so stupid that we can't figure out your sockpuppets, or your double standards, or your self-contradictions. (Or your AC posts, Mr. Every Third Title Says "X Is Like That".)
Yes, you. You, you, you, you.
Have I given you enough attention, or should I continue?
You should know twitter! Next time you want to do something useful stand out in the middle of a road until a truck runs you over.
For those that don't get the joke, South Park: Season 2, Episode 18
I'm actually tempted to go with centos, I installed it for some server stuff at work.
It's a bit bloated (3gb dvd iso for everything)
but, it runs smooth under 512, where ubuntu can, but after a while will choke the system. I ran ubuntu for a day and noticed that the indexing service kept running at random, or whenever I deleted a bunch of files or added a bunch.
Centos? runs without any of that shit.
I might be willing to accept redhat again after all these years..
You shouldn't need to have to rely on a search engine when installing an OS and making the basics function
Yet another case where Windows is no better -- ever try to install Windows on even moderately unusual hardware? (Consider that just about all hardware made in the last two years is "unusual" to Windows XP.)
I use ubuntu myself but by no means is it absolutely trivial to get everything set up the way you like
I'll agree with that -- but then, it's far more difficult for me to get things set up the way I like on other OSes. I'm on a Mac at the moment, due to the untimely death (or grave injury) of my work laptop, and I've got to tell you -- it's really easy to get things set up the way Steve Jobs likes. It's hard to get things set up the way I like.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I frankly don't give a fuk.
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.
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I have Vista right now on my laptop. Works great! It did ask "ARE YOU SURE YOU WISH TO DO THIS?" at one point, but I turned this annoying thing off.
So I have the LATEST version of Win2000. And it works great on my (gasp!) ONE GIG! of memory. "They" recommend TWo gig, but for some strange reason, I still have 200meg free with all these apps open.. LOL!
And oddly, it looks just like Win2000. I turned off all that blue-bubblegum crap.
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AND! I have support for the next 5 or so years!
So whats the problem?
Ohhhh... Poooor li'l Linux weenies... (sigh)
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- Aaron A. -
Bringing Pinoqachole to the natives since 1643.
I didn't say I didn't GET Seinfeld. I said I didn't get why it was such a big deal.
And I think the reason I much preferred Larry was the sundry characters were better (Paula in particular), and the show, due to where it aired, was more adult and realistic.
Ah yes, I forgot. I work for Microsoft and I'm supposed to feel awed by your dumb journal droppings. Yes.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
So Microsoft's new slogan is "Windows: Life Without Walls" ... which curiously seems to be derived from the common hacker sig around these parts, "In a world without fences and walls, who needs gates and windows?"
Perhaps it's time to start a grassroots Internet campaign for free software: "In a life without walls, who needs Windows?"
They should make one more Jerry & Bill ad. They continue walking down the street with their luggage, then cut to a new scene where they're sitting out behind 7-11 smoking a joint and eating doritos. Jerry takes a drag on the joint, turns to Bill and says, "Awww man, this is good stuff. Is this the stuff you guys were smoking when you made Vista? Gimme a sign if it's true -- munch a whole bunch of doritos at once!" Bill reaches into the bag, grabs a handfull of doritos and stuffs them all in his mouth.
By the way, does Linux have disk I/O prioritization like Vista does, and is it enabled by default?
Without even Googling, the answer is very likely yes, and no.
That is: Yes, Linux probably has disk IO prioritization, in some patches -- although it seems to have focused more on providing a saner disk IO scheduler out of the box.
And no, I doubt it's enabled by default on the source from kernel.org. But that's a nonsensical question -- there is no one "Linux". Any distro worth its salt is building its own kernel, probably patching it quite a bit. So, a better question would be "is it enabled on Ubuntu by default?"
For example, Vista indexing service also generates a LOT of disk I/O
Why does it do this?
OS X seems to be the first one to have really gotten this right, with Spotlight -- rather than trying to index the entire disk over some arbitrary interval, it simply watches the disk for changes, and updates the index in realtime.
I'm not sure how well this is supported by the various Linux desktop searches -- we have inotify and friends, but I don't know how well that scales. I'm really not sure why Ubuntu includes locate at all, as I know of no locate command that's quite this intelligent.
But it seems to me like, even if Windows has an edge here, it's doing things entirely the wrong way.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
This is some insightful video commentary on the whole Windows market share issue:
YouTube
It's not a rickroll, I promise. Think about that the next time you've said "we're a Windows shop" and the sound is still ringing in your ears.
Help stamp out iliturcy.