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What If There Was a Microsoft Appreciation Day?
theodp writes "In 2005, Microsoft came under fire after withdrawing support for an anti-gay-discrimination bill. 'I don't want the company to be in the position of appearing to dismiss the deeply-held beliefs of any employee, by picking sides on social policy issues,' explained CEO Steve Ballmer. That was then. Microsoft — like Google and Amazon — has since very publicly declared its support for gay-marriage legislation, which means it — unlike Chick-fil-A — needn't worry about the 'deeply-held beliefs of any employee' causing it to be blocked from doing business by the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco. I guess we'll never know what Microsoft versions of 'Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day' or 'National Same-Sex Kiss Day' would have looked like."
Other than just trying to rile up commentators? Clickbait much?
What if Microsoft is pew pew along the lines of magazine? I'm a 1990's nerd.
I'm not even sure what this post is about or why it is something that matters.
I imagine there will be a troll fest coming in 3... 2...
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Is this just an excuse to have a Chick-Fil-A discussion? Because there sure isn't much news to be seen.
I love satire.
In space no-one can hear your vuvuzela.
I'm sorry.. wait, what was the purpose of this article?
Just because, that is how many people would appreciate it.
This is a non-story, which isn't "News for Nerds" or "Stuff that matters".
Soulskill: This article is bad and you should feel bad.
Such a day would be a holiday.
Holiday is derived from 'Holy Day'.
A 'Holy Day' has the assumption of a divine being.
A diving being couldn't make GNU/Hurd into a usable operating system.
RMS has developing GNU/Hurd since 1984.
1984 is symbolic of Big Brother and a panopticon society.
RMS is an atheist, also an advocate of privacy and freedom.
Clearly a single day to venerate a corporation runs counter to Slashdot's core beliefs.
how much $$$ did /. receive to remove it?
If we could look at this with the same objectivity through which we see Father's Day and Mother's Day, perhaps we could have two; one for each gender. I'm pretty sure I'd celebrate one of them by staying home though.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
eh slashdot?
This is the first time I've seen a blatant troll as a topic at slashdot.
Shark duly jumped (yawn).
Appreciate Microsoft? No way, no matter who or what they support or don't support.
I tolerate the stuff they produce, but I don't like it.
What If There Was an End to All These Silly Interrogatory Posts at Slashdot?
If there was a Microsoft Appreciation day, Bill Gates and Steve Balmer would get a free meal ticket to the cafe at work.
...that most IT companies have led the way on gay rights.
OK, Microsoft was a little slower than a few off the blocks, but in general I think that IT corporations should be proud of their lead in this issue, and MS should be applauded for being among them.
Still won't stop me loading up Linux instead though...
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
... because they don't know what the software market was like before them.
A good CAD setup including workstation and licenses could be $100K. A mainframe to handle your accounting could be $6000 per month.
Personal computing - IBM, Microsoft, and Apple - demolished the old model which was low volume, buggy software at high prices. I have no illusions about their intentions, they've made more money than any emperor. But I do appreciate what they created.
What if there were a black yachting regatta?
I'm not entirely sure what the point of this story is, but afaict, Microsoft, like most large firms, has always taken the most boring possible position on any political issue that doesn't directly affect their bottom line. Their two driving factors are: 1) appeal to likely employees, who are generally urban, young, and moderate social liberals; while 2) not pissing everyone else off too much. Both their 2005 and 2012 actions are consistent with that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I applaud them for NOT choosing sides. I wish ALL companies would do the same. Politics should be done by people, not by companies.
Unfortunately they and many other companies still buy influence by using lobbyists.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
What if Slashdot just stuck to posting actual news stories instead of speculatory flamebait?
just like the idiotic shills and crap "help" articles they pay to have propagate the web.
Let's all buy additional licenses for Windows and Office to show our financial support to Microsoft!
I didn't know computers before Apple, IBM, or Microsoft. Hell, I didn't even exist. The companies that brought us change though were these companies. There were other personal computers that came before. It might have taken a little longer to get some applications although I have found it to be well worth the wait. I'd rather have freedom and contribute to that freedom than be a slave to these companies or predecessors.
ThinkPenguin.com's doing a lot of good. I can't say I have much respect for any other company though. They all suck and I certainly don't appreciate them.
Only if it coincided with Opposite Day.
I don't consider it real progress that some companies come out in support of gay marriage, while others are against it. I go to Pride, but I wish we didn't have it. Real progress will be when it ceases to matter whether or not you're gay; When it's as natural as not being gay.
It's like black history month. I don't support that either. People call me racist for it, but I don't. There is no black history month; Black history is American history. It's human history. And their accomplishments should be celebrated the same way as every other historical accomplishment is. We don't need a "special olympics" history for people based on the color of their skin, we need to delete those divisions from our history books, mentioning only that there was a period of time (known as the Stupid Ages) when it was relevant, and then we grew up and put a stop to it. Ta-da, the end.
It'll be progress with companies like Chic-Fil A say they don't support gay marriage or homosexuality, and gets no press coverage at all. Like, wait, what? Why the fuck does anyone care what a fast food restaurant owner thinks about a perfectly natural state of being? That'd be like Ford Motor Co., coming out and saying they're against red heads marrying. It would go on the back pages, in the "News of the Weird" section.
That's where shit like this belongs, and until that's where it ends up and people pay it no more attention than as a source of fringe humor and entertainment when companies make announcements like this, we're still in the Stupid Ages of our future history books.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
... because they don't know how he stopped Hitler from winning World War II.
You must be new here.
Dilbert RSS feed
It's a joke... right?
I ate and or bought chick-fil-a for others every single day this week and will continue.
Now before anyone goes hating on me know this.
1. I donate large sums of money to GLBT causes every year and have nothing against gay marriage.
2. I am not religious.
3. I believe in evolution not creationism.
4. I am a hard core right wing Republican.
All that being said, I am extremely pro private business and that value far outweighs anyones little pissing match with the management of chick-fil-a.
Got Code?
I though that was clear by now...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Seriously.
Why is it that there's this need to "celebrate" the idea that some people are intrinsically worth less than others?
If you're born on that side of an arbitrary line, you're a great guy, if you're born on the other side, you're a piece of scum who deserves to die a painful death.
If you happen to have a different skin pigment than the other people, you're filth and less evolved.
If you believe that this myth is reality you're an idiot, but believing that myth makes you a saint.
If you're this gender and not that one, then you shouldn't do this or that.
Etc. etc. etc. It's all idiocy and lunacy.
Yes, for some reason, there seems to be this constant push to celebrate intolerance.
I think we should just kill all the intolerant people and enjoy a much saner world.
For one to truly be against intolerance, they would have to be tolerant of those who are intolerant. To NOT tolerate those who are intolerant - IS intolerance.
Chic-Fil-A is a private company serving the interests of a private owner. Microsoft soft is a publicly held company which primarily exists to serve the interests of their shareholders.
The same sex marriage debate is divisive and there are strong beliefs on both sides. Does a public company exist to sell a product and provide a profit to its shareholders, or help enact social change even if it means the cost of business? Even if it hurts shareholders?
It simply does not make sense to take sides on a on a highly divisive social issue.
In Chic-Fil-A's case, Rahm Emmanuel shot his mouth off saying "Their values are not our values" and supported his alderman's postion to stop Chic--Fil-A from building a restaurant based on Chic Fil A's president stance on opposing same sex marriage. Which subsequently led to the anti-boycott and Chic-Fil-A's single biggest sales day in the history of the company Aug 1
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Their chicken is super delicious. Maybe being anti-gay marriage makes things delicious. I'm not a scientist, so I don't know, but I intend to eat more anti-gay marriage stuff to find out.
I will support any MS appreciation day that includes AoE II in its celebrations.
Anyone remember when /. used to be good?
...and nobody came?
The best thing that MS could do for the world is get out of the OS Business. Their craptastic software is behind the vast wasteland of "cyberspace " nonsense. The open source community OS are more secure "out of the box " than this Multi-billion dollar fiasco. Seriously. Everyone who has ever been hacked based on LM hash compromises, pass -the -hash, XP _CMD, ms08 -067, activex, local DLL, or thousands of similar ridiculous implementation errors should sue for every penny of damage and cost incurred trying to protect their software. We're wasting trillions due to the EPIC failure that is MS OS security.
I don't see the problem here.
If people were indeed massively pirating commercial software, Bill is right.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
...and nobody came?
During the Cold War, MAD stood for Mutually Assured Destruction.
We could all wear bright blue t-shirts.
If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't.
Just when you think Slashdot can't get any lower they somehow manage to drain a little more out of the pool. Worst. Article. Ever.
The old CEO, Mr. Gates, is a much better man then I once thought of him. Microsoft's operating system did get better... in fact it was finally worth its price! It is a shame though... the decided to do a power grab with a BIOS mod. It becomes laughable when they tried to push Windows 8 on us with so much bad news. They might have had a chance with Windows 7.
I find humor in the fact that game companies are now looking hard at Linux. As Microsoft shovels two healthy spades of dirt upon their own grave I know there is a good chance the next motherboard I buy might cost me a couple hundred dollars and wont run Windows, but in truth I really don't care. Linux has long made a better workstation, and there are games on the way! Sony will produce a better console for playing games, and maybe I should bother gaming on my workstation. The only two games I play anymore are EQ2 and Diablo 3, so I'm halfway there already.
I thank Microsoft for being pragmatic about such hot button issues that only fools invest so much passion in. Don't get me wrong my gay friends. I hate tyranny as much as you do, but "marriage" is a silly stupid word that can never eclipse true love. Those who cling to the word "marriage" like it was some God given right to a man and woman are often found forsaking their vows as they bed others. It is a worthless word unless there is love, commitment and truth behind it. There is no love, commitment to their fellow man or so much as a stick of truth behind denying that all people should have the same rights.
So, in a time where you can seem to do nothing right, thank you Microsoft... thank you for being just a hair less daft.
should not be allowed to publicly support or endorse any social policies without a shareholder vote.
Chick-Fil-A is not a public company, they should be able to do whatever the fuck they want with their money. But hey, I think any companies should be able to hire/fire whoever they want as long as they publicly "opt out" of the equal opportunity / anti-discrimination crap.
People bash Microsoft because Microsoft used its monopoly to force Windows down the throats of people who did not want it.
People bash Microsoft because it dumped MSIE into the market until Netscape died, then let MSIE stagnate for an eternity. Also, because MSIE had awful standars compliance and, because it was dominant, alternative browser makers had to emulate its infinite bugs, which took many years to achieve.
People bash Microsoft because of the Halloween Documents.
And, what would happen without Microsoft? Likely, open source would be far more prevalent than it is today.
Now, I agree that Apple has become worse than Microsoft. This suggests that if a company gets too big, it will probably become Microsoft-style harmful. And if Microsoft shrinks, and can become good.
But saying that Microsoft was a benefactor? Oh please.
Ballmer Pinatas? If so, count me in.
Poor Microsoft, so misunderstood. If someone would just give MS a girlfriend...
Which the links don't exactly seem to be talking about, there would be riots, fire bombing, and probably at least some sysadmins would be committing ritual suicide.
The other 80-90% of the population would be ignorantly happy.
"You are more alone than Ballmer in Microsoft Apreciation Day"
I'm out of troll points. So here's my reply.
I appreciate MS for all the hours of work they provided me. They are very good for economy. I hated them every day.
Back in 1995. My dream was to work at MS campus. I hate them everyday since.
I stubbornly tried not to hate them for many years. Justifying that my job relied on, directly or indirictly, Ms products.
I choose to run a MS-free life today as much as possible - yes you'r patches are welcome but despite i'll hate you the same as i do oracle or apple. I don't trust either of them. That includes goggle yet mickey is a magnitude more worse.
RMS is right. It's not about the freedom you choose. It's about the freedom 'they' will let you. i refuse to spend 1 byte of programming in an insane environment. i refuse to waste my time on something that shouldnt be waisted but just a matter of 'find the right way please'.
MS development equals occupational therapy. There's no sane 'best approach' pragma in their concepts. If any, its more work, not less, so we create jobs for more coders.
One way, i'm fine with that. 'Digital era good for economy' 'In land of blind, one-eye is king'.
But. they do obstruct and sabotage sane solutions, protocols, standards. MS sabotages anything. because they dont care digital age. They only care profit.
It's not because they made inferior yet popular operating system that i hate them. It's their policy and their visions. Modern slaverly. And you'll be a brave humble certified slave worker. That's why i hate them. Because they mix some insane politics, bad movies pale, with 'technological development'.
I'd almost bought an xbox. for fun. And i happily run OS for many years now. MS. I give you all advantages of the doubt a human would imagine possible. But you are traitors to technology. There's no advance. There's only disadvance. There's no curing digibetism. It's training idiocracy.
Posting anymous nevertheless hope you don't mind. Uncut. Soz for types. Was a bit moody.
MAD, I say.
If there were a Microsoft Appreciation Day, I'm sure it would have quite a few corporate sponsors. All of the anti-virus, anti-malware, third-party firewall vendors would be happy to sponsor it along with all of the other companies who's business model depends on patching up holes and vulnerabilities in various versions of Windows. After all, if it weren't for Microsoft, they wouldn't be in business.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I declare Sept 31 to be Microsoft Appreciation Day!
They bring back the Trackball explorer line and not a moment before.
Dear US Government I hate Americans as much as you do. So let me say
Thank you:
for shooting rubber bullets and sending attack dogs after protestors
for incarcerating millions of Americans over petty things like Marijuana,
for maintainig secret databases on Americans and wiretapping their phones,
for tsa genital massage and fullbody xrays
for homeland securty checkpoints
for nofly lists
for regulating small businesses out of existence
for gun control
for forcing fluoride into their water supplies
for mandatory health insurance
for gifting trillions in dollars ("bailouts" ) to banks that are too busy foreclosing Americans out of their homes to say Why thank you sucker,
for the IRS
for all your wars and every civilian you killed
for New Orleans and shooting at those trying to leave this calamity,
for killing women and children "insurgents" all over the globe with drones
for every unemployed American whose job was moved to China and India using the tax dollar to do it too
for election fraud and "recounts"
for aspartame, msg and carcinogenic food additives
for not requiring gmo "foods" to be labeled
for raiding marijuana dispensaries despite state laws that make them legal
for the trillions spent on black projects
for exempting big pharma from all lawsuits over the harm caused by vaccines
for floating the myth that federal law preempts state law when the opposite is true
for prosecuting those who dare tell jurors about jury nullification of laws
for literally inviting millions of illegals to come here to live on welfare
for fining old ladies until they lose their homes because they grew tomatoes in their front yards
for ripping up and destroying those same vegetable gardens
for selling roads and bridges built on American tax dollars to foreign corporations
for hiv drug experimentation on foster children
for the deadly pesticides permitted on american crops long outlawed elsewhere
for prosecuting those who sell raw milk
for all the dirty lies you spew forth and all the
hundreds and thousands of other things you do
we dont even know about.
Thank you we really appreciate everything you do.
s/Thank/Fuck/g
The Chik-fil-A song by Anonymous Coward (after Sammy Cahn):
Oh, you can eat here on a Monday, a Monday, a Monday is very very good.
Or you can eat here on a Tuesday, a Tuesday, a Tuesday, in fact we wish you would.
Or you can eat here on a Wednesday, a Thursday, a Friday and Saturday is best.
But never, never on a Sunday, a Sunday, a Sunday, cause that's God's day of rest.
Oh, you can take out on a Cool day, a hot day, a wet day Whichever one you choose.
Or try to take out on a gray day A May day, a pay day And see if we refuse.
And if you make it on a bleak day A freak day, a weekday Well, you can be my guest.
But never ever on a Sunday A Sunday, the one day God makes us take a rest.
What if we just dubbed it "Appreciate shit paper day" and made it sound like it's praising the real products m$ provides?
After all corporations are people, they need love too, lets give them an appreciation day.
IMHO, your answer misses parents point. The world without MS would be equal or better. MS copies a lot of code, Mac OS was better than Windows earlier, and to pretend MIcrosoft brought some special sauce to the market, is to ignore their many many failures since.
There is no MS special sauce, they're just a corp, badly run, bloated, milking a dying market.
Microsoft has been bending customers over for decades, why wouldn't they support gay marriage?
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Nothing.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
We need a way MS people could identify each other
That's pretty easy, you just look for a Windows Phone. Those new candy colored Lumias make it especially easy to spot.
Clearly all the Christians and others opposed to homosexuality and same sex marriage should run Linux.
I hear there is a distribution called Jesux that comes pre-installed with the full text of the bible, and biblical quotes upon login rather than all those satanic quotes from that evil program 'fortune' which of course is the devil's witchcraft.
Obviously Moslems should make their own distribution and call it Islamex or something.
No BSD of course because it's logo is clearly Satan, and we all know BSD stands for things I cannot speak of due to their evil nature.
We need to alert all the churches and other houses of worship of this, so they can convert all their systems.
Anonymous because we're under a gag order. Microsoft sued our school because we "didn't have the right licenses". The thing was we purchased everythign as an educational institution, so we figured the vendor had that figured out. Needless to say we're now buying Apple products, but we lost a lot of money which directly impacted our ability to provide a rich education to our students. And we're not the only school this has happened to, but MS uses gag orders to prevent it from being widely known.
Maybe if we had more gay kids MS wouldn't have screwed us. Microsoft: loves gays, hates kids?
"Gay marriage" is an oxymoronic obfuscation lauded by many.
"be fruitful and multiply" is simply a misinterpretation practiced by a few.
see the difference?
i didn't think you would..
Orwell was writing a prophetic warning, not a manual.
... to get someone to appreciate Steve Ballmer, and his flying chair
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
... because they don't know what the software market was like before them.
Yes we do, because we were using UNIX in those days. And before then, cheap systems like Atari and Amiga,
And then while Microsoft grew we were using things like UNIX or Linux or OS2.
And we watched as Microsoft used share in the market and FUD the likes of which the world had never seen to curb stomp competitors.
I don't hold much ill will against Microsoft these days, indeed I even support them in some efforts - but none of us should EVER be deluded that the computer industry as a whole did not lose a decade of real advancement to the ravening beast that WAS Microsoft.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If there WERE a Microsoft appreciation day, we would no longer have to use the subjunctive mood when referring to it, since we would no longer be describing a wishful or fanciful situation contrary to fact. Asking "What if there WAS a Microsoft appreciation day?" questions whether such a day occurred at some point in the past -- this is not what the poster meant to ask.
you mean there are /. readers who havent heard of adblock+?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
People bash Microsoft because their products aren't free.
It would require something like a Vogon Poetry Appreciation Chair...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
No
What if there were a Microsoft Appreciation Day, dammit!
... is the microsoft depreciation day. Or is that all the other days?
You know, the church that just denied an interracial marriage. Since you seem to engage in asshattery for the sake of asshattery, this would be right up your alley....
Your point?
Battle of the 4-digit UID's! Everyone else take a step back!
The time for civil rights and equality is always "now". The time for putting them off to appease the tender sensibilities of bigoted fucksticks is "never".
If you are actually gay, you know perfectly well that we're several generations away from that point. So shouting down any group (jews, blacks, gays) wanting to take pride in it's existence after recent or ongoing persecution makes less sense than finding Chewie on Endor.
Okay, I'm going to ignore what appears to be a fucktard that can't match a title to story content in order to suggest a National Day of Mourning in response to the idea of a Microsoft Appreciate Day.
My reasoning is that if there were such a thing as a Microsoft Appreciation Day (an event which would cause my immediate desire to either move out of the country or set myself on fire) then there needs to be a National Day of Mourning for all of the sorry bastards who have any version of the Microsoft virus installed on their computer.
FTFY
5k max and that includeds (Autocad or Microstation) the software and dual monitors
Sure it's wonderful when they happen to choose the side that you are on. But what about when they don't? No, it's not the place of some corporate CEO to decide the fate of your sexuality or how your tax dollars are spent. Let them focus on making great products. The moment they take their eye off that prize the products and consumers will suffer.
Corporations do whatever the management want, if there are shareholders, they can do plenty before enough shareholders push their weight around. Corporations can take sides on any issue they want in almost any way they want and do it with a HUGE voice. If they do not mind a minor decrease in earnings they can ignore boycotts, especially if they sell common goods everybody buys they are basically untouchable. Private companies can do just about anything. If any break laws they are not subject to punishments like a human--- that is, if they even are convicted of something in the 1st place... which is far less likely as well.
Legal marriage should never have been called marriage because too many stupid people can't tell the differences between legal definitions and traditional/religious ones.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
What is the most innovative way for humans to live a happy life and at the same time, peacefully reduce population from 7 Billion people. The Educated knows that WAR reduces profitability for companies and corporations. And, WAR is probably the worst way to reduce population.
Of all the words written about the controversy and boycott, on each side, this single essay says it the best and most clearly IMHO.
Written by a gay Christian, it's respectful, yet passionate; personal, yet relatable and approachable.
Don't be put off by the cheeky headline, the actual text of the article is serious and very well written. A "must read" if you haven't seen it make the rounds on Twitter or Facebook already:
http://www.owldolatrous.com/?p=288
- Spryguy
There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
The Los Angeles United Union of Fudge Packers Local 232 meets tonight. Blue Oyster Club on Osbourne Ave. All night.
This is false and you know it.
If Microsoft simply provided proprietary products, we could simply ignore them.
The problem is that they manipulate the market in unethical ways.