Slashdot Mirror
MSFT Reaches Out To Hackers: 'Do Epic $#!+'
hessian writes "Microsoft isn't exactly known for its underground hacker culture, but a recent effort to give its employees more slack is generating some wild experiments. Last summer, Microsoft completed a redesign of one of its original buildings on campus — Building 4, where Bill Gates' office used to be — into a laid-back workshop where staff can tinker with things. It's open to anyone, anytime, and it's got everything from a hardware workshop to an actual working garage door. If it doesn't sound to you like something Microsoft would normally do , the Garage's motto will really shock you: 'Do epic s--t.'"
If Microsoft doesn't bleep out the 'shit', but Slashdot does (in two different ways?), does this mean MSFT is "hipper" than /. now?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"...as long as it doesn't threaten our bottom line."
And MS is still following Google in a way. Google didn't build on-campus but they signed up with Tech Shop a while back.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Epic $#!+ can't come out of sitting in "Building 4, where Bill Gates' office used to be ..." and pretending it's hacker's garage.
you need a real garage, with real hackers in it, don't think Microsoft's engineers will do the trick.
Really ? the word is censored both times in TFS and even the image itself is blurred in TFA.
Are we really so prude and puritan as a culture that we can't even bring ourselves to write "SHIT" ?
This goes beyond political correctness - it's frankly ridiculous.
Angelina "Acid Burn" Jolie and Matthew "Cereal Killer" Lillard will be stopping by.
I think its totally appropriate. It shows the PR campaign is completely watered down and most likely so is the actual project, assuming there is any project other than the PR campaign.
Now if it were real, instead of a PR stunt, then it would be inappropriate.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
when a company tries to exploit a culture that isn't truly core to them. That 1337 5P34K motto sounds so incredibly phony it's pathetic.
Microsoft, here's a hint for you: 133T 5P34K stopped being cool 10 years ago.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Haven't heard of much else from Microsoft Garage than Mouse Without Borders. Does anyone have any other examples?
First, there needs to be a company culture in which people dare to take time to play in a facility like that.
Second, there needs to be an outside chance that the epic "s--t" will actually see the light of day and not be stomped on by Steve Ballmer because it doesn't run Windows.
Third, there needs to be infrastructure. One MS manager I know tried to order a bookshelf to store technical references for the group's use. The request was denied because the bookshelf wasn't a standard item. What happens when a hacker orders something random?
Fourth, for people who aren't pure hackers but have some self-interest, there needs to be some believable financial benefit to developing something cool
Without all that, this idea is sheer cargo cult.
...too late.
I'd rather avoid epic shits anyway. Epic blurs sound interesting though.
Wow! How much more epic can one company get?
You can't handle the truth.
Maynard won't be there, unfortunately - he's stuck on some uncharted desert isle.
#DeleteChrome
If you look at the picture in the f-----g article, you can see that that `shit' is very obviously present under the poor blur, and can conclude with reasonable confidence that it was CNN changed it.
Whoah! Microsoft! You baddasses really gone hack up the future!
I foresee an AWESOME sea change coming!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"Microsoft isn't exactly known for its underground hacker culture,..."
..but it is well-known for being hacked. And considering their lateral (Lin/Mac) competition, they already have epic viruses and malware. But here's a suggestion anyway: Hack 8 into something between XP and $even. And stay away from the COFEE
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
I'd rather avoid epic shits anyway.
Then I'd better flush now (and blame the Chinese food I had for dinner last night).
Why the "but", 437?
Not a fan of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series I bet.
...if they were actually using leetspeak. Hint: the motto is "Do epic shit.", not "Do epic $#!+"
FC Closer
It's not censored in the pictures of the slogan that neowin has or SCM Magazine.
It wasn't that hard to search for either. However it was probably harder than the knee jerk reaction shown above.
The problem is not that MSFT employees don't have good ideas; the problem is that management kills them (the ideas that is).
A lot of semi-automated online venues have filters that force out the real spellings of the bad words, either like the dashes, or maybe even denying the post in the first place.
You're right about one sense, you go "Here's call of Duty 4, shoot to kill as many people as you can. Over here, is the word shit that we can't bear to actually see spelled."
Jesus christ, people. MS does something halfway cool, and all you can do is moan about it.
I liked the line in the original article:
one Microsoft Office developer is currently working in the Garage on a tool allowing people to make mobile payments with just their bodies.
I think this already goes on all over the world.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/housewife-charged-in-sexforsecurity-scam,1773/
Ya, "me too" with the skunkworks.
We shall see if it produces anything, or if in 5 years we read about all kinds of ideas that Microsoft declared ownership over, then shelved, from bitching employees who left in disgust.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"I wanna hook it up to my wireless Metro phone and open and close it and turn on the lights!"
"We must let the lawyers give it the once over."
(eight months later)
"Our lawyers have decided the risk is too great for you to even try it. Also, we no longer produce Metro OS for phones. If you mention your idea, you will be in violation of our NDA."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Not worth it. You could get the chair for that.
Have gnu, will travel.
Patient Epic $#!+
Have to post anonymously for this one, as it's about my current workplace...
I work for an IT service provider that services a very staid, boring, stick-in-the-mud industry. The company has been around since the 50s, is multinational, and has a very management-heavy, bureaucracy-laden culture. Our engineering teams (including the one I'm on) are pretty much allowed to operate around this whole mess because we build their products and services. And the industry we serve is concerned with reliable, always-on service ONLY, nothing else. As Engineering, we give that to them with a minimum of fuss, often completely end-running the layers of bureaucracy to make sure things stay alive.
All of a sudden last year, the company brought in the usual suspects from the management consultant universe, who suggested a radical culture shift. One of the other division offices (not ours)got gutted and turned into a clone of the Google office pictures that have leaked to the web. All the fun happy stuff from the Hipster Twentysomething Web 2.0 Culture Checklist is there -- no offices, hot desking, open floor plan, beanbag chairs, large common areas, and a cutesy color scheme and design pattern reflecting our company's core customers' business.
The problem is that nothing else has changed. People are still stuck in the same mindset, but now they're sitting in beanbag chairs doing it or trying to be heard over the noise of their colleagues in one of these open-area offices. I'm actually one of those people who prefers a private office or cube with enough quiet to be able to work, so I'm glad our office didn't get transformed (yet.)
So, Microsoft can change anything they want, but it won't bring back the hacker culture and 90s startup feel unless they start actively cultivating that mindset. As far as I can tell, it's too late for that -- there's way too much at stake to make radical changes. I'm betting that SP1 of Windows 8 will let businesses remove the Metro (or whatever it is now) interface, just to keep the status quo going.
I think that once a company gets established, there's no easy way to bring it back to startup mode. I'm not even sure that's the right thing to do. For example. I'm older now (late 30s) and lack the desire to work 90-hour weeks for a company, just because I have a life -- married with children and all that. Almost everyone else my age who is still in the startup, 90-hour, gotta-do-this-for-the-team crowd is divorced, headed that way or permanently single, and has nothing going on outside of work. I work hard, but something really has to be on fire that no one else can fix if any employer expects tons of extra work. I work hard already keeping my skills sharp outside of work so I don't end up unemployed... The problem is companies don't understand that people who aren't just out of school have a lot of good experience, so I don't know if the relentless focus on startup culture is a good solution.
Microsofts problem is not that they cant come up with new stuff. Their biggest problem seems to be surfacing the second the upper management gets their hands on something and it gets killed in corporate politics and infighting. Microsoft has probably had ten, nay twenty people who has come up with something very close to both Android and iPhone, and Windows Phone was probably not that bad to start with. But, as soon as management got their hands on it it turned to crap.
Just as Microsoft Research, this unit is all about PR and will not get the chance to make anything. Any product they manage to come up with will die the death of a thousand PHB.
HTTP/1.1 400
Really. How about this:
http://www.securelist.com/en/weblog?calendar=2007-04%5D
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Sounds like a good investment.
A giant mech warrior that throws chairs and can rip cars in half would be epic. A stress indicator butterfly? Not so much.
OTOH it might help protect the microsofties from Ballmer if they could get him to wear one.
Yeah. This will fail as long as the postfix is always "...as long as it doesn't threaten Windows or Office, natch." They *had* something epic with the Courier...and they killed it. I don't see this state of affairs changing anytime soon.
Epic. Shit. Sounds like Vista all over again.
Because in this instance, it is not about being prude or politically correct. It is because as other people have pointed out, it's more "hip and "kickin" to use a curseword and censor it, particularly masking it with fake "L33T" characters.
If anybody involved in writing the article or submitting it to slashdot actually cared about "keeping those evil, satanic cursewords from the eyes of the children" they would have simply written it to not include them in the first place.
Also, retarded lameness filter is retarded. Here's sme more random crap to make this post go through...
I guess the Office2007 ribbon is a great example of epic shit from Microsoft. Sounds like there's more to come.
-- INTERNAL MEMO --
From the desk of Steven Anthony Ballmer to all Microsoft Associates:
In an effort to improve our image, we're asking all employees to behave as "hip cats". All customer facing communications regarding our projects will be referred to as either "the bees knees", or "the cat's pajamas". Your choice.
Ciggy's are henceforth allowed on the premesis, dolls on campus are encouraged to bob their hair and show off their gams.
These efforts are intended to attract the swankiest of the sheiks, so we can bust Apple right in the kisser.
Employment of those failing to comply will be terminated.
Microsoft used to be a swell company
I know, because I spent sometime there
And then the suits took over, and a lot of us left
Isn't it a little bit too late?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
s--t opens up all kinds of possible clues as to what they're really doing in there (courtesy of the RegEx Dictionary):
"Do Epic Salt" could be religious in nature, if only they had the light to go with it.
"Do Epic Scat" could be, well, crappy.
"Do Epic Scot" could be a hint that Sean Connery will play Ballmer in an upcoming movie about Steve Jobs
"Do Epic Seat" could be a hint that they're working on a special chair to offset the major pain in the ass NotMetro is expected to be
"Do Epic Sect" could be a skunkworks project to recruit fanboys
"Do Epic Shat" could be a retrospective on the history of Windows... uh, narrated by William Shatner
"Do Epic Skit" could be a code for the rehearsal to train people to look excited at their store openings, and hide the fact that hired DJs are using iTunes
"Do Epic Slit" could be... nahhh...
"Do Epic Slut" or "Do Epic Smut" could be an indication that MSFT wants to enter the lucrative smut scene and cut off Heffner's air supply
"Do Epic Snot" or "Do Epic Spit" No. Just no.
Personally, I think what they're really saying is they plan to "do shit" to the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Boss Monster
AccountKiller
It's policy to never imply ownership in the event of a dildo.
What forbidden words? Freedom of speech? What is it with the USA that they actually tolerate this "forbidden words" thing?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
right in the kisser
yo terminated... dawg
Seems like desperation asking the employees to fix the problems management can't.
... even M$ is using the curseword, the Dragon will be too powerful!
I wonder if they put real actors in there to look like hackers or if they use animatronics XD
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Would you rather see Microsoft Songsmith on actual retail shelves, and being used to make actual towel advertisements?
Am I the only one that has trouble associating gams with legs? I always think dentures when I hear it. I have no idea why.
Do you really think their problem with security is a lack of trying or even a lack of success? It's a big game of leapfrog. Computers now are expect to handle attacks that weren't even physically possible on the hardware of yesterday. It results in more bloat and slower operation. If you were able to design an OS from the ground up today, and assume that there would be no malicious users or malicious attacks, then you'd create a system that runs circles around Windows. We don't have a perfect world, and there must be compromises.
We're talking about an OS that's now at a point of trying to cryptographically sign binaries all the way down to the bootloader. Is it really MS's fault that this level of ridiculousness is necessary?
It's obvious I'm replying to a troll, but I haven't seen a blue screen that was caused by anything but failing hardware in almost a decade. Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X, have all been steadily improving. Some with more security-related bloat, and others with more eye candy. All continue to perform more poorly due to security-related bloat.
Since nobody else has mentioned this, should /. submissions really be word for word quotes of an article by another writer? This one is...
My favourite is changing "ass" to "*ss". Exactly who thinks it's better to replace the letter "a" with a symbol that looks like an explicit, close-up view of the very anatomy you think is offensive? ( * )ss indeed.
As usual, MS is five years behind the curve-- 'epic' went out of style around 2007 (around here, anyhow). Rad idea, though!
*sigh* I've been trying to explain it for fifteen minutes, but slashdot's lame filter won't let me. The dollar sign is an s, the hash is an h, the exclamation mark is an i, the plus sign is a T.
And I'm still getting the lameness filter, must be tha subject line. I wonder why I keep getting it, and how you managed to post?
Free Martian Whores!
I am a product of the Microsoft hacker culture. If it weren't for C# Express and all the free and open source tools and libraries provided by MS I probably wouldn't have done a fraction of what I've been able to.
Shit.
Voldemort.
Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse.
It won't rain today.
Fuck.
I'll report tomorrow on whether or not I survive the day.
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.