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."
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.
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.
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..."
...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).
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/
"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.
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.
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.
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.
It's policy to never imply ownership in the event of a dildo.