-----Original Message----- From: frank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Monday, July 02, 2001 11:05 AM Subject: Re: [Cooker] BG (another view...) > The gates of Redmond are barred; its walls: lined with > liars and lawyers; its turrets: armed with great spewers of > flack and of fud. Mind-sweepers roam its captive populace, > at hunt for treason. Dark schemes are hatched and talked. > Gold-pursed agents slip from the once great city, into the > night, at hope of purchasing allies and word time against > its enemies. Harried technicians toil at legacy-ware, while > tight suited managers assure themselves that their new > weaponry can .net the world, can hold it under Redmond's > sway. But in the late hours of night, from the great house > at the lake: sounds of weeping... > >frank ... from a wizened Dos programmer. "we used to have an operating system that took up 64k" the ancient cried "and then Lord Billy decreed that we had to catch up with Steve Jobs and have pictures on the screen to do things, and so by the time we stole all the software and jammed it together to do that, the OS took up a hundred megs... oh boo hoo ... and now, with all the built in bribed-for-advertising and hardwired-in bundleware Billy wants in our new Windows eXcreble Pile, it's now going to take up two CD's ... sob ... and that's just to get the thing started, without any of those neat free programs like on the latest Mandrake Freq that you can install or not install as you see fit... >--------------------- > > > >On Monday 02 July 2001 05:52 am, michael wrote: >> An Ode to Bill >> >> >> A funny thing is going on with Microsoft these days; >> It's got its fingers in our lives in 50 thousand ways. >> There's Windows on our palmtops, and, of course, on the >> PC, There's Windows for our dashboards, too, and even for >> TV. >> >> It's not enough our offices run Windows every day; >> Now Microsoft, with X-Box, wants to tell us how to play. >> The giant has made it clear that next it wants the Net -- >> As close to global-domination lust as you can get. >> >> But what's to stop the company from widening its sights? >> So many juicy markets -- they must keep Bill Gates up >> nights. If there's a product anywhere with profit in its >> path, The Redmond gang is really good at figuring the >> math. >> >> Consider all the fun we'll have if things go on this way: >> In 20 years, a Windows watch will speak the time of day, >> We'll download patches for our phones, buy upgrades for >> the fridge, We'll put our homes in Safe Mode, and reboot >> the Brooklyn Bridge. >> >> We'll grow up eating Window-O's from MSN.com, >> We'll buy a Windows tux and take our dates to ActiveProm. >> We'll marry, spend our honeymoon at MS Pyramids, >> Then go upstairs for ActiveSync and soon have PocketKids. >> >> And over time, the phrase "Pay as you go," will fade >> away; The world Bill Gates imagines will be more, "Go as >> you pay." Yes, innovation, privacy and choice will suffer >> -- still, We'll get to see a U.S. first: a >> trillion-dollar Bill. >> >> David Pogue NY Times > >
