Dark Views

MicroSoft is the de-facto standard on the desktop. Despite all the efforts to break the monopoly, the average user still doesn’t want to switch. Alas, the average user is not an expert and when MicroSoft tries its way with the experts, that usually backfires. Unlike the Average Joe, geeks and nerds are no cattle and they find creative ways to get even when they are served what MicroSoft dishes out.

So in Norway, 21 of 23 experts voted against OOXML as a new ISO standard. That didn’t stop the ca…administration of Standard Norge to embrace this great work from Seattle (which has eaten thousands, maybe millions, of dissertations over the years) and so they announced that Norway votes “Yes”. Every geek out there knows what it means when your management has stopped listening to you: Get a new job. And they did.

Right on, commander!

Once, it was just a joke in the UserFriendly comic strip. Now, it’s real: Welcome to Project Blinkenlights

… must … resist …

Oh, I so suck at resisting …;-> Gimme that chocolate cake …

I mean … “Source Fource [sic]”???

Okay, I admit it has all the usual ingredients for a successful M$ product: Funny, cute, lots of color, no brains, based on technology which every competitor threw out a decade ago (so they could buy it cheaply last Thuesday) and nothing a sane person would want to use unless being paid for. We’re in for a huge success, for sure.

“Windows Server Crusader”? Whow! Sounds like fun, slaughter, middle ages … remember? Middle ages? At school? Torture, diseases, boiling oil, blunt weapons and brute force to solve important problems like starvation, civil rights and who’s gotta own Jerusalem next week? Yay! Does it come with UT2007, Quake III or DOOM3 preinstalled? Can I finally kill processes with a shotgun and a lot of splatter?

“Mobile Gal” … travels faster than light! Whow! Faster than light! I mean, she is so far ahead, there is no way that anything she says could ever get back to us … faster than light, get it? It’s physics. No matter. If physics were any concern to customers of M$, they wouldn’t be customers of M$ in the first place …

“SQL Server Gal” … perfect memory … and she “loves checking out leather-clad biker boys” … I wonder how that adds up … I mean, they say she’s so smart and hangs around guys who can’t get a decently paid job, who love to get drunk and who aren’t widely accepted as role models for treating a woman like she deserves … ’nuff said.

“Visual Studio Guy” … “[m]orphs and transforms everyday objects into masterpieces.” … oookay … so … like Picasso? Nice to look at (even though you can’t quite grasp it), very expensive, totally useless no matter what problem you have to solve? Way to go! Finally, I can waste more paid hours on a stupid product to solve problems which we wouldn’t have without it.

“ISV Super Gal” … can’t even figure out what she’s supposed to be.

“Windows Vista Sensei” … “[m]artial arts master trained in the ancient art of combat, security, and connectivity.” Translation: There is a lot of pain and suffering in your future. Even simple tasks (like fetching a bucket of water) will become an exercise in humiliation. Remember all those martial arts movies where the pupil meets the master to learn the ropes? Great fun to watch but imagine just for a moment who will be the pupil, now … you or Vista?

“Office Master” … waitaminute … doesn’t that read like “Windows Vista Sensei” with Cut’n’Paste? I guess the money M$ poured into the ads for these great now products didn’t reach to this guy. Shame.

So all in all, we’re in for a lot of fun and enjoyment in the future! Not our fun and enjoyment, sure, but a lot of it nonetheless! M$ will again make a lot of money, funnel it into a cheap ad campaign to foo^B^B^Beducate the foo^B^B^Bcustomers out there because who in their right mind would waste all that good money on developing great software that sells just because it’s … great?

Nobody!

Disclaimer: This post was neither endorsed nor encouraged (even if you could argue about that one) by any companies that brought you edlin, DOS, IE or word processing software that eats your documents faster than you can save them but who are insanely rich despite all that which only proves that there is no intelligent live down here … at least not in positions where decisions are made.

What interest does a company that makes most of its money with advertising might have in the moon?

I dunno … but I remember this old joke about the Russians painting the moon red. The crew of Skylab watches them and when the paint job is done, they are ordered to use white paint to write “Coca Cola” over it.

Maybe we’re all gonna need a really expensive pop-up blocker in a few years …

Often, something is seriously funny. The world’s best joke, for example, as researched by psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”

I also like the European favorite a lot:

An Alsatian went to a telegram office, took out a blank form and wrote: “Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.” The clerk examined the paper and politely told the dog: “There are only nine words here. You could send another Woof for the same price.” “But,” the dog replied, “that would make no sense at all.”

From this article, after reading about it in the Tages-Anzeiger.