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Feature: Humor
Microsoft Way goes nowhere
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CommentsMicrosoft Way is a north-south road in Redmond, Washington. A study of <SLASH HREF="//linux.com/relocate.pl?id=dcc0a1a42b5ae0974cc82fc6c62f3b76" ID="43afd264ecc2a1399c80fc9a78b66206" TITLE="http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&address=1+microsoft+way&city=redmond&state=wa&zipcode=&zoom=8" TYPE="link">Mapquest's map of the road</SLASH> reveals a number of startling features of this particular road.
For one thing, Microsoft Way originates on Ne 39th Street and ends at Ne 31st Street. Both of these streets are oriented east-west, and neither of them continues after encountering Microsoft Way. Microsoft Way, from start to finish, is about half a mile long. It appears to have no meaningful start and no meaningful end. It is merely a blip on the map that goes from nowhere to nowhere.
Mapquest, interestingly, shows Microsoft's campus in a somewhat blueish colour, which its legend reveals is reserved for "Educational Facilities." While using Microsoft products can be an educational experience in a variety of areas, there is no evidence that Microsoft's campus, is, indeed, an educational institution.
In the centre of campus there is a large, circular road that has only a few intersections with other roads, and never meets Microsoft Way. Inside this circle are at least six other circular roads, many of which are listed as being one way.
This lends to the possibility that entering Microsoft campus by a way other than Microsoft Way could be a one way street to an infinite loop of infinite loops on a blue screen of educational cul-de-sacs.
Perhaps this would explain the proximity of the Eastside Hospital to the edge of the campus.
More telling, though, is that a careful inspection of the otherwise inexplicable layout of Microsoft Way, Ne 31st, 36th, and 39th streets reveals that the roads together appear to form the letter "f." More importantly, 159th and 163rd avenues combined with Ne 36th Way -- the post-intersection name of Ne 36th Street -- make up the distinct shape of the letter "u."
The campus map of Microsoft does not show any straight lines from one point to any other point. In fact, one Microsoft employee, M. Hutfles, confided in us that the "campus, when viewed from the air, looks like a side from the Hellraiser puzzle box and is about as easy to get around."
With Microsoft's own employees being confounded by the endlessly complicated layout of the campus, we can only assume that Microsoft Way and its surrounding streets were laid out the way they were for some other reason.
Perhaps it is a blueprint for their software?
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I wanna a see another Widows powered aircraft carrier.
I wonder how much taxes would drop if all government offices dumped their MS software for Linux / Freeware?
I'm reminded of Good Omens by Gaiman & Pratche
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 07, 2003 10:05 PMThis is the kind of shit you have to complain about? A road there in Redmond, WA???
LOL
And this is all that you can do, to take an article written under 'humor', and act as if the entire Linux/Open Source community is desperate to hunt out worthless bits of information to attack Microsoft?
Come on, you know as well as I do that most people here could provide you with pages of vile deeds that Microsoft is doing and has done.
Why do you think that so many people hate Microsoft? Is it because Microsoft innovates, is secure, stable, rips people off, locks people in? It's not because people are jealous of Microsoft why they're looking for alternatives!
I took the one more travelled by
And that has made <A HREF="http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2003/09/07/downloading_pc_protection_takes_time_effort____and_often_help/" TITLE="boston.com">all the difference</a boston.com>.
- Windows users
http://mappoint.msn.com/(toqpkhqw2m3vk445plywxljn<nobr>)<wbr></nobr> /map.aspx?L=USA&C=32.25251%2c-110.82590&A=7.16667&<nobr>;<wbr></nobr> P=|32.25251%2c-110.82590|1|N+Super+Chicken+Dr%2c+<nobr>T<wbr></nobr> ucson%2c+AZ+85715|L1|
Since you know about that street you probably live around there, considering I've lived in Tucson all my life, and I've never heard of it. If you hear any crazy people late at night shouting "Cactus!!", french or german phrases, or howling, or whistling extremely loud (I don't know how he does it), you'll know it's me or my cohorts (or drunk college kids). Oh yeah, and if you get a parking violation with a weird Pi looking symbol on the back, you'll know it's us too.
Small world.
-Chickenman
http://thekauze.cjb.net
While were doing this how about telling some advertizers how to exploit some thing in windows that lets them display there peskey ads.
That my dear Dr.Waston, is the microsoft way.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
<A HREF="http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?zoom=9&mapdata=xU4YXdELrnCxdh4peYo%2BKwB%2B0UisA4y6GSDiFtUCsSxwreThZ1K7GcpG0H11UimqmrzTLScBCGDOvOo%2FZrZWEkSYMmxbky4uMDv8%2BUUqgyyxqkIrTRTi2ShSeokNPtyW48gJdhxg8nZSLTgbNUfMYPgWiM8tnOxxb1X7SS3kt9zKKk13j%2FOCkLMXWtt%2BBSKx0b%2FgxxvYJQN16EAQviLYWNOYSOJPBD%2Br4rZ1X5wGb7WDomcfc1%2Bw9%2F6EBDCYGc%2FpHaEPbSfpdvNmUpSlVoEM5RU2u3BzA%2BXwJhZMjoZrleQikBSkR6BlrL2mw1Em%2FTgXEd1AAn9BFDczg7eOqHwtiQekHGXY4okiq7RHWDqZD2Y0w6gnaD3Cgw%3D%3D" TITLE="mapquest.com">mapquest map</a mapquest.com>
More likely, navigating the campus requires one to carry a GPS enabled CE based PDA running Intracampus Browser with Active Vex technology and DeCON vermin protection to prevent unauthorized mouse access and ratting out internal memos. Maybe like DIsneyland they can put in a elevated monorail, call it De El El.
Zoning the campus as an educational facility might be precient of the city planners who may know that the way of the proprietary dinosaur is soon to be a thing of the past. Reusing the facility as a Linux educational and R&D facility might be just the ticket. Of course, we'd have to redo the roads for open access.
It's a circle in the middle, with four inroads leading to each side of the GNU/Linux Campus, and 16 roads going out in a starburst pattern, enabling travellers to get in and out in any direction. Each of those roads have several footbridges so it's easier for those who prefer to walk, rollar blade or bike not to interrupt traffic and vice versa. Between the roads are parks for offering a relaxing atmosphere to all employees and visitors.
This would be the perfect pattern for the future GNU/Linux campus. I don't know anything about feng shui, but this seems to me as the best option for open access.
520 - M$'s bad luck number?
- RTFM!
Get a real OS and quit yer bitchen!
And ignore any paranoid message box that pops up when you do!
And install a firewall!
And buy anti-virus software and keep it up to date!
And don't open Word documents attached to email unless you know who sent it!
And keep around all those paper licenses for Microsoft software because you'll need them for the BSA audit - nobody else will have any electronic records of them!
And make sure your parents do all these things with their PC!
Better bring it up each time you talk to them!
And remember to thank Microsoft for creating such great, innovative, trustworthy software!
What do you mean, "You can't beat the OS"?
Linux is continually growing and certainly has Microsoft scared. And you have to also remember that nobody in the Linux community has used the same tactics as Microsoft to force people into buying it...
No OEM contracts whereby the OEMs have to include a copy of Linux.
No lock-in.
No required paid-for OS upgrades to fix vulnerabilities.
etc.
And as for idiots, aren't they the Microsoft users who keep running these virus infected attachments? The ones who won't use Linux because it's too complex?
Now, I can understand your frustration. I'd think it was sad if Microsoft users wrote an arcitle about Linux in this way, but only because they can never find any real complaint with Linux (only FUD).
I mean, there's a whole pile of things we could dig up (and do dig up) about Microsoft's failings. What are your complaints about Linux? How has Linux been anti-competitive? How has Linux locked users in? How has Linux ripped people off? How many Linux users are fed up with the constant stream of virii infecting their machines?
I don't know... maybe both of them?
You can't find fault with Linux so you have to resort to lame jokes!
note: Here I'm reflecting the attitude in your original post. So, to keep with the flow, you should now provide valid problems with Linux...
Anyone can beat "the" OS. My cat can make a better system. What people can't seem to beat is the Nazis running the company. They lie and cheat. They manipulate the markets and bribe governments. That is how they "win." It has nothing to do with the quality of the crap they call an operating system. In reality, we all lose because of the fascists.
If M$ ca'nt find a way, then they should stay out of the way so others can play!!
Clinton is a one-way street, that points north.
From Clinton, Gore only goes to the left, but it's a dead end.
See <A HREF="http://ca.maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?ed=rWw8z.p_0TrqoJGcZ1rRkcxwyDpVSg4-&csz=Toronto%2C+ON&country=ca&resize=s" TITLE="yahoo.com">Yahoo Map</a yahoo.com>.
<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)
The city of Redmond finally just accpeted it, as MS put up their own street signs, and it was confusing. This happened right around 1993 or so.
i worked there from '93 - '94 then a spot in '96 doing active electronics integration to support the growth spurt as win 95 came out.
the street name hi-jack was funny at the time...
Forget the roads - the parking lots are insane
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on September 09, 2003 06:37 AM
Several of the older buildings have funky "X" type shapes (XBox anyone?) that lead to parking lots that are often crowded... something about the way that you increase office space with such a building, but the space between the "legs" of the building left for parking are nowhere near enough.
I challenge any newcomer to drive around the MS campus and enter one of those odd parking lots (one way signs and short little roads of 10 feet or less abound) and try to get out. It's a friggin' mouse trap. You get used to it eventually, but whew.
Take my old address: 18100 NE 95th Street (about two miles from MS). 18100 is 18100 across the whole map of Greater Seattle; same with NE 95th Street (but beware: NE 95th Street and SE 95 Street are miles and miles away from each other!)
So, where in Seattle, you have a (for example) 110th Street that stops and starts all over the place, sometimes only lasting for a block, in other cities you'd have the same layout--only each segment of street would have its own random name.
(No, I never worked at Microsoft, but I used to live across the block from the main campus, right beside the Nintendo of America building).
Goes nowhere
Posted by: sir-bliant on September 07, 2003 06:50 PM#