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Microsoft Coffee

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31–40 of 394 posts

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#31
post #9

If this happened in 2021 someone would be in prison or fired at best. That said, this is a hilarious story and reminds me of the things people used to do in the early days of the internet in terms of trolling and such. Unfortunately, after groups like the GN*A and others successfully trolled the world several times, nation states figured it out and started trolling to actually control the narrative of the internet! A…

> If this happened in 2021 someone would be in prison or fired at best. If that's the best case scenario, what's the worst? Firing squad?

This is a good example of how human language is ambiguous. You should read it as in the worst case in prison and in the best case fired.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True that. The reason for this is simple. Stock price. Investors would wine around, price could move. It is all about money today: serious business.

I think it's deeper - and more insidious - than that. People with no sense of humor, or even awareness of their lack of sense of humor, have clawed their way into positions of real power. They used to just run the parent-teacher council and try to get TV shows cancelled, but now they've moved on to control nearly every aspect of our lives. And their power is growing.

Do you think this is any different than any time throughout history? There have always been and always will be people without senses of humor in all walks of life.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#34
Is there any reason to believe that this actually happened? Conveniently, it was published on April 1st. The story itself would be a great April Fools' prank. :)

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#36
post #9

If this happened in 2021 someone would be in prison or fired at best. That said, this is a hilarious story and reminds me of the things people used to do in the early days of the internet in terms of trolling and such. Unfortunately, after groups like the GN*A and others successfully trolled the world several times, nation states figured it out and started trolling to actually control the narrative of the internet! A…

what a strange way to obfuscate that GNAA acronym!

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#37
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison? That seems over the top.

This would be a massive SEC violation at minimum. A prison sentence would not be surprising at all. The only reason they likely didn’t get it in 1995 even is that MS PR (the one this person derides as PR flacks) apparently successfully convinced the world that this wasn’t done by MS insiders.

How can a regular non-executive employee be guilty of a SEC violation, for something like this?

If I'm a Tesla employee and I make a fake image about a future Tesla airplane, is that a SEC violation?

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#39
post #26

I want a job where I can spend days of valuable time on unauthorised, unproductive projects just because I want some fun, and not get punished for it.

Microsoft at that time was very much a stereotypical work hard/play hard/sleep in your office/repeat type of place (in at least many departments).

Extra hours aren't that hard to find here or there if you're never leaving.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#40

Wait, MS wasn't working on Java at that time? When did they try to release MS Java and were forced to rename it into J++? I remember getting a box of MS dev tools with J++ included just a few years after this. It was already a well settled product.

In the early days, Microsoft was licensed to develop a JVM for Windows. It shipped as part of Internet Explorer, it probably ended up on the majority of Windows machines at the time.

Over time, I believe Microsoft started to implement Windows-specific functions that _only_ worked on their implementation. Eventually Sun sued and I think that's when they lost and had to re-name the product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Java_Virtual_Machine

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