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Microsoft Coffee

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Re: Microsoft Coffee

#111

Post by iso1210 »

brundolf wrote: post #86
coding123 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming Seattlites would be able to confirm. However as much discussion we've had about the internet remembering everything, I can't find anything in Google to confirm "Microsoft Coffee" except for this site, discussion of it on Reddit 13 hours ago.

Remember that the prank preceded the mainstream web, and MS PR clearly went to great lengths to cover it up. I don't think the internet was "remembering everything" yet at that point

Usenet would have, there would be mentions on a pro or anti (mainly anti) microsoft group about it. It was 1996, not the stone age

Google has lost a lot of old posts from those days, but I'd be surprised if it would have lost all of them.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#112

Post by cavanasm »

iso1210 wrote: post #95
exhilaration wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they faked that footage and even went as far faking the messed up VHS tracking, I will be very very impressed.

The VHS tracking is what makes me suspicious (and of course the date, the lack of any mention of it at all) If you've waited for 25 years to announce something, you're going to get video captured correctly. > There’s the KOMO News footage, which some of us still have on a dusty VHS tape Does anyone from Seatle recognise the two KOMO reporters? If the footage is a deep fake over real footage from that time, I'm very v…

https://weatherchannel.fandom.com/wiki/KOMO-TV#Previous_Pers...

From here, I looked up pictures of anchors who worked in that time period, and I see Eric Slocum (now deceased) and Margo Myers who did evening news together in that time frame, and look quite similar to the people in the video.

EDIT: someone else identified Keith Eldridge, who definitely looks like a match for the video.

https://komonews.com/station/people/keith-eldridge

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#114

Post by floren »

whatthesmack wrote: post #107
iso1210 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The VHS tracking is what makes me suspicious (and of course the date, the lack of any mention of it at all) If you've waited for 25 years to announce something, you're going to get video captured correctly. > There’s the KOMO News footage, which some of us still have on a dusty VHS tape Does anyone from Seatle recognise the two KOMO reporters? If the footage is a deep fake over real footage from that time, I'm very v…

Former Seattleite... those are (were?) legit KOMO news anchors. I believe the person on the left's name is Keith Eldridge. I don't remember the name of the person on the right, but I do recognize them.

Good call, this definitely looks like the same guy: https://komonews.com/station/people/keith-eldridge

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#115

Post by [deleted] »

iso1210 wrote: post #95
exhilaration wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they faked that footage and even went as far faking the messed up VHS tracking, I will be very very impressed.

The VHS tracking is what makes me suspicious (and of course the date, the lack of any mention of it at all) If you've waited for 25 years to announce something, you're going to get video captured correctly. > There’s the KOMO News footage, which some of us still have on a dusty VHS tape Does anyone from Seatle recognise the two KOMO reporters? If the footage is a deep fake over real footage from that time, I'm very v…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#116

Post by nwsm »

Diederich wrote: post #49

On Friday, 1-April-2005, I executed an Aprils fool joke inside of WalMart Stores, Inc., Information Systems Division that ended up going somewhat wrong. The director of our area, Network Engineering, was widely liked, and I'd worked for him, first directly when he was a manager, since 1997. Pretty chill guy, great sense of humor, effective leader. I particularly liked him because he gave my team, Network Management,…

Disappointing that your manager, who you liked and described as fun and effective, wanted to fire you for it.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#117

Post by iso1210 »

neonate wrote: post #108
brundolf wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The news footage is pretty convincing

It ought to be possible to find another clip of the same anchors in the 90s, which would settle the issue. I spent a few minutes on Youtube and found a lot of KOMO news clips from 1995 but none with those anchors. I still think it's authentic because it would be so hard to fake. If anyone really cared they could probably get someone at the TV station, which still exists ( https://komonews.com/ ), to confirm that the…

whatthesmack confirmed the man was Keith Eldridge

It's unlikely that 'someone at the station' could confirm that clip was real, getting archive footage from that time would be difficult. I worked on various shows in the 00s, there's no way I'd remember any packages we broadcast, and there's no easy access to archives before 2008. We've been digitising decades of cut news packages in foreign bureaus for years, but I don't believe actual as-broadcast stuff on tape has been systematically kept, and we didn't have it digitised - at least long term - until about 10 years later.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#118

Post by aidenn0 »

bonzini wrote: post #101
tim333 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite flickery. I don't remember TV/video being that bad in 96.

Analog covered up how bad it was. IIRC VHS resolution was 320x240.

NTSC has a nominal resolution of 720x480i (240 lines per field, 60 fields per second). VHS on its best days could get about half the horizontal resolution for luma, and even less for color, but often ended up a bit worse, so 320x480i is probably a good approximation for the resolution (ignoring the fact that color is even lower resolution).

[edit]

On a slightly different note, the HiFi audio track (supported for playback by pretty much all VCRs by the late 80s; not sure if/when HiFi recording became normal) of VHS was undoubtably the highest quality consumer analog audio product to get wide usage, with an SNR and dynamic range slightly better than the very best cassette decks.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#119

Post by DonHopkins »

brundolf wrote: post #65
Geeflow wrote: post #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. :)

The news footage is pretty convincing

I'm sure there's an AfterEffects plugin that does that! ;)
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