Not to be confused with their forensic analysis tool, Microsoft COFEE. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Online_Forensic_Evi...
This is what came to mind, I thought this post was just a misspelling originally
Microsoft Coffee
181–190 of 394 posts
Re: Microsoft Coffee
#182Earlier 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…
I dunno, I don't think I would care about getting a perfect capture of a VHS tape from a silly project 25 years ago. The VHS artifacts add character to the memory.
Re: Microsoft Coffee
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
>MS supported this by virtue of MS employees doing it. Would that apply to say crimes? Should corporate then get to tell people what else they can't do since being an employee includes ' support'? I think you're inadvertently wandering into some really wonky territory.
> I think you're inadvertently wandering into some really wonky territory. Undoubtedly :P As for crimes, I think the US legal system supports my view more than the one that clearly separates these employees from the MS entity. MS may fire the employees as a result of their actions, but up to a point, MS is fully liable for their actions as representatives of the company long before the employees are liable as individ…
But just because you're an employee doesn't mean you have unlimited authority. Getting the janitor to sign a billion dollar contract doesn't mean that Microsoft has agreed to it. The new-hire intern can't go on the news and make binding promises about corporate strategy.
It sounds like these employees used the printing presses in unauthorized ways, put unauthorized products on the shelves, and probably even used trademarks and whatnot without authorization. The properly-authorized managers of the company would be within their rights to disavow them, or maaaaaybe even prosecute for misusing resources.
I realize I've massively over-analyzed this, and MS would've been huge assholes to prosecute over this. But I think they legally would've been able to.
Re: Microsoft Coffee
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
The news footage is pretty convincing
Yeah - I feel as if the task of building a fake news desk, hiring two (very convincing) actors to pose as anchors, filming it, and chopping it up in Premiere to give it the VHS look is way more effort than someone would put into a prank like this.
> the VHS look
the rolling part of the tape is a little too much imo and a lot of programs have filters that add the grainy nature so it's not impossible. that and seeing as you can hire random celebs for 100 bucks nowadays to shout out at your friend it's not unimaginable that they faked this. it's probably true but also... who knows
Re: Microsoft Coffee
#185Earlier 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.
Turns out Germany played the long con and has successfully taken over the world.
Re: Microsoft Coffee
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the issue is that the joke made Microsoft look bad (like they copied another company's product). Google has a big April Fool's collection, but you can imagine their PR department probably would not let anyone's joke reference that the product would be sunset in 18 months.
Agreed, but I think your Google idea would be pretty funny. Google sunset - from now on each product will have a countdown clock on its webpage to its death which is either when the clock hits zero or the lead dev makes promo, whatever comes first. Another easy target would be the release of the 16th chat application that’s even shittier somehow.
> Another easy target would be the release of the 16th chat application that’s even shittier somehow.
Now presenting: Google Hangups(tm)
Re: Microsoft Coffee
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
The news footage is pretty convincing
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.
There's a bunch of real MS promotional merch that doesn't show up in search engines.
In the 1990s they released "drag 'n' drops" - a gummy candy in the shape of dragons. I can't find any mention of them.
Re: Microsoft Coffee
#188When I lived in Japan 25 years ago, two major events happened: the Hanshin earthquake and the Sarin gas attacks. It was an interesting time to learn Japanese by reading the newspapers. I had real, fully contextual practice learning words like kidnapping. But I was still oblivious to what that gas attack meant, and what terrorism would mean to people in a few years after 9/11. After the gas attacks happened, the other…
Did you study at JAIST? Sorry to ask, but when you said "deep in the mountains outside of Kanazawa", that's the only university that popped up in my mind that was more open to foreigners(which I assume you are/were).
Re: Microsoft Coffee
#189If 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…
You would also have been in prison in 1996 had you tried it at a larger and more "strict" company than Microsoft.