Microsoft Coffee • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#231

Post by usrusr » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

Steltek wrote: post #135

space_ghost wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone else pointed out, this isn't just a lame webpage. The YT video of the news broadcast, if it was faked, would have been much more involved.

It's true that going to the trouble of costumes and video editing is at least some effort. However yesterday had more than its fair share of very low effort Photoshops and year after year, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. To the original question, the alleged original prank still outweighs any contemporary green screen antics: producing multiple physical fake boxes, distributing them across town in multiple stores,…

The effort/motivation ratio makes far more sense for the 1996 prank than for the 2021 one. The 1996 one works out: a group of co-workers, at a company with a divisive reputation but desperately longing for being considered cool, a year after the Windows 95 release campaign made shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes the centerpiece of attention. And 1996: from Microsoft Word Art to pirated copies of Quark Express, losing themselves to print preparation screen time was just something people did, in the 90ies.

The hypothetical 2021 prank? Why Microsoft? Why Java? Why the completely forgotten medium of cardboard boxes?

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#232

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

cmiles74 wrote: post #40

marcosdumay wrote: post #30

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/wik…

From the wiki, the lawsuit happened on the following year. I really doubt MS has gone from not working with Java, to distributing it, to making it non-compliant, to getting sued and losing in about an year.

The author was probably misinformed, and that's a very likely reason for the overreaction of the PR dept.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#233

Post by rchaud » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

sn_master wrote: post #144

galangalalgol wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends so much on which native tools you use. Which is good and bad. Good that all three OS are good enough not to be the deciding issue, and bad that we haven't really solved portable native software well.

I find the PC hardware to be better too. Even dirt cheap PC laptops have touch screens with high quality pens included and are very easy to upgrade their RAM to 32/64 GB from Amazon.

Really? All the Windows laptops with good quality screens are priced similarly to their base model Mac equivalents. There are certainly no shortage of sub-$500 laptops, but they're priced that way for a reason. Poor battery life, low-resolution screen, HDD instead of SSD, etc.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#234

Post by commandlinefan » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:38 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #224

commandlinefan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe these people do have a sense of humour but your jokes just aren’t as funny as you think they are?

Fine, then don't laugh. Even mock me. Tell me not to quit my day job. I don't think somebody should lose their job/be banished from society because of a bad joke.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#235

Post by drdeadringer » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:39 PM UTC

stakkur wrote: post #98

Obviously a joke. Microsoft would just buy Starbucks and rebrand it as Microsoft CoffeeX 3D.

BCOD: Blue Coffee Of Death.

I can only imagine the repercussions of this.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#236

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

iso1210 wrote: post #117

neonate wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#237

Post by addicted » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

juotlrjrb wrote: post #153

addicted wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the SEC has to prove intent, or even that it being a prank, even if you prove that, protects you?

> When it comes to being charged with fraud, demonstrating that the defendant lacked the intent to commit a crime (i.e. that he or she acted in good faith) is a key defense because, in order to convict the defendant, the prosecutor needs to prove that he or she had fraudulent intent. https://www.baezlawfirm.com/two-recent-cases-highlight-impor... > U.S. Supreme Court Rules That Securities Fraud Suits Must Be Dismisse…

The SEC does more than just fraud, which is what those links speak to.

https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2014-spch033114mjw

"We, for example, often bring cases based on negligence, while most criminal statutes require intent or at least willful blindness. Some of our statutes are also strict liability, which do not require intent, recklessness, or negligence."

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#238

Post by timr » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

xrd wrote: post #125

When 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…

I honestly can't imagine that kind of humor being taken any other way by Japanese bureaucrats.

After years of direct, negative experience, I still routinely step in it with my "American humor", and then feel like an ass afterwards. Scarcasm goes over like a lead balloon.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#239

Post by passivate » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

orbital-decay wrote: post #195

passivate wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's index isn't as vast as they claim. Their "About 5,780,000,000 results" is a gross exaggeration. You can't actually view all those results even if you tried.

Most engines are also very aggressive at de-prioritizing abandoned sites, so most of the content from 90s essentially gone dark - it's indexed but cannot be found unless you know exactly what to look for.

Either way, it is funny that they claim to have millions of results, yet you can't go past Page 11.

Re: Microsoft Coffee

#240

Post by dalbasal » Fri, Apr 02, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

gonehome wrote: post #105

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #17

Earlier 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.

Here's the problem as I see it...

Tolerating or even enjoying "make fun of yourself" humour feels important to me. How much sting you can take says something, and you need to build up a tolerance. If "jokes about the boss" are always of the bootlicking variety, those are the only acceptable jokes and decent people will just avoid humour.

It's a scale though. An ill advised joke can have scary consequences in China.. Poo. At the same time, crass WW2 jokes don't always go down well in Germany... and liberalism or democracy don't change this.

Anyway... MSFT, Amazon & such are heading towards East India Company market caps. At this scale (and at small scale too), I think a thick skin is essential to an open culture.

The concept of "corporate culture" is both bullshit and profound at the same time. OOH, it' the drab topic of dilbert land. OTOH, corporate culture is >51% of total culture. It matters whether or not corporate culture is open.