Lee points to another Silicon.com article which reveals Steve Ballmer is even more of a childish imbecile than was previously thought.
Tag: rant
Mr. Ballmer:
Despite your reckless and libelous statements regarding Apple and the iPod, please note that your 12-year-old is likely hiding stolen music in all kinds of places, given that your 12-year-old is likely much smarter than you are, having grown up with the technology your company had to steal copy “innovate”. (He’s also probably hiding a lot of other stuff he has found on the Internet.)
A challenge then, to the CEO of Microsoft: without any warning whatsoever, conduct a full-scale examination of the hard drive of every Microsoft employee, including every PDA, every digital music player, every MP3-playing mobile phone. Cross-check the findings of digital music with each employee’s personal CD collection. Report the findings of how much stolen music is residing inside Microsoft itself. That is, if you’re not too busy dancing around on stage like a fool and flinging your feces at your competition, monkey-boy.
(Via MacMinute)
Six years after Steve Jobs and Apple declared the floppy disk dead, with the release of the iMac, Bill Gates states the same:
In some ways, I think this is the first time I can say that the floppy disk is dead. You know, we enjoyed the floppy disk, it was nice, it got smaller and smaller, but because of compatibility reasons, it sort of got stuck at the 1.44 megabyte level, and carrying them around, and having that big physical slot in machines, that became a real burden. Today, you get a low-cost USB flash drive, with 64 megabits on it very, very inexpensively. And so we can say the capacity there for something that’s smaller, better connectors, faster, just superior in every way has made that outmoded.
So I suppose now that the tech industry pundits will proclaim Mr. Gates as a tremendous visionary for getting rid of the tiresome floppy disk, when in fact, Mr. Gates’ company is one entity responsible for extending the floppy’s life.
(via RAILhead Design)
Pixar dumps Disney.
Pixar will be the better for it. Eisner is an idiot. I hope the Disney board roasts him on a spit.
(Thanks, Michael.)
In the most recent Macintosh Daily Journal, Matt Deatherage & Co. take Information Week to task over their recent PC Vendor poll and rankings. MDJ correctly points out what’s really behind the buying decisions of most corporate IT managers:
IT buyers list many important factors, but when Apple meets them, they ignore them because Apple is not the “standard.” The most important consideration for IT buyers is not cost, customer service, quality, reputation, or proven technology, even if the magazine’s survey said so. The most important factor is that the PCs be Intel-compatible so they can run Windows, but no one wants to say that because it makes them look inflexible. Windows is the elephant in the middle of the room, and rather than talk about it, InformationWeek made up reasons why Apple doesn’t meet criteria when it obviously does. It’s hard to see how that is information, even if it does come out weekly.
Have you seen the commercial being plastered across the airwaves by Dell featuring the interns and Dell’s product “designers”?
The thought that Michael Dull employs product designers in the first place is tremendously laughable. It becomes more humorous when you notice the products said “designers” are handling:
- a PDA–designed and produced by an OEM, with Dell’s logo planted on it
- a printer–Dell has never made printers, does not make printers, and won’t make printers, so there’s no need to employ a printer “designer”
- a flat-panel display–designed and produced by an OEM, with Dell’s logo planted on it
- Inspiron notebook computer–the only item featured that actually is designed by Dull’s product “designers,” and is about as inspiring as a Michael Jordan Hanes briefs commercial.
Truly pathetic. Unfortunately, I’m sure Joe Consumer has no concept of how Dull operates, and is buying this hook, line, and sinker.
You want truly innovative product design? Come on over.
I check my email this morning, and what do I find but some idiot has uploaded penis enlargement spam into the comments section of one of my posts (from October 2002, no less).
Comment deleted, IP banned. Don’t you morons have anything better to do?
So the brilliant executive minds at Verizon Information Services finally decided on a plan for its IT personnel, and made said plan known to all of us yesterday at an 8 AM meeting: layoffs, or in corporate jargon, a RIF (Reduction In Force).
On the one hand, I can respect this decision, as I believe it better for the company than the other major proposal that was looked at, which was outsourcing IT personnel under AMDOCS, our main contractor, and provider of much of the core server software the business runs on.
Only everyone pretty much hates AMDOCS; their code is sloppy, as the Toad can well attest, and they’re arrogant to boot, with a “we know better than you” attitude toward even the most techincally competent among the Verizon IT staff (most of whom are more technically competent than said AMDOCS personnel). The only reason this scenario didn’t play out was because Verizon couldn’t get AMDOCS to swallow a lot of salary and benefits issues that would have taken better care of Verizon employees who were outsourced.
So my team lost three people yesterday, and I was one of them. I’m still on the payroll until 24 October, and the severance package looks pretty good.
So potential employers, I’m a Mac geek with a decade of experience in computer support, with a little HTML knowledge I’d like to expand on. I need to stay in the Dallas area, and I’m open to contract, contract-to-hire, or, best of all, permanent positions.
So while the gloom of layoffs settled over the IT groups at VIS for the better part of a year, Chuck Lee, the former GTE CEO who sold us out to Bell Atlantic, is still picking up the perks:
bq. Verizon Communication’s former chairman and co-CEO, Charles Lee, became a “consultant” for the firm when he retired last year. In addition to the standard goodies, like office space, a staff, and use of an aircraft, he’s receiving a consulting fee of $250,000 per month. (That’s not a typo.) You’d think after getting paid $4 to $5 million in salary plus bonus over the past few years, and $27 million in options in 2002 alone, he’d have enough to retire on. Guess not.
So I may lose my job, but heaven forbid that Chuck Lee not get to ride around in the corporate jet while he “consults” on where the company can make cuts…
I know the Toad has to be ticked off at the latest antics of one of our beloved Congresscritters, People’s Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. She insists that the names assigned to hurricanes by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are too “lily white,” and they should use African-American names as well. She even offered a few examples; none of which are African in origin, and some of which have been completely made up by black Americans. This reader’s response puts it all in perspective:
bq. “You can be sure if there were too many ‘black’ names assigned to hurricanes, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee would instead be complaining that this practice unfairly stereotypes blacks as violent. Let’s hope this silly storm blows over!”
And to think that this is our most pressing problem with racism and discrimination…