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So for example, you might think a new Lamborghini Diablo would cost $250,000, but in Bill Gates dollars that's 63 cents.
That fully loaded, multimedia active matrix 233 MHZ laptop with the 1024x768 screen you've been drooling after? A penny.
A nice home in a rich town Palo Alto, California? Two dollars.
That nice mansion he's building? A reasonable $125 to him.
You might spend $100 on tickets, food and parking to take your family to see an NHL hockey game. Bill, on the other hand, could buy the team for 100 Bill- bills.
You might buy a plane ticket on a Boeing 747 for $1200 at full-fare coach. In Bill-bills, Mr. Gates could buy three 747s. One for him, one for Melinda and one for young Jennifer Katherine.
Yet More: Evan Marcus, a Systems Engineer from Fair Lawn, New Jersey who maintains a Bill Gates Net Worth Page on his web site, notes that Bill could buy every single major league team in Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey for only about 35% of his net worth -- plenty left over to buy a European sport.
Of course then he wouldn't have around $150 for every person in the USA as he does now. Nor could he still give $6.70 to every person on the planet.
Marcus suggests that Bill could only pay Michael Jordan's 1997 salary only 1300 times, but that he could buy 902 million subscriptions to TV Guide.
He's also fascinated by how much all this money would be if put into dollar bills. Laid end to end, the Bills would stretch 3.8 million miles -- to the moon and back over 8 times. They could paper over all of Manhattan 7 times, or be stacked 2,690 miles high -- watch out for satellites. They would weigh 40,000 tons -- 100 times the weight of one of those 747s he bought above.
But one thing Marcus says Bill can't do is even dent the national debt. Should he selflessly donate his stock to the U.S. treasury, he would reduce the $5.37 trillion national debt by well under 1%.
It's nice to put things in perspective. : )
Bill pushed up his glasses, looked up at God and replied, "Would you briefly explain the difference between the two?"
Looking slightly puzzled, God said, "Better yet, why don't I let you visit both places briefly, then you can make your decision. Which do you choose to see first, Heaven or Hell?"
Bill played with his pocket calculator for a moment, then looked back at God and said, "I think I'll try Hell first."
So with a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke, Bill Gates went to Hell. When he materialized in Hell, Bill looked around. It was beautiful and clean, a bit warm with sandy beaches and tall mountains, clear skies, pristine water and beautiful women frolicking about. A smile came across Bill's face as he took in a deep breath of the clean air. "This is great," he thought "If this is Hell, I can't wait to see Heaven."
Within seconds of his thoughts, another flash of lightning and cloud of smoke appeared, and Bill was off to Heaven. Heaven was a place high above the clouds, where the angels were drifting about playing their harps, singing in a beautiful chorus. It was a very nice place, Bill thought, but not as enticing as Hell.
Bill looked up, cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "If I have to choose only one, I believe I'll take Hell, sir." And with that a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke again appeared, and Bill Gates was sent to Hell for eternity.
Time passed, and God decided to check on the late billionaire to see how he was progressing in Hell. When he got there, he found Bill Gates shackled to a wall in a dark cave amid bone thin men and tongues of fire, being burned and tortured.
"So, how is everything going?" God asked.
Bill responded with a crackling voice filled with anguish and disappointment. "This is awful. It's nothing like the Hell I visited the first time. I can't believe this is happening. What happened to the other place, with the beaches and the mountains and the beautiful women?"
"That," God replied, "was the demo."
And what do Baby Gates and Daddy's products have in common?
1. Neither can stand on its own two feet without a LOT of third party support.
2. Both barf all over themselves _regularly_.
3. Regardless of the problem, calling Microsoft Tech Support won't help.
4. As they mature, we pray that they will be better than that which preceeded them.
5. At first release they're relatively compact, but they seem to grow and grow and grow with each passing year.
6. Although announced with great fanfare, pretty much anyone could have produced one.
7. They arrive in shaky condition with inadequate documentation.
8. No matter what, it takes several months between the announcement and the actual release.
9. Bill gets the credit, but someone else did most of the work.
10. For at least the next year, they'll suck.
President Clinton went before the American people and said, "My fellow Americans, tonight I come before you with good news and bad news. The good news is that there is a god, and that he knows we are a religious nation and honor him. The bad news is that the world is ending in three days, so be prepared."
President Yeltsin went to the Russian peoples and said, "Comrades, I have bad news and worse news. The bad news is that the Communist Party was wrong; they were in error when they said there was no god. For he has spoken and the worse news is that he has said the world will end in three days."
Bill Gates went before the employees of Microsoft and said, "People, I have good news and great news. The good news is that god has chosen to speak to me personally and give me a message to give to you gathered here. The great news is that the world is ending in three days and therefore we won't have to worry about shipping Windows '95"
(Author Unknown)
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly said, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry, we'd be driving $25 cars that get 1000 miles/gal." GM released the following response:
"Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"
And,
1. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason and you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time unless you bought "car95" or "carNT" , then you'd have to buy more seats.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, was 5 times as fast and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on 58. New seats would force
everyone to have the same size butt. 9. The airbag system would ask, "Are you sure?" before going off. 10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened. 11. Finally, for most problems, the procedure would be as follows: Unless, of course, you get a message that says: "This car
has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down..."
NORTH POLE (API) - MICROSOFT announced an agreement with SantaClaus Industries to acquire Christmas at a press conference held via satellite from Santa's summer estate somewhere in the southern hemisphere. In the deal, Microsoft would gain exclusive rights to Christmas, Reindeer, and other unspecified inventions. In addition, Microsoft will gain access to millions of households through the Santa Sleigh.
The announcement also included a notice that beginning Jan 1, 1996, Christmas and the Reindeer names would be copyrighted by Microsoft. This unprecedented move was facilitated by the recently acquired MS Court. Microsoft stated its commitment to "all who have made Christmas great," and vowed to "make licensing of the Christmas and Reindeer names available to all." It is believed that the guidelines for licensing these names, due before Halloween, will be very strict.
When asked "Why buy Christmas?" Bill Gates replied "Microsoft has been working on a more efficient delivery mechanism for all of our products for some time, but recognized that the Santa Sleigh has some immediate benefits. "We'll use it first for the distribution of Windows 95 and Office 95."
In a mulBirdEdia extravaganza, the attendees were shown a seemingly endless video stream of products that make up the deal. It ended with a green and red version of the Microsoft logo, and a new Christmas 95 trademark, leading into the announcement of the first product from the deal.
Vixen, the new Director of Holidays and Celebrations said, "The first step is to assimilate Christmas within the Microsoft organization. This will take some time, so don't expect any changes this year." She continued, "our big plans are for next year, when we release Christmas 96. It will be bigger and better than last year." She further elaborated that "Windows95 users who sign up with MSN will get sneak previews of Christmas[96] as early as November fifteen."
Christmas 96 is scheduled for release in December of 1996, though one unnamed source said that it is dangerously close to the end of the year and may slip into the first half of 1997. An economist at Goldman Sachs explained that a slip would be catastrophic to next year's economy and the nation's tax revenue, possibly requiring the IRS to move the deadline for filing income tax returns to three months after Christmas, whenever that was. "But it could be good in the long term," he explained.
"With Microsoft controlling Christmas, we may see it move to May or June, which are much slower months for retailers. This may serve to even out the economy over the year."
When asked if other holidays are being considered, Mr. Gates explained that "Christmas is the flagship of holidays, so we wanted to start there. Not all holidays are available for sale, and the remaining will have to show a good long term business," suggesting that holidays with a short history may not be in the plans.
Though specific terms of the agreement were withheld pending final FTC approval, a Santa official confirmed that the deal was "sizeable, even for a man of Santa's stature." Some analysts think that Santa has saturated the Holiday market, and is looking for a means to expand his business to year 'round products and services. Others contend that the Jolly Red Man is looking to retire in Redmond.
A spokesperson for the most famous Reindeer of all could not be reached for comment.
Microsoft Corporation today announced plans to buy the Philadelphia Mint from the United States government. Final details of the transaction were hammered out in an all night bargaining session which included President Bill Clinton representing the US, and four unnamed chorus girls. An obviously fatigued and smiling Clinton emerged from the meeting and stated that he saw no chance that there would be opposition from anyone within the government. In an effort to appease regulators, Microsoft
gave a copy o f Windows NT and a box of paper clips to Novell.
Microsoft said it intends to print money in direct competition with the US Government. Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates, declared, "The Government has no vision and we intend to eventually take over all operations." The official announcement was made by Microsoft spokesman, Brad Silverberg, who showed reporters an alpha version of the currency Microsoft will release next year. The currency, called simply "Money" (patent pending) bears a striking resemblance to US currency . When questioned
about this, Silv erberg stated that the US Government had obviously copied the design. Silverberg alleged that this was constantly happening to Microsoft, citing Apple's theft of the Windows look and feel, and Stac's pilfering of on-the-fly disk compression as only two examples.
Gates said the acquisition was made in order to move closer to his grand vision of "Money always at my fingertips." Gates further stated that the move to 32 bit operating systems would make it difficult "for the lemms, uh, I mean, users to continue throwing money at Microsoft in ever increasing amounts." "This (acquisition) will make it unnecessary for our customers to continue to struggle with the challenge of actually buying and installing software," continued Gates.
Response within the industry and government was immediate. All major ISV's appeared at the press conference and announced support for Money. Steve Gibson called the acquisition "the most earth shattering event in the history of the world, without question." Brian Livingston said this was the most exciting news "since cousin Pee Wee got his own television show." Ed Bott declared that PC Computing would dedicate its next twelve issues to the new Money and said we would "all be using it soon."
Jim Seymour s tated that "the miraculous Money is now the standard for currency in the United States."
Hillary Clinton was not available for comment.
Copy write 1994 Rueter's News Service
Reporter Sir William Terengton 1. Their #1 product would be "Microsoft Winders". 2. Instead of an hourglass icon you'd get an empty beer bottle. 3. Occasionally you'd bring up a window that was covered with a Hefty bag and some duct tape. 4. Dialog boxes would give you the choice of "Ahh-right", "Naw", or "Git" instead of "Yes", "No", or "Cancel" 5. Instead of "Ta-Da!", the opening
sound would be Dueling Banjos 6. The "Recycle Bin" in Winders '95 would be an outhouse 7. Whenever you pulled up the Sound Player you'd h ear a digitized drunk redneck yelling "Freebird!" 8. Instead of "Start Me Up", the Winders '95 theme song would be "Achey-Breaky Heart" 9. PowerPoint would be named "ParPawnt" 10. Microsoft's programming tools would be "Vishul Basic" and "Vishul C++" 11. Winders 95 logo would incorporate the Confederate Flag 12. Instead of "VP", Microsoft
big shots would be called "Cuz" 13. Hardware could be repaired using parts from an old Trans Am 14. Four words: Daisy Duke Screen Saver 15. "Well, the first thing you know old Bill's a billionaire...." 16. Flight Simulator replaced by Tractor-Pull Simulator 17. Microsoft CEO: Billy-Bob (a.k.a "Bubba") Gates Bill Bailey A: After licencing the primitive Haiku technology from the Japanese, Microsoft has determined that its users want additional flexibility not present in the restrictive Haiku standard. In the innovative Microsoft Haiku (tm), each of the 4 lines has up to 20 syllables and follows a simple rhyming scheme to ease translation into 10 second pop songs. In a related announcement,
Microsoft has released a new poetry development tool, Microsoft H++, as part of its Visual Language Studio development suite. Microsoft H++ ships with several helpful Microsoft Haiku (tm) wizards which can automate the process for building Microsoft Haiku (tm), setting them to music, and releasing the sound files in NetShow format. Microsoft H++ can be used to generate a traditional, but less innovative, Haiku by editing several Registry flags and waving a chicken over your head in a graveyard
at midnight.
MICROSOFT:
MICROSOFT: [ACQUISITIONS BY]
Earl of Squashedbeds, Duke of Eastwestly, esq. MICROSOFT: [DOWN HOME HEADQUARTERS]
Internet: wdbailey@phoenixat.com | bill.bailey@juno.com
Home Page: http://www.phoenixat.com/wdbailey/index.htm
MICROSOFT: [POETRY BY ~]
--Jonathan Bodner on the mrj-dev mailing list, 18 Dec 1998
MICROSOFT TECHNICAL SUPPORT LINE:
WINDOWS:
(see DEFENESTRATION)
--coined by Fang-Face DreamWeaver, 22 Oct 1997 WINDOWS NT:
WINDOWS 3.1:
WINDOWS 95:
WINDOWS 98:
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