Bill Gates

The top ten reasons you have to pity Bill Gates.

10)   He's got more money than you. If you don't pity him, he'll hire someone to break your kneecaps.

9)  He has to live in a house run by his own software.

8)  It doesn't matter how much money he has, once a nerd always a nerd.

7)  All his pets are virtual.

6)  He really believes "BOB" was a great computer interface.

5)  He's the richest man in the country and still can't get a White House intern.

4)  He has to hire Third World programmers because no one in this country can tell him, "Good idea boss!" with a straight face.

3)  He's the only man in America that gets less respect than Rodney Dangerfield .

2)  He has millions of customers, thousands of employees, one wife and no friends.

And the number one reason to pity Bill Gates is...

1)   His mother is dead and he has to dress himself.

Microsoft Inventions

If Oracle made toasters...

They'd claim their toaster was compatible with all brands and styles of bread, but when you got it home you'd discover the Bagel Engine was still in development, the Croissant Extension was three years away, and that indeed the whole appliance was just blowing smoke.

If IBM made toasters...

They would want one big toaster where people bring bread to be submitted for overnight toasting. IBM would claim a worldwide market for five, maybe six toasters.

If Sun made toasters...

The toast would burn often, but you could get a really good cuppa Java.

Does DEC still make toasters?...

They made good toasters in the '80s, didn't they?

If Xerox made toasters...

You could toast one-sided or double-sided. Successive slices would get lighter and lighter. The toaster would jam your bread for you.

If Microsoft made toasters... Every time you bought a loaf of bread, you would have to buy a toaster. You wouldn't have to take the toaster, but you'd still have to pay for it anyway.Toaster'95 would weigh 1500 lbs (hence requiring a reinforced steel countertop), draw enough electricity to power a small city, take up 95% of the space in your kitchen, would claim to be the first toaster that lets you control how light or dark you want your toast to be, and would secretly interrogate your other appliances to find out who made them. Everyone would hate Microsoft toasters, but nonetheless would buy them since most of the good bread only works with their toasters

Microsoft Employment 1

An unemployed man goes to try for a job with Microsoft as a cleaner. The manager there arranges for an aptitude test After the test, the manager says: "You will be appointed on a salary of $30 per day. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and advise you where to report for work day."

Taken aback, the unemployed man states that he is neither in possession of a computer nor of an e-mail address. To this the MS manager replies: "Well, then, that means that you virtually don't exist and therefore cannot expect to be employed." Stunned, the man leaves.

Not knowing where to turn and only having about $10 left, he decides to buy a 10kg box of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours,he sells the tomatoes singly at 100% profit. Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100. And thus it dawns on the man that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes. Eventually he multiplies his hoard of profits in quite a short time.

Not long thereafter, he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again shortly afterwards on a pick-up truck. By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of pick-up trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes.

Considering the future of his family, he decides to buy life assurance. Calling an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks for his e-mail address in order that he might forward the documentation.

When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned: "What, you don't even have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would have been by now, if you had been connected from the very start!"

After a moment's silence, the millionaire replied: "Sure! I would have been a cleaner at Microsoft!"

Morals of the story:

1. The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.

2. If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.

3. Seeing that you are reading this story via e-mail, you're probably closer to becoming a cleaner than you are to becoming a millionaire.

4. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you're already been taken to the cleaners by Microsoft.

Microsoft Employment 2

Once upon a time there was a young man who wanted to become a great writer. "I want to write things the whole world will read," he declared. "Stuff that will elicit strong emotions from people in every walk of life. I want my writing to make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger."