Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology Path: news.cinenet.net!tor-nx1.netcom.ca!news3.bellglobal.com!news1.bellglobal.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!newsfeed.wli.net!uunet!in1.uu.net!world!kibo From: kibo@world.std.com (James "Kibo" Parry) Subject: Scenarios. Sender: news@world.std.com (Mr Usenet Himself) Message-ID: X-Hello-To: Archimedes Plutonium Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 06:28:04 GMT X-Battlestar-Galactica-Date: 4721 centons, 63 microns, .02 rouettes NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp0a005.std.com Organization: welcome datacomp X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.4.4 Lines: 80 Xref: news.cinenet.net alt.religion.kibology:67129 X-Cache: nntpcache 1.0.6 (see ftp://suburbia.net/pub/nntpcache) ONE. Suppose some crazed Mac user who doesn't drink coffee, and therefore hates Microsoft and Starbuck's, and who happens to know a little about physics -- let's call him "Euripides Pantalonium" -- just happens to build his own nuclear bomb and blow Seattle off the map. Including Bill Gates, his house the size of Montana, and all the programmers who know what all the spaghetti in the Windows 98 source code does. What happens next? Does Microsoft dig a printed copy of the Windows 98 source code out of a salt mine in Utah and work on trying to figure out how it works so they can have a Windows 2001? Or does Microsoft just go out of business? If so, do people keep using Windows 98 forever? Do other companies start selling their own clones of Windows 98 and things that would equate to Windows 2001, Windows 2005, etc.? Or would everyone just give up and use Mac OS or IBM PC-DOS? TWO. Suppose the Year 2000 bug really does work like CNN thinks it does and all elevators, car engines, and dishwashers explode on January 1, 2000, except for those that are powered by Microsoft Windows CE. What happens next? Or suppose all Microsoft computers explode in 2000 but not any of the Macs or elevators. Or what if the Year 2000 bug just causes bank machines to give everyone in the world an extra thousand years worth of interest? THREE. Suppose the Federal government does break up Microsoft just like AT&T. Would there be Regional Operating System Providers ("Baby Bills")? Would they just tell Microsoft that they lose intellectual property rights to the "Microsoft Windows" trademark so that I could write a shareware tic-tac-toe game and release it as "Microsoft Windows 99"? Or would they say that Microsoft cedes all intellectual property rights and they have to distribute the source code under GNU Public License, meaning that anyone can modify Windows however they want, provided that they give Richard Stallman a free copy? FOUR. Suppose due to the Year 2000 computer bug Apple, Inc. accidentally buys Microsoft Inc. for a dollar, and then Steve Jobs goes sane long enough to make a press conference containing a sentence which is not self-contradictory, namely, "From now on, all computers will run Mac OS." Would the ensuing civil war and/or revolution first destroy Washington, Seattle, or Cupertino? FIVE. Suppose Euripides Pantalonium discovered that using Windows 98 makes you gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it really does. But nobody believe him because he's legally changed his name to "Euripides Pantalonium" and everything else he says is wrong. Would Microsoft change their marketing campaign? "Windows: It Doesn't Make You Very Gay Any More." "Now 50% More Hetero!" But would such an openly homophobic advertising campaign hurt Microsoft's amazing 90%+ market share within the gay community? SIX. Suppose Apple, Inc. came up with an operating system that was exactly like Windows in every way, and was named "Apple Windows", only it gave you a dollar every time you used it. Would they still have no chance in hell of recapturing any market share? Suppose they changed its name to "Claris Windows" or "NotFromApple Windows", would it fare better? What if it gave you a hundred dollars every time you used it? What if it gave you all of Bill Gates's money every time you used it? What if it did that and Euripides Pantalonium installed a pirated copy and became so rich he could buy all the computers in the world? How would Bill Gates count his money without a computer? I like to think about things like this because Bill Gates is the Albert Einstein for the nineties, only funnier and with worse hair. -- K. I need to worsen mine up so I can be rich too.