Torch Carrying Mob - Assignment 2: Microsoft

Men and Women, Girls and Boys, light up your torches and grab your pitchforks. We are going to show Microsoft our version of a firewall.

The Torch Carrying Mob asks: Are we attacking Microsoft because they are an evil monopoly?

I respond: No, even though their tactic of injuring their competitors as opposed to developing a better product is bothersome, that is for the courts to resolve

The Torch Carrying Mob asks: Does this have anything with the recent trojan you found in your system?

I respond: No, but I was upset that a vulnerability in IE allowed it. Removal of the trojan was time consuming. I didn't click on a spammed email link nor visit any site out of the ordinary. I think I may have used IE too long. I usually use Firefox, which was unaffected. I only use IE to check Hotmail and get Windows updates, since the Firefox browser isn't compatible with Windows Update and Hotmail occasionally screws up. But sometimes, if I have the browser up, I use it for other things.

The Torch Carrying mob asks: Then what's your problem?

I respond: I'm bothered that I spent a good 30 minutes driving in and around the Microsoft campus looking for building 22. Microsoft has 50 or so buildings all numbered from 1 to 50 (or however many they have, I have only seen up to building 41). Now, if you had numbered buildings, what does logic tell you? Mine told me that there would be some sort of pattern to the ordering, distribution, and placement. Buildings were ordered by number: 1 was grouped with 2, 3, and 4. So, going back to patterns, where do you think building 22 would be? If you said right next to building 40 and 41, and about a quarter mile, separated by a few unnumbered buildings and a busy street, from 24, then you may be interested in this and this. If you said somewhere in the area of building 21 and 23, then I you are like a majority of rational thinking people, including myself.

I drove around the campus looking for buildings in the 20's for about a half hour. It took so long since I was unable to make any u-turn after my many unsuccessful searches. I found building 22 on a fluke. I exited the campus by crossing the major street and drove into the parking lot of a building on the other side to call my student and ask for directions. When I told here where I was she said I was at building 22.

To make matters worse, I had wait outside, in the cold, for a bit for security reasons. Too bad they don't use the same security precautions in their Internet Explorer.

It really doesn't make sense, but then nothing about Microsoft has to. If only I was geeky enough for Linux or eccentric enough for Mac, but, alas I am like the majority of people, a slave to the Windows operating system.