[0] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170418-00/?p=95...
https://www.zdnet.com/article/canonical-turns-20-shaping-the...
"Fast Shadows and Lighting Effects Using Texture Mapping", by Mark Segal, Carl Korobkin, Rolf van Widenfelt, Jim Foran, Paul Haeberli, Silicon Graphics Computer Systems. Computer Graphics, 26,2, July 1992, Page 252, Figure 3: Simulating a Slide Projector:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34129571
"Yes, we have a dress code. You have to dress." – Scott McNealy
On the other hand, down the road at SGI there was a practice called "Skinnyhacking"!
https://rdtk.net/internet/how-do-you-check-a-computer-s-comp...
>Snowsinger. November 21, 2020 at 07:48.
>A truly excellent review of the history of Silicon Graphics. I worked in the Australian Sales office as their 1st engineer in the Asia Pacific region. Was trained in MtView the 1st week the MtView campus opened. The 1st system I worked on was the IRIS 1000 and subsequently all the products from then on till I left in mid-2009 when the Australian Engineering division was shut. A great company with great people who just wanted to engineer the best Graphics experience on the planet until we lost focus and vision of what we did well. Brings to Mind the Skinny Hackers, the Rocktain event, PCP monitoring, CXFS (Clustered File Systems), Failsafe, Diskless boot, Voxel vision, and so many other engineering wins. A great company, great people, & the drive to make a better computing world. Thank you for the memories and documenting the history of a company that did make some huge breakthroughs in Computer Graphics & Computing architecture. Just go ask NVIDIA, Cray and now HP!! Also a shout out to Jim Clark & his team for the vision and determination to bring the Graphics Engine to world, the heart of the IRIS workstation and subsequent graphics systems.
https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.sgi.misc/c/X50cCoYrU20/...
>Tom Davis, Mar 22, 1993, 6:06:21 PM, comp.sys.sgi.misc
>In article <gom...@zola.esd.sgi.com>, ol...@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) writes:
|> In <112...@bu.edu> j...@bu-pub.bu.edu (Jason Heirtzler) writes:
|> | Okay, I gotta know. Whom does the phrase "The Skinny Hackers" refer to?
|> A small group of (fairly skinny ;) ) folks who are also great hackers/developers and mostly long time SGI employees. Among other fruits of their group hackerdom was the original showcase.
>Being skinny didn't have anything to do with it. Although Showcase was the best known product of the skinnyhackers, the first product was an image of them made from a photo of all three sitting naked at computer terminals, busily hacking. On top of the photo was the international "no" symbol (red circle with a line across it), and underneath, the words "No Skinnyhacking".
>Note: Skinnyhacking is a dangerous activity, and should only be performed by professionals. Do NOT attempt it at home.
>If you're interested, you can see the image in the most recent (1992) SIGGRAPH proceedings, in distored form on the back cover, and in non-distored form on page 252.
>I can't imagine that anyone would want a copy of this image, but I have one in SGI format. (Actually, the secret goal is to have this image overtake the mandrill in popularity.)
|> I won't speak further to protect their secret identities ;)
>I will! It was me! Tom Davis! The bald guy in the front! Oh, and the other two are Rocky Rhodes and Scott Carr. Ann Sydeman joined the group a short time later, but unfortunately missed the initial photo session (although there was a subsequent video ...). Paul Haeberli was the photographer.
[Fortunately I found a pdf of the paper with the image:]
"Fast Shadows and Lighting Effects Using Texture Mapping", by Mark Segal, Carl Korobkin, Rolf van Widenfelt, Jim Foran, Paul Haeberli, Silicon Graphics Computer Systems. Computer Graphics, 26,2, July 1992, Page 252, Figure 3: Simulating a Slide Projector:
Ah, that would be 8.10 with the coffee stain wallpaper :-P
https://halfblog.net/2011/12/04/daemon-worship/
>I just got a call from the owner of a hotel for which we provide hotspot service. She says that a guest spotted the “Powered by FreeBSD” logo at the bottom of the login page, and was offended; the guest was convinced that either we or the hotel management “worshipped the Devil” and refused to stay at the hotel unless the logo was removed. The owner could make no headway by explaining that the besneakered mascot was a cartoon character and was a daemon, not the Devil. And she feared upsetting the guest even more if she said that large portions of the same software are inside every Mac and iPad. The hotel stands to lose more than $1000 if the guest, who had originally planned to stay for a long period, moves out.
>One of our tech support people also got a call directly from the hotel guest, who claimed that having the logo on the page constituted “abuse.” The guest also claimed to be “losing money” because she wouldn’t use the hotspot if there was a “devil” on the splash page. He didn’t even realize what she was talking about at first…. He couldn’t imagine why on Earth this person was calling him and going on about devils.
>Attempts at misguided religious censorship notwithstanding, I don’t want to see one of my ISP’s customers lose business. And I’d like to keep a FreeBSD logo on our hotspot page. Is there artwork that doesn’t include horned creatures that might offend the ignorant or superstitious?
>–Brett Glass
> ``Pardon us, ma'am. Mind if we ask you a question?''
> Well, people keep telling me that Texans are real friendly, so I nodded.
> ``Are you a Satanist?''
> Well, at least they didn't ask me if I liked to party.
> ``Uh, no, I can't say that I am.''
> ``Gee, ma'am. Are you sure about that?'' they asked.
> I put on my biggest, brightest Dallas Cowboys cheerleader smile and said, ``No, I'm positive. The closest I've ever come to Satanism is watching Geraldo.''
> ``Hmmm. Interesting. See, we was just wondering why it is you have the lord of darkness on your chest there.''
And it continues…
Windows has been free since at least VXKC4. Microsoft wouldn’t exist as anything but an Excel vendor today if it were any other way; it’s intentional.
(Ubuntu was the right choice.)
That's not what 'this looks like ass' means.
https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/038-design...
I suppose it looks like buttocks?
According to Microsoft programmer Raymond Chen on his blog The Old New Thing, Red moon desert was originally intended to be Windows XP's default wallpaper, but was allegedly changed due to some testers feeling it resembled a pair of buttocks, leading to O'Rear's other photo Bliss becoming the default wallpaper. While this wallpaper was temporarily set as the default wallpaper during Whistler, this story does not appear to be true; Bliss had already been selected based on extensive research by design manager Rob Girling and his team, and the Luna visual style shares the same color scheme as the wallpaper. It is more likely the wallpaper was set to default as a decoy; the unleaked Lab06 build 2415 predates build 2423, and shows Bliss set as the wallpaper.
I’ve seen that background hundreds of times, and it never even occurred to me.
But I think the person who directly contacted Microsoft about this was probably not the person who noticed it and brought it up on the Government side just the Person who was tasked with communicating about it so its good they remain nameless.
Looking at it from a distance indeed may raise some brows.
I don't think anyone complained about the hologram or red moon desert background because they disliked windows; they complained because they were hypersensitive to possible inappropriate/sexual connotations in imagery.
(Conversely, I very much doubt that the baby hologram or the red moon desert background swayed anyone to dislike Windows.)
People who hated Windows for being Windows would complain about it on technical grounds. It was terrible, and it crashed all the time. People who hated Windows because it was by Microsoft, would complain about Microsoft's bundling and monopoly tactics.
Usually I wouldn't comment just to point out offtopic, but I think "instant bad thoughts every time windows is mentioned, no matter the context" is another psychological effect caused by Microsoft.
My challenge to the author would be to address the much more serious criticisms of Windows that have been frustrating real users and have been left unresolved.
Address the forced Microsoft login in Windows 11. Even walled garden Apple doesn’t force that in their desktop OS.
Address the pre-installed junkware games that plagued Windows 10.
Address the Bing and Edge nags and hostility toward the will of the user.
Address sending my start menu search query to bing by default.
Address the fact that Windows search is horrendous compared to every other OS. Address the fact that Microsoft still tolerates OEMs dumping spyware/junkware/scareware like McAfee on their computers when you buy them new.
Address the nags to put my data on OneDrive.
Address the dual hidden right click context menus in File Explorer that annoy power users to this day.
Address the fact that File Explorer will hang for multiple seconds with completely unresponsive UI upon bootup if you pin a network share that is no longer accessible.
Address the reason why the taskbar lost its decades-old customization options with Windows 11.
Address the disaster that was the Windows 8 UI, which was even more of a disaster in the context of Windows Server where tablet UI made even less sense.
Address the reason why telemetry fingerprints your connected devices and installed programs and sends that private information to Microsoft by default.
Address the fact that a $200 retail price operating system made by one of the largest and most resourced companies in the world is somehow slower, less user-friendly, has less stable drivers, and is an overall worse experience than a grocery store ice cream aisle stocked full of free operating systems cobbled together by volunteers. This has gotten so bad that mainstream technology influencers and very non-technicial surface-level mainstream audience phone and car reviewers like Marques Brownlee start recommending Linux.
In what universe does it make any logical sense that I abandoned the operating system made by the creator of DirectX, Xbox, and the owner of potentially the largest collection of game studios in the world because a game developed and published by that very same company (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle) continually crashed with my mainstream commercial graphics card on that company’s OS? By switching to a different OS that’s not even supposed to be compatible with this game, my graphics driver instability stopped entirely.
It seems like the purpose of this article is to humanize this OS that comes from a monopolistic and generally horrible, unethical company; to say “everyone will criticize Windows over anything minor, when it’s actually a great artisan OS made by real people. Look, we put a picture of a baby on the sticker! How cute.”
While I agree that Microsoft employees are real people who aren’t necessarily responsible for the draconian choices of their C-suite lords, and that making any functioning modern OS is no small feat, let’s not pretend that Windows wouldn’t be a better much OS if it was produced by someone else — almost anyone else.
Have to say this never would have occurred to me. There are also examples of US people being offended by scenes considered harmless in other cultures, ie the Totoro bathtub scene [1], search for "family bathing scene".
I guess if this hologram offended people, there must be some nice stories about Nirvana's Nevermind (1991).
[0] https://velvetshark.com/ai-company-logos-that-look-like-butt...
[1] https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/my-neighbour-totoro-10-things-di...
For awhile, people had been spotting goatse in several logos.
Good news! Cornholio.ai isn't registered by anyone as a domain name, so someone with sufficient motivation and a love for Beavis and Butthead could totally instruct an LLM to make a satirical AI-butthole-logo themed website.
Bonus points if it has affiliate links to Amazon or other online stores selling TP (for the bunghole, of course).
I’m not going to be able to find this, but I remember some piece of news having to do with a woman and a photograph of her with naked breasts.
Someone found examples of how it had been reported in the US and a European country. Both used the same picture and only censored one area: the face in the European country, the breasts in the US.
oh thanks, now I cannot unsee it. :)
Windows doesn't need or deserve defending. It's atrocious. But this is a silly comment.
People just forgot.
I am sure that in 2050, there will be blog posts about Windows 11 that won't make people enrage.
Did this comment already put me on a list?
By the same logic:
If God didn't mean for people to cannibalize each other, we wouldn't be made of meat.
Flanders and Swan: The Reluctant Cannibal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEvh8qY-QRo
Seriously though, I love babies!
...I just can't eat a whole one...
(Although a little dressing does improve the taste.)
The cover was a Bakelite toy city simulator appliance with a red MONSTER disaster button, and a stompy T-Rex-looking creature waving over San Francisco on its TV screen.
Maxis never called it Godzilla on the box or in the game. Reviewers looked at the inkblot and saw Godzilla anyway.
Original monster cover:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SimHacker/MicropolisCore/m...
Revised cover after the lawsuit, monster swapped for a tornado (the MONSTER button survived):
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SimHacker/MicropolisCore/m...
In Feb 2024 I emailed Jeff Braun (Maxis co-founder/CEO) and asked what actually happened and how much Maxis had to pay. He wrote back the same day:
> Maxis was sued by Toho. We never referred to the name Godzilla, our monster on the box cover was a T-Rex looking character, but... a few magazine reviews called the monster, Godzilla. That was all it took. Toho called it "confusion in the marketplace". We paid $50k for Godzilla to go away. In all honesty, Toho liked Maxis, they said $50k was the minimum they take for Godzilla infringement.
All the box scans are in the Micropolis repo -- high res front, back with the "floods, earthquakes, fires, tornados, meltdowns and monsters" disaster list, side panels, and the platform variants, each with descriptions:
https://github.com/SimHacker/MicropolisCore/blob/main/docume...
Full email thread:
https://github.com/SimHacker/MicropolisCore/blob/main/docume...
The back of the box kept advertising monsters as a feature the same year the monster got lawyered off the front.
The function names in the code all refered to it like "MakeMonster()", but admittedly there was a "GOD" symbol in the code used to index the Monster sprite likw "GetSprite(GOD)", but Toho could not have know that, since it was a C preprocessor macro that was compiled away in the binary:
https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis/blob/master/micropol...
By all means be pragmatic if it's a government complaining, but you don't have to take all crazy feedback at face value.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-cs...
If this body part is obscene, shouldn’t the author do the moral thing and remove his own?
I also think it would be very impolite to make fun of your clients on the internet for a stupid request while naming them explicitly while doing so.
How dare you violate the government's exclusive right to naked children!
