"It's never been, 'We're doing this for the good of society.'  It's always been us taking an intellectual pride in putting out a good product - and making money.  If putting a computer on every desktop and in every home didn't make money, we wouldn't do it."
That sums up most of the Microsoft people I know.


Sometimes, in the employee kitchen, when I'm surrounded by the dairy caxes full of Bill-supplied free beverages, I have to wonder if maybe Microsoft's corporate zest for recycling aliminuim, plastic, and paper is perhaps a sublimation of the staff's hidden desire for immortality.  Or maybe this whole Bill thing is actually the subconscious manufacture of God.


I noticed that on TV, all of these "moments" are sponsored by corporations, as in, "This touchdown brought to you by the brewers of Bud Lite," or "This nostalgic flashback was brought to you by the proud makers of Kraft's family of fine foods."
I told Karla, "I'm no sci-fi buff, but doesn't this seem like a dangerous way to be messing with the structure of time - allowing the corporate realm to invade the private?
Karla told me about how the city of Atlanta was tampering with the idea of naming streets are corporations in return for paying for the maintenance of infrastructure: "Folgers Avenue; Royal Jordanian Airlines Boulevard; Tru-Valu Road."
"Well," I said, "streets have to get names somehow.  The surnames Smith, Brown and Johnson probably looked pretty weird when they first started, too."
Karla said, "I think that in the future, clocks won't sat three o'clock anymore.  They'll just get right to the point and call three o'clock, 'Pepsi.'"
 
 
 

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