WINSTAT
As Microsoft is under extended attack by the bad old government, we thought a few words of editorial support might be in order to celebrate the endless innovative short- comings given to the world by the software giant. Unfortunately, while we were thinking in this generous, supportive direction, our computer crashed. Again. At which point our thoughts became less charitable. Faced with another long wait during the reboot, we began doing some mental calculations related to downtime resulting from the much-touted innovative short-comings of Windows. Quickly reaching for pencil and paper as the numbers got bigger and bigger, we came up with the following revelatory figures. Roughly speaking: 3 x 108 = 300,000,000 = Number of PC's in the world Assume (very conservatively): 5 minutes per computer per day
for crashing, downtime, In addition, we have: 5 x 250 = 1250 minutes per year lost on each Windows machine= 20.33 hours/yr/machine. 20.33 x 3 x 108 = 6.1 x 109 minutes/yr lost. And: So, we divide: 6.1 x 109 minutes/year lost to Windows downtime. And we get: 5.08 x 104 which, after rounding, = 50,000 work-years lost EACH YEAR due to the innovative short-comings of Microsoft's various versions of Windows***. Wait. There's more. Assume that paradigm-busting human creativity happens very, very, very rarely. Let's say (again, very conservatively) that in 100 years of work by all human beings, maybe 2 unusual human beings will think of startling breakthroughs. (Consider, for example, a whole century, such as the 19th. How many breakthrough moments were there by a few exceptional individuals? Not many. There was Beethoven, Darwin, Marx, Edison... Let us leap to another century and label these creative instances as "Mozart Moments." Using our earlier figures (50,000 lost years), if we we have 2 Mozart Moments in every hundred years, that means the innovative short-comings of Microsoft Windows has robbed the world of 5,000 Mozart Moments. But of course, the Microsoft lawyers would argue, "Look at what Microsoft gives us in return: A lovely desktop screen that looks like Macintosh, one $60,000,000-house for Bill Gates in Seattle, $20,000,000,000 for world charity." No doubt the lawyers would also point out the promise of more and better innovative short-comings into the farthest future from the well-known innovative team in Redmond. "And," they would conclude, "you sit there and complain about the loss of 5,000 Mozart symphonies, Wagner operas, Darwin theories, Marx analyses? You would exchange that kind of feel-good artsty-fartsy stuff for the innovative challenges of ever-increasing down-time with future iterations of Windows?" Smirking, the Microsoft lawyers, stroking their alligator-foreskin attaché folders, would say, "We rest our cases." ***A Note to mathematical nit-pickers who may question the accuracy of my various calculations: We would remind you that we had to do everything with pencil and paper BECAUSE OUR PC HAD CRASHED! Q.E.D.
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128 pages of the best satire
from 6 years of Magellan's Log. Well beyond chortles, Is It
Empire Yet? verges on the downright hilarious. "Swiftian," says
one reader. "Rib-splitting," says another. "Brilliantly, uproariously
offensive to all right-thinking Republicans," says yet another. 128 pp. Paperback.
8.5" x 11". ISBN 0-9767821-3-8. $21.95:
