Live from Austin!

The image doing the rounds of $205 million in cash (from a drug lord’s stash) reminded me of an IKEA double bed. In fact, it’s pretty much what I like to imagine Bill Gates’ bed looking like.

When Apple launched Mac OS X, they made a big thing about its typographical capabilities. To show off the new type rendering engine, they licensed and bundled…

More than $1,000 of the best fonts available today, including Baskerville, Herman Zapf’s Zapfino, Futura, and Optima; as well as the highest-quality Japanese fonts available, in the largest character set ever on a personal computer.

It’s interesting to contrast this with Microsoft’s approach. Back when they launched Windows, they needed some fonts too. Since every laser printer on the planet (and most non-laser printers) had Helvetica and Times in, it would have been really useful if Windows had had Helvetica too. Macintoshes at the time shipped with Times and Helvetica, and it enabled them to display on screen a reasonable facsimile of what you would get on printout.

Of course, doing what Apple had done and actually licensing the fonts wasn’t an option. Bill Gates didn’t get to be as rich as he is today by paying people for the use of their intellectual property. Instead, Microsoft got a couple of knock-off fonts made by Monotype that were close enough—Times New Roman and Arial. In the case of Arial, the emulation was painstaking, right down to using the exact same character and stroke widths for every symbol.

Much the same happened with Microsoft Office. Microsoft saw a font they rather liked—Hermann Zapf’s Palatino—so they called in Monotype to make a quick copy. The result was named Book Antiqua, and bundled with Office.

Unlike Helvetica, however, Palatino was a wholly original design by a living designer. Hermann Zapf got rather angry, and Microsoft agreed to license Palatino retrospectively.

With Microsoft, history has a way of repeating itself. The forthcoming (some day) Windows Vista has a font called Segoe, used for all user interface elements. Microsoft recently filed for a visual trademark on Segoe, to try and ensure that nobody else would be able to use the font in their logotypes or software. Because, you know, everyone wants the caché of looking like Windows.

Unfortunately, some spoilsports at Linotype noticed that Segoe (as shipped in the Vista betas) was almost identical to the font Frutiger Next, designed in 1997 by Adrian Frutiger for use on signage in Munich. Microsoft had tweaked the tail on the ‘Q’, added a baseline to the ‘1′, left everything else identical, and then filed for a trademark as if the font was their own original design.

The European Union denied the application. Microsoft attempted to appeal, arguing that Linotype hadn’t actually sold Frutiger Next. Unfortunately, Frutiger is a very popular font, and the evidence of its Next variant’s existence prior to 2005 was overwhelming. Denied! Microsoft must pay all the lawyers’ fees for Heidelburger Druckmaschinen AG, aka Linotype.

Frutiger is very similar to Adobe Myriad, designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly. Consensus seems to be that Myriad is original enough to not be considered a rip off, however. Myriad is used by Apple for their corporate publications (replacing Apple Garamond), and is also used by my team at IBM. It’s worth noting that Apple license the font from its owners, and I use a legal licensed copy too.

So…will Microsoft license Frutiger or Myriad? Or will they tweak Segoe some more?

Further proof that satire is truly obsolete:

Microsoft Corp. mogul Bill Gates and the leader of Ford Motor Co. outlined a future Friday in which software enables cars to fix themselves and never crash.

[...]

Eventually, Gates said, there could be a car that wouldn’t let itself crash.

—Washington Post

Even ignoring the issue of who’s saying it, the scenario of cars that don’t allow themselves to crash is about as realistic as the scenario of fusion powered hover-bikes. Machine vision is decades away from that level of performance. Do it with transcievers, you say? Forget about it, we can’t even get electrical and hydrogen refueling infrastructure deployed.

The House has passed a $550 billion tax cut. The attempt to remove all taxation from corporate dividends failed, however, as even a few Republicans couldn’t see why people like Bill Gates needed to be given their millions of dollars a year in dividends tax free during a recession.

May 13th 2002: Jim Allchin (VP for platforms) and Bill Gates swear under oath that disclosing Windows source code could compromise US national security, and that some code is so flawed it simply cannot be disclosed.

February 28th 2003: Bill Gates announces that Microsoft will be revealing the complete Windows source code to China.

So, which are they? Perjurers or traitors?

Five Admirable Billionaires

1. Steve Jobs, founder and CEO of Apple Computer.

   C’mon, you knew I was going to pick Steve, didn’t you?

   It’s not that he doesn’t have his faults. He’s notoriously egotistical, can be breathtakingly rude, and allegedly cheated Woz on the payments for the design of Breakout. (Still, Woz seems to have forgiven him.)

   I’m not sure I’d want to work for Steve Jobs, and I’m still angry that he destroyed the Newton for no good reason, but it can’t be denied that he has turned Apple’s product designs from lackluster to stunning, and brought back a wonderful OS that may yet save the company in the long run.

2. Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer.

   His PCs may suck, but that’s just because they run Windows. He managed to turn a dorm-room business selling cheap PC clones into one of the biggest computer corporations in the world, and did it by playing fair. I just wish they’d sell more Linux boxes.

3. Gordon Moore, founder of Intel.

   I’ve never liked Intel’s instruction sets or processor architectures, but you can’t deny that Gordon Moore was a hard working state-educated engineer who changed the world with his semiconductor designs. Furthermore, in recent years he has given away half his fortune to charity, without begging for press attention the way Bill Gates has for his meager handouts.

4. George Soros.

   Let’s be up-front about it: George Soros makes his wealth playing the elaborate game of poker that we call the international stock and currency markets; he doesn’t really produce anything, per se, he’s just a middleman. It’s how he uses that wealth that makes him different.

   Soros is a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Nazis and fled to America. He’s been an outspoken philanthropist since the early 70s, and isn’t afraid to take a strong reformist political position. How can you not respect a billionaire prepared to lash out at the Bush administration?

5. Ted Turner, founder of the Turner media empire.

   Another mouthy billionaire is Ted Turner. Sure, he can be tactless, but he speaks from the heart and has a sense of humor. When he began CNN, it was viewed as a joke by everyone in the industry, yet he built it into a global news presence… and then sold it, at which point it slowly turned into a joke again, but never mind.

   Turner is one of the biggest landowners in the USA, something which seems to bother Michael Moore. I’m not sure why, as Turner isn’t using his land for factories, strip malls or luxury homes. Instead, he’s using it for conservation. He has received many awards for the billions he has spent trying to advance mankind’s practical knowledge of nature conservation practices, and he has also been a major donor to other charitable causes.

The following annotations are meta-commentary on Ben Stein’s recent article in Forbes.

1. Speed up the decay of the school system—introduce voucher schemes to divert the money that would otherwise be spent on education, and funnel it into religious organizations. Discourage the teaching of science by introducing mandatory “Creationism” lessons, and putting confusing disclaimers on science textbooks. Send your children to private schools.

2. Enshrine a thoroughly corrupt electoral system, in which corporations fund the politicians, and the politicians then give the money back to the corporations in exchange for airtime and media space. This will ensure that policy is decided by corporations, not voters. This in turn means that voters will need to turn to the judicial system rather than the legislative system as a means for enacting social reform and policy change.

3. Make sure tobacco corporations, junk food vendors, biochem multinationals and NRA wingnuts own enough politicians to block any legislation that would reduce the wilful and unnecessary damage to people and society that they cause. This will leave them free to sell single servings of food that contain more than a day’s saturated fat and sodium, load cigarettes with unnecessary levels of addictive nicotine, sell drugs that haven’t been tested for long enough to ensure safety, skip the sale of safe acetaminophen in favor of the more profitable unsafe kind, feed people unnecessarily genetically modified foods, and otherwise screw the public over to increase profits. This will force people who want to do anything about the problem to engage in expensive, vicious and protracted lawsuits. Make sure you portray these people as greedy money-grabbing scumbags, and ignore the fact that a multi-million-dollar settlement is chump change for any major corporation.

4. Make sure the people who get rich are lawyers, economists and actors. Make sure they’re the kind of cunning Machiavellians who would write fawning letters in praise of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

5. Again, make sure corporations own government and electoral reform is blocked. This will ensure that criminal CEOs get off with a little slap on the wrist, and provide us with an endless supply of robber barons from Bill Gates to Ken Lay.

6. Pass stupid and vicious anti-drug legislation. Confiscate innocent people’s property, refuse to spend money on drug treatment for addicts, lock up people who smoke pot, and deny people the right to take responsibility for their own choices. Pass legislation which makes it illegal for people to watch the DVD movies they’ve paid for, or lend CDs to a friend. Make sure all these laws are unenforceable. This will encourage disrespect for the law.

7. Equate sex and violence, as though they were in some way comparable evils. Ignore that sex is a good and natural part of every person’s life, a positive force; treat it like violence, as something that damages people and should be suppressed. That goes double for same-sex sexual activity, of course. Block spending on contraception to try and discourage safe sexual activity and make it more dangerous, maybe that’ll get people to see it as a danger to society.

8. Prevent gay and lesbian couples in long-term relationships from having children, while encouraging heterosexuals to breed no matter how unfit they are as parents. In fact, why not follow the model of Florida and say that even mixed-gender bisexual couples are unfit to have children? This will make sure there are plenty of divorced heterosexual single parents and children living in broken families, even though there are plenty of stable, loving families who would like to adopt.

9. Use immigration to import cheap highly educated workers and reduce wages, while at the same time treating foreign countries as a resource to be plundered. This will ensure that the smart people leave foreign countries, and the ones left behind hate us.

10. Increase the income gap between rich and poor. Sure, it’s bigger in the USA than in any other western nation, but it’s still not big enough. Campaign against redistributive taxation. Encourage tax cuts for rich dead people, ignoring that the “death tax” only hits million-dollar estates, only hits those who fail to take personal responsibility and plan for the passing on of their assets, and above all ignore that the people inheriting huge amounts of wealth did nothing to deserve that wealth in the first place. The sooner we can get rid of inheritance taxes and move to a feudal system of inherited wealth, the better!

11. Pretend that the failures of the US medical system are caused by some imaginary straw man called “socialized medicine”. This will hopefully pull the wool over Americans’ eyes enough that they won’t notice that every other western nation has a state-run healthcare system that works fine, while in America 40% of people have absolutely no healthcare coverage whatsoever. Tell the people who can’t afford necessary medication and treatment that it would be even more expensive under a state-run healthcare system, or that their taxes would be crippling; most of them haven’t lived and worked abroad, and won’t know that you’re lying outrageously.

12. Give religion special privileges. Allow religious adherents to mutilate their children’s genitalia. When priests help child rapists and drug dealers evade justice, don’t lock them up—instead, continue to treat them with respect.

13. Finally, when pontificating about the country’s problems, make sure you focus on the symptoms and ignore the causes. After all, if you’re the kind of rich politician, lawyer or entertainer who benefits from the current system, the last thing you want is change. I mean, you’d hardly be a conservative if you wanted reform, would you?

Bill Gates has been honored with an 8′ condom. You don’t need me to add a joke, do you?

Ray Ozzie, one of the founders of Lotus, has been sighted standing obediently behind Bill Gates at the Windows XP media events. Obviously the fact that Microsoft paid Groove (Ray’s new startup) $51m is the reason.

Equally obvious is the fact that Groove will suffer the same fate as most of the other companies that have decided to let Microsoft invest in them. Expect to see Groove technology bundled into Windows and .NET, and a worthless husk spat out. If you don’t believe me, ask the people at LH or VIVO (say). The same would have happened to Real if they hadn’t been secretly working on RealPlayer G2 and keeping it out of the scope of their agreement with Microsoft.

It’s all business as usual for Microsoft; but somehow, it’s bothering me. It’s not enough for Gates to win; he has to humiliate his enemies. He couldn’t beat Lotus, so he needs Ray Ozzie up there on stage, dancing obediently like a little marionette.

Deconstructing the show, the message is clear: “We are unspeakably rich. We own you. We can buy your loyalty any time and make you dance for us. Submit now.”

The message to users of Windows XP is much the same. The new software license enforcement mechanism will attempt to force home users to buy a separate copy for every computer they use, and make them sign up with Microsoft Passport and hand over their personal data.

In not-unrelated news, the new judge assigned to the anti-trust trial by George W Bush turns out to have sold all her stock in Microsoft’s competitors right in the middle of a tech slump. Perhaps for some reason she doesn’t think they’ll go up? Attorney General John Ashcroft personally collected $10,000 from Microsoft, and over $1m to the Republican Party.

Dance, puppets, dance.

Now that George W is Acting President, Microsoft is confidently returning to its old business practices. Like every successful monopolist, they’ve decided that it’s time to bleed the customers dry.

There are apparently two main components to this strategy:

1. If you don’t upgrade to Windows XP or Windows 2000 and Office 2000 by October, you’ll have to pay full retail price for future Windows and Office upgrades. Yes, they’re coupling Office with Windows—be running the latest version of both by October, or pay full price for upgrades for both.

2. New Windows XP licenses will require that you pay every year that you continue to use the software, even if you don’t upgrade. If you want the old kind of license where you can keep using the software for as long as you like once you’ve paid for it, that’ll cost you extra.

It’s an interesting strategy, because it suggests that they’re taking no chances with regard to their office software monopoly. Obviously 96% market share isn’t enough—they don’t want anybody buying their OS but then running StarOffice or SmartSuite.

Will they get away with it? I’m betting they will. Windows users like to whine, but they won’t actually do anything principled that might inconvenience them, like running MacOS or Linux. Bill Gates could announce the new Microsoft Dildo, and they’d all be bent over and greased up on launch day.