Those of you living in isolation tanks may not be aware that on
Wednesday, Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered that
Microsoft be broken into two pieces, with one dedicated to operating
systems and the other to applications.  Microsoft has, of course,
promised to fight the order to the bitter end, but those of you, who
like me, enjoy hating Microsoft, have probably already begun to
indulge in fantasies of the glorious post-Microsoft-monopoly
future... the future in which Microsoft applications are ported to
other operating systems, and, er, uhm, about five applications are
ported from other operating systems to Windows.  Let's take a look at
that future now:

In the past, Microsoft "Office" would crash Windows and hang your
Wintel machine.  In the glorious future, Microsoft Applications (MSA,
hereafter) "Office" will also crash X and hang your UNIX machine.

In the past, ActiveX, Visual Basic scripts, and a variety of other
"features" gave criminals and viruses free reign over your Windows
box.  In the glorious future, MSA "Outlook" will ensure that your
Linux box says "I Love You" with just as much feeling as Windows ever
managed.

In the past, Emacs relied on the arcane "Lisp" programming language
for configuration.  In the glorious future, the soon-to-be-standard
MSA Emacs will be configured with Visual Basic.

In the past, UNIX and Linux came in a variety of incompatible flavors.
In the glorious future, we will all standardize on the "garlic and
rotten meat" flavor of MicrosoftOperatingSystems Linux.

In the past, giving your employees Sparc workstations was a guarantee
against their playing Doom on company time.  In the glorious future,
this won't change at all.

In the past, Bill Gates was an arrogant jerk.  In the glorious future,
this won't change at all.

In the past, AI grad students would band together on Friday evenings
for a bit of socializing and beverage consumption.  In the glorious
future, this won't change at all.

Come explore the glorious future with us at tonight's...

****************** G I R L  S C O U T  B E N E F I T ******************
******************        5:30pm  7AI Playroom       ******************