Microsoft did WHAT!?!?!

The W32.Blaster-B worm that this kid created infected my computer over a year ago. Today, now armed with a brand new machine, I've still been unsuccessful in resurrecting my old work horse. Instead I just slapped a new drive in it and cut my losses.

All that aside, this is ridiculous.

The teen convicted of creating a variant of the Blaster worm won't have to pay Microsoft $497,546.55 in restitution. He can instead work it off by doing community service.

Microsoft has agreed to forgo the cash and convert the punishment into 225 hours of community service, according to a court document filed late yesterday. Jeffrey Lee Parson, a 19-year-old from Hopkins, Minnesota, will have to work 75 hours per year over a three-year period with less fortunate members of his community. The work cannot involve computers or the Internet, according to the document.

That works out to roughly $2011.32 an hour for community service. I have a fundamental problem with that. Some convict who screwed up my computer is now making 100 times more than I do per hour. Wow...

I'm buying a Mac next time. Freakin' Microsoft...I will now taunt them again, and fart in their general direction!

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM hadkept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving 25 dollar cars that got 1000 mi/gal."

Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement: "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"

1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT". But, then you would have to buy more seats.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.
7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off.
10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.