If Microsoft Ran The IRS

“Government should be run like a business.” We’ve all heard that chestnut. Here is how the Internal Revenue Service (nobody’s favorite government agency) would be like, if only it were run like Microsoft Corp. (a successful private enterprise).

– The IRS, as always, announces new tax forms will be mailed the week before the new year. However it will follow Microsoft’s example and actually ship them the following May.

– Responding to pressure from some large corporations and a users’ group, some early copies of the tax forms will actually be released in March. The recipients must sign non-disclosure agreements.

– In June, the forms will be recalled because the IRS loses a suit for appropriating some other country’s intellectual property.

– When you move, the IRS will continue to send mail to your previous address forevermore, just like Microsoft sends its product upgrade notices.

– When you upgrade from form 1040 EZ to 1040 A, and then to 1040, you will pay an upgrade fee each time. Also you need to send in a new registration card and get a new Social Security Number. In order to upgrade, you have to submit the original first page of your previous year’s form.

– Like Microsoft, when you file a late or amended tax return the IRS will reject it on the grounds that the the prior year is no longer supported.

– The IRS telephone help will remain similar to Microsoft’s, staffed by ill-trained, high-turnover personnel who sometimes give a correct answer, but the IRS will have to discontinue using a toll-free phone number.

– After struggling with reams of dense documentation of complex options and rules, you discover that you will need publication 3297, with a ten-word-long title, in order to answer (you hope) a single obscure question. The IRS, like Microsoft, will charge a minimum of $40 for that publication.

– The IRS, like Microsoft, will continue to issue immense volumes of bug fixes, interpretations, and clarifications. However the tax-rule updates should be neither easily searchable nor well-indexed.

– Instead of three-ring binders containing complete sets of tax code bugs and interpretations, IRS rulings will be promulgated in a haphazard fashion by individual taxpayers via BBS, Usenet, and Compuserve. A for- profit publishing subsidiary would also be nice.

– The new all-powerful (and eccentric) Commissioner of Internal Revenue will jet around the country giving speeches and granting numerous interviews, but only to sycophantic reporters. Changes to the tax code will be at the whim of the Commissioner and largely kept secret until they are published.

A pilot, Michael Jordon, Bill Gates, the Pope, and a pizza delivery man were all in a plane together traveling through stormy conditions.

Suddenly, the pilot came running back to the passengers and announced that lightning had hit the plane, and they were going to crash in a matter of minutes. “There are only enough parachutes for four of the five of us,” he announced. “Since I’m the pilot, I get one!” After saying this, the pilot grabbed a parachute and jumped out of the plane.

“I’m the world’s greatest athlete,” proclaimed Michael Jordon. “This world needs great athletes, so I must live.” Michael Jordon then grabbed a parachute and leaped out of the plane.

“I’m the smarest man in the world,” bragged Bill Gates. “The world needs smart men, so I must also live!” Bill Gates grabbed a parachute and jumped out of the plane.

At this point, the Pope began to speak. “I have lived a long life compared to you, and you may take the last parachute. I will go down with the plane.”

“You don’t have to stay here! The world’s smartest man jumped out of the plane with my backpack.”

Solitaire ’99

Here is the README.TXT file from Microsoft’s latest software product.

Microsoft Solitaire ’98

README file, v4.3

Welcome!

Congratulations!

Welcome to the wonderful world of Microsoft Solitaire ’98! This classic game has been a Windows fixture for many years, and after a long period of development, we are pleased to announce that it has been updated to take advantage of many exciting, Microsoft- pioneered technologies, such as “long filenames!”

For years, our users have made demands, and Microsoft has listened. You told us that you wanted an operating system in which Solitaire was a seamless, integrated component. You wanted to blend in Solitaire with how you worked, how you played, and in general, you wanted Solitaire to *define your computing experience.*

Solitaire ’98 brings this dream to a blissful reality.

System Requirements:

- 266 MHz Pentium II or better

- 800 megabytes of free hard drive space (2.1 gigabytes recommended)

- 128 megabytes of RAM (256 megabytes for Vegas scoring)

Installation Procedure:

1. Insert the CD-ROM entitled “Microsoft Solitaire” into your CD-ROM drive. You will need to make sure that the drive door is open before you place the disc in the tray.

2. An installation dialog box should appear on your screen. If it does not, you may need to purchase more memory or a larger hard disk drive. See your local Microsoft-certified dealer.

3. Follow the onscreen instructions. If you cannot read, have somebody else sit through the installation procedure.

4. Insert the CD-ROM entitled “Microsoft Solitaire, Disc 2″ into your CD-ROM drive. As before, ensure that the drive is open before inserting the disc in the tray.

5. An installation dialog box should appear on your screen. If it does not, you may need to upgrade to a Microsoft “Natural” keyboard, which you can obtain from your nearest dealer. As before, follow the onscreen instructions.

6. After the installation program has completed, check your “Programs” menu for a new Solitaire ’98 entry. If the program entry was not successfully created, you may need to uninstall all local copies of Netscape Navigator and/or Communicator and restart the Solitaire installation process from scratch.

Playing The Game:

Assuming that Solitaire ’98 has been properly installed, you should be able to find it in your “Programs” menu (you should have verified this as part of the installation process.) Microsoft recommends that you shut down all other programs that may be running on the system before starting Solitaire ’98.

To start the game, simply select it from the “Programs” menu. If the game does not start within five to seven minutes of selection, you may need to upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Office to ensure that your system has the proper DLLs that Solitaire needs.

For game rules, refer to the .HLP files for the Windows 3.1 version of Solitaire. If you don’t have these files, you can purchase them online from Microsoft at very competitive rates.

Coming Soon:

Minesweeper ’99!

Watch this space.

[ snip millions of blank lines inserted to balloon README file up to Microsoft mandatory one-megabyte minimum file size. ]

In the beginning, God created the Bit and the Byte. And from those he created the Word.

And there were two Bytes in the Word; and nothing else existed. And God separated the One from the Zero; and he saw it was good.

And God said – Let the Data be; And so it happened. And God said – Let the Data go to their proper places. And he created floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks.

And God said – Let the computers be, so there would be a place to put floppy disks and hard disks and compact disks. Thus God created computers and called them hardware.

And there was no Software yet. But God created programs; small and big… And told them – Go and multiply yourselves and fill all the Memory.

And God said – I will create the Programmer; And the Programmer will make new programs and govern over the computers and programs and Data.

And God created the Programmer; and put him at Data Center; And God showed the Programmer the Catalog Tree and said You can use all the volumes and subvolumes but do not use Windows.

And God said – It is not good for the programmer to be alone. He took a bone from the Programmer’s body and created a creature that would look up at the Programmer; and admire the Programmer; and love the things the Programmer does; And God called the creature: the User.

And the Programmer and the User were left under the naked DOS and it was Good.

But Bill was smarter than all the other creatures of God. And Bill said to the User – Did God really tell you not to run any programs?

And the User answered – God told us that we can use every program and every piece of Data but told us not to run Windows or we will die.

And Bill said to the User – How can you talk about something you did not even try. The moment you run Windows you will become equal to God. You will be able to create anything you like by a simple click of your mouse.

And the User saw that the fruits of the Windows were nicer and easier to use. And the User saw that any knowledge was useless–since Windows could replace it.

So the User installed the Windows on his computer; and said to the Programmer that it was good.

And the Programmer immediately started to look for new drivers. And God asked him–What are you looking for? And the Programmer answered–I am looking for new drivers because I can not find them in the DOS. And God said – Who told you need drivers? Did you run Windows? And the Programmer said – It was Bill who told us to!

And God said to Bill – Because of what you did, you will be hated by all the creatures. And the User will always be unhappy with you. And you will always sell Windows.

And God said to the User – Because of what you did, the Windows will disappoint you and eat up all your Resources; and you will have to use lousy programs; and you will always rely on the Programmers help.

And God said to the Programmer – Because you listened to the User, you will never be happy. All your programs will have errors and you will have to fix them and fix them to the end of time.

And God threw them out of the Data Center and locked the door and secured it with a password.

General Protection Fault

Newsflash

Microsoft today announced that it will be changing its name to “Moft” — which will clear up space on user’s hard disks. It is estimated that a typical Windows 95 installation contains about 2,800,000 copies of the word “Microsoft”, in copyright notices, end-user licence agreements, ‘About’ screens, etc. So, after the change, a user will have about 14 MBytes more disk space. Stock prices of hard-disk manufacturers dipped slightly after the announcement.

“Well, the programs will take up less space on the user’s disk,” said Bill Gates, CEO of Moft. “But we have never cared about that. The change will allow us to ship Windows 95 on 13 disks instead of 14, thus saving about $50 million a year in media costs. We are also looking at shortening the names of some of our software products; for instance ‘The Microsoft Exchange’ may be changed to ‘The Moft Pit’.

Gates added that the junior programmer who discovered the potential savings has been rewarded with a free copy of ‘Moft Off for Moft Win 95′. E-mail this joke to your friends!