Alexander Nicholi
what do you know about computing?
- 5,485
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- Age 27
- Research Triangle / Jakarta
- Seen Sep 22, 2024
First of all, pardon the fact that I don't have a source for this one. This incident has kind of been forgotten in the past 13 years, and has sort of fallen into the category of "urban legend". However, my uncle was a manager at Circuit City when it happened, and only those who were part of certain inside newsgroups and such knew about it. This was because Microsoft paid a lot of money to keep the media's mouths shut about what happened, which I'll explain.
Thirteen years ago today, on this, fifth of October 2013, 32-year-old Sheldon Manning climbed up to the top of a 40-story building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and jumped to his death at approximately 9:30 AM. Police had been informed by his family that he left a note explaining his choice on the door the night before, after everyone had gone to bed. What's more interesting is his explanation as to why he chose to kill himself.
Apparently he committed suicide over his opinion that Microsoft's newly-released Windows ME was a complete and utter failure as an operating system. He had such a passionate hatred for the OS that in his note he used words such as "eroded", and "incestuous", and also called the product a "superfluous alien-human halfbreed ridden with hideous tumors the likes of which haven't been seen since Service Pack 7".
It's up to you to believe this (it seems pretty interesting to me), and I find it selfish that Microsoft would go to such lengths to cover this up. But yeah, stuff happens I guess. It's not that often that you see someone jump off a building over a freaking operating system (by Microsoft nonetheless). Meh.
Thirteen years ago today, on this, fifth of October 2013, 32-year-old Sheldon Manning climbed up to the top of a 40-story building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and jumped to his death at approximately 9:30 AM. Police had been informed by his family that he left a note explaining his choice on the door the night before, after everyone had gone to bed. What's more interesting is his explanation as to why he chose to kill himself.
Apparently he committed suicide over his opinion that Microsoft's newly-released Windows ME was a complete and utter failure as an operating system. He had such a passionate hatred for the OS that in his note he used words such as "eroded", and "incestuous", and also called the product a "superfluous alien-human halfbreed ridden with hideous tumors the likes of which haven't been seen since Service Pack 7".
It's up to you to believe this (it seems pretty interesting to me), and I find it selfish that Microsoft would go to such lengths to cover this up. But yeah, stuff happens I guess. It's not that often that you see someone jump off a building over a freaking operating system (by Microsoft nonetheless). Meh.
