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June 30, 2006

The Funnies

I know I'm the last idiot on the planet to hear about this, but I just discovered The Comics Curmudgeon (courtesy of John Walkenbach's "Blogs I Read" page). The Curmudgeon reads the comics every day and posts snarky comments about them, focussing heavily on the "soap" comics like "Apartment 3-G" and that 1950s throwback "They Do It Every Time".

You can tell a lot about somebody from the comics they like. A person who outwardly appears to be a sane, productive member of society may turn out to enjoy "Rhymes with Orange". In the Seattle P-I I read about one-third of the comics each morning: "Dilbert", "Jump Start", "Curtis", Zits", "Boondocks", "Sherman's Lagoon", "Drabble", and of course "Dinette Set". I'll ready "Zippy" if I feel up to it. Then if my tea is taking an extra-long time to steep I might pick up a second tier of "Stone Soup", "Hagar" (didn't he used to be "the Horrible"?), "Hi & Lois", "Crock", and "Red & Rover". I also read "Doonesbury" online. "Zits", incidentally, is written by the same guy who writes "Baby Blues", which I don't read regularly but which someone recently sent us several anthologies of that I am chuckling over. And of course I love "Pogo" for its ineffable ineffableness. There, now you know more about me than I know about myself.

Microsoft has its own internal comic strip, called "Bug Bash". It ran for years in the MicroNews, the weekly newspaper, until the MicroNews went online-only and "Bug Bash" followed it. It's written by a guy who works in a group I won't identify (suffice it to say it's an anagram of BCMSN) and is actually quite hilarious in a "Garfield" sort of way. Meaning, it mines the same basic veins (bad teams, unproductive meetings, PMs, and wierd-oid Microsofties) over and over, but manages to be funny while doing so. It often uses the time-honored three-panel funny-sublime-ridiculous progression to humorous effect. The author took most of June off, but just came back today with a brand new strip. Yet another reason to come work for Microsoft.

Posted by AdamBa at 04:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 26, 2006

A World Cup Inspired Interview Question

In honor of the quadrennial soccer fest, I though of the following interview question.

As background, in the World Cup the teams are each assigned to groups with three other teams. They play a round robin against all the teams in their group. Teams are given 3 points for a win and 1 point each for a tie. The top two teams in each group, by point total, advance to the next round. So the question is:

Imagine that one team in a group earns 3 points due to having tied three games, and another team in the same group earns 3 points due to winning one game, and that they wind up tied for second place in the group. Which team has a better argument for deserving to advance?

I like the question because it reminds me of some programming design issues you have to solve, and people should be able to work through a solution pretty quickly.

Posted by AdamBa at 10:43 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

June 24, 2006

Naming Thoughts From an And-2

As you may know, Microsoft employee email addresses are prototypically made up of your first name and the first letter of your last name.

When Microsoft started, people got the canonical email aliases for their names: billg, steveb, etc. The aliases were limited to 8 characters (a rule that still applies today, even though it may be more for convenience of typing than due to a real technical limit). If you look at the famous original eleven photo of Microsoft (scroll down to see it), you see people named Steve, Bob (3 of those), Jim, Marc, Gordon, Bill, Andrea, Marla, and Paul. Now, it was presumably obvious that there would eventually be conflicts in the canonical aliases; the company already had three people named Bob although they each had a last name starting with a different letter. The tiebreaker was to add a second letter from the last name. More problematic was people who had more than seven letters in their first names, or more than six if two letters of last-name differentiation were needed, etc. Bill Gates's parents were named Bill and Mary, he had a sister named Kristianne but she went by Kristi, and his other sister was Libby...is it possible he grew up in a world in which nobody had a name or nickname longer than 6 letters? In any case, eventually the system started to break down a bit as too many people named John and Michael started to work here, plus you had people with long first names. So, many "modern" email address use the first letter of the first name and then the entire last name, or else the part of that which fits in eight characters. And those started to conflict, so email aliases arrived that had the first two letters of the first name, or first name and middle initial.

Thus, we can propose a taxonomy of Microsoft email aliases. Aliases based primarily on first name would be labeled "and-1", "and-2", etc. depending on how many letters of the last name they used. For example my email aliases is 4-and-2 (4 letters from the first, 2 from the last), so it's an "and-2". Bill and Steve have "and-1"s. Meanwhile lots of people now have "1-and"s, meaning 1 letter from the first name and then most or all of the last name, but we also have "2-and"s, "3-and"s, etc.

The idea being, you can roughly tell someone's seniority by the style of name. The and-1 is the oldest, followed by the and-2; it's probably a tossup between the and-3 and the 1-and, because many people chose an 1-and because they thought an and-3 looked ridiculous. Then you get to the and-4 and the 2-and, and beyond. It's not entirely fair since when people leave their email aliases get recycled, so someone might jump in and get a primo and-1 if they arrived at the right time. And of course you have strange exceptions where people have equal numbers of letters from their first and last name, or whatever. I know one person, who when assigned an and-3, instead requested the unused and-0, a request which was granted then (this was back in 1989 or so), but would probably not be allowed now.

It's also dependent, of course, on how unique your first name is. If Wyclef Jean or Madonna Ciconne or Gwyneth Paltrow (or her kids) showed up at Microsoft, they would slide right into and-1s. Same for Chuck D (obviously someone who was destined to work for Microsoft).

And this does matter less than it used to. In the old days you HAD to know someone's email address, because the email system only knew their alias; finding someone's alias from their name was a separate step. Since almost everyone had an and-1 or an and-2, and Microsoft was an informal, first-name-basis kind of place, this worked out well. People would be know as "Hank XY" or whatever. The system started to fall apart when there were too many aliases, people started using 1-ands, and the email system started resolving full names. So now, it is very likely that you may send many emails to someone without ever knowing their real email alias. Still, you can imagine a day where people walk around Microsoft saying snooty things like "oh, ignore him, he's just a 2-and" or "better answer that email, it's from an and-1."

My "ideal" email address would be adamb. When I got my job offer from Microsoft in August 1989 a friend of mine verified that adamb was available, but in between then and when I actually started in March 1990, Adam Bosworth showed up and took it, so my email address wound up as...well, I don't think I'm supposed to reveal it, so suffice it to say it's the same as the alias I post under here.

(A side note: when I came back to Microsoft in 2003, they assigned me the email address adambarr. I glumly assumed that adamb--err I mean my old alias had been taken, but in fact it hadn't, and when I asked they happily changed it back to what it had been. No idea why they tried to give me a different one, since they knew it was me (in fact it was the same account and they had kept my password the same as it had been 3 1/2 years earlier, which would have been nice if I had remembered it for more than a week after I left in 2000)).

Today there are 21 fulltime Adam Bs at Microsoft. They are arranged as follows: seven 1-ands, one 2-and, one 3-and, two 4-ands (for a four-letter name like "adam", 4-and is as deep as you can go), one and-1 (which can only be one thing), five and-2s (including me), three and-3s, and one person whose email name doesn't have "adam" in it (must be his middle name or nickname etc).

There are also eight "dashed" Adam Bs (aliases for non-fulltime people started with prefixes like a- or v-, thus cutting the usable space down to 6 letters), including one whose email name somewhat astonishingly starts with v-2 (meaning, there is someone with email address v-XYZZY and someone else with email address v-2XYZZY). I guess this the next frontier of alias differentiation (a check of the address book reveals hundreds of v-22s, including some v-2Ns where N is 6 or 7 or etc). No a-2s however.

Posted by AdamBa at 08:33 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

June 21, 2006

Code and Design

Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said,
"What a good boy am I!"

I went to an interesting talk last week by Clotaire Rapaille, author of The Culture Code. Rapaille's book is about how different cultures have different coded meanings for certain things (like "love" or "shampoo") and in order to sell to each culture, you have to understand each code.

The user reviews on Amazon are all 5 stars, but these are excerpts from the Publishers Weekly review: "the 'fundamental archetypes' he offers are just trumped-up stereotypes...He often supports jarring pronouncements with preposterous generalizations and overstatements...Writing with the naïveté of someone who has learned about the world only through Hollywood films...Rapaille's successful consulting career is evidence that he's more convincing in the boardroom than he is on the page."

Hmmm. Wonder what that guy really thinks. Well, after hearing Rapaille talk, I have no doubt that he is more convincing in the boardroom, because he was very convincing in person. He spoke for about an hour without notes or slides (and need I add, "in a charming Gallic accent").

Rapaille had a bunch of examples of how we look at the world through "cultural glasses". For example in French and German nouns have genders. In French the word for "sun" is masculine and the word "moon" is feminine; in German it is reversed. Does this explain Maurice Chevalier and Wagner's "Ring"? Who knows; but he did claim that in France men shine and the women reflect them, whereas in Germany woman are sunny and men are dour.

He also stated that people's codes are based on their first experience with something, and you can't redo the first experience (he has 10 years as a child psychologist to back this up). So compare the typical American first experience with alcohol to the typical French first experience with alcohol. Or their view of love (American == marriage; French == no marriage). This is all part of the "survivial kit you inherit at birth" aka your culture. People have an unspoken need to reactivate this first imprint. What it boils down to is if you understand the code, you can move a lot of product.

It also turns out we have 3 brains: the reptilian that deals with survival, the emotional that deals with love/hate, and the cortex that deals with intelligence. In the end you have to appeal to the reptilian brain. And men like to sever/separate and women like to add. And the best way to decode a culture is to visit a bathroom. And when you become "toilet paper trained" you are praised for rejecting your family. And the code for a society is eventually crystallized in its legal system. And the future is "woman" and that's why The Da Vinci Code is so successful. And the code for France is "don't work" and the code for America is "to do" and the code for England is "to be" and the code for Canada is "to keep". And only American culture can integrate immigrants the way we have. And companies have a culture also, consisting of rituals, heroes and myths. OK, so when you lay it out like that maybe his arguments don't link to together into a unified whole, but I still bet he is a lot of fun to talk to at parties.

So what does this really have to do with Microsoft? Well, Rapaille worked on the PT Cruiser design for Chrysler, and did he mention they sold 1.5 million copies? (Yes, several times.) He did this by discovering the code for "car" in America. Products need a reptilian hot button, an emotional story, and an intellectual alibi. After probing on the intellectual and emotional angles, Rapaille has people lie down in a dark room so they can think back to the imprinting moment and cough up the code. Evidently people were imprinted with the notion of a car having a face, thus the PT Cruiser has eyes and a chin. Great stuff. But when I was discussing this with other Microsoft employees, their unanimous reaction was, "I hate the PT Cruiser" and "if this guy designed it, keep him away from me." And Rapaille pointed out that Microsoft was a cortex/intelligence kind of place. What does this mean for the future of our share price?

In Proudly Serving (the book), I talked about how at Microsoft the 1980s was the Era of the Developer and the 1990s was the Era of the Program Manager, and the 2000s needed to become the Era of the Tester if the company was going to survive (halfway through the decade, this shift is only partially accomplished). So, now what will the 2010s be? Well, if you were at the EE/TWC Forum a few weeks ago, one of the subtexts you picked up was that the next decade had to be the Era of the Designer. Meaning: at first developers designed the software we wrote, then PMs took that responsibility away. PM design may be better than dev design, but it's not real "design" the way (say) Apple does it. If you ask a random Microsoft employee about the iPod I'm sure they will say (as I do) that the UI is an unusable piece of crap. That's fine. But Rapaille would no doubt tell you that the metallic roundness of the iPod appeals to a reptilian hot button for something (I shudder to think what) and therefore as long as we have an emotional story ("I can listen to music!") and an intellectual alibi ("Well, the controls aren't completely unusable") people will keep buying them in droves while other companies struggle to sell players that have much better intellectual alibis, but no reptilian hot button.

Thus, after a necessary detour this decade into test supremacy, necessitated by the realization that our software had serious quality issues, the Microsoft future looks to be the Era of the Designer, in which the PMs and the devs will need to swallow their egos and produce the software that people are going to buy, not the stuff that we think is cool (the discipline at Microsoft is called "UX", for User Experience; a solitary pursuit, since nobody can say two of them. "The Era of the UXer" doesn't really roll trippingly off the tongue).

Which brings me to Microsoft Bob. Microsoft Bob is of course remembered as a joke. Mary Jo Foley puts it at the top of her 10 Microsoft flops list. As a reminder, here's the Wikipedia page on Bob (which includes the fascinating tidbit that Microsoft traded bob.com for windows2000.com). When you talk about Bob to a typical Microsoft employee, their opinion is similar to that of the PT Cruiser. But I think Bob was actually a great step for Microsoft--one that was simply too forward-thinking for the company (or the industry, circa 1995) to accept. It was an actual product designed by designers, not by random devs or PMs. But nowadays we have seen products that succeed for reasons that Microsoft can't grok, because we don't "get" design (I mean as a company; we certainly have lots of great designers working for us). So, if we want to move into the Era of the Designer, Microsoft first has to admit, as a company, that Bob was a great idea, and that killing it was a huge mistake. Stay tuned.

Posted by AdamBa at 11:16 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

June 20, 2006

The Fourth Meal

Some studies claim that it is better to eat a higher number of smaller meals throughout the day, and that our current system of three meals a day is an outdated relic of our agrarian past (or somesuch). So now we have what may be a radical attempt to shift our culture towards a healthier diet...but more likely it's an attempt to shift our culture towards more midnight burrito runs. Yes, the geniuses at Taco Bell (or their advertising agency) have come up with Fourthmeal. Fourthmeal is "the meal you eat between dinner and breakfast."

The four attributes of a good fourthmeal (per the website) are that it is melty, crunchy, spicy, and grilled--four attribures shared by most of the items on a Taco Bell menu. Of course this is ridiculous, but I still think it's pretty funny. The Flash-powered website features you as a moose-slippers-and-sleeping-cap-wearing avatar, who shuffles through the demi-monde looking for late-night munchies, or failing that, a chance to play "Simon" with buttons featuring the four horseman of the Tacopalypse (Melty, Crunchy, Spicy, and Grilled). There also seems to be an attempt to turn it into a Myspace-like site, except with about 70 million fewer users. I'd tell you more, but I was playing with the site and I pretended to log in as my daughter, at which point it slapped down an "underage" cookie and now always redirects me back to the main Taco Bell site. No more virtual fourthmeals for me.

Posted by AdamBa at 01:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 16, 2006

Persona-lity

As I discussed in one of my first posts, Microsoft uses personas to help with product design decisions. Personas are pretend customers with names, bios, backgrounds, etc. that we invent so we can think about a real person using our software.

Personas also come with a picture, which I assume have been from stock images. I assume this because I saw an article (in The New Yorker or The Atlantic Monthly or some other blue-blood magazine I read) talking about some questionnaire given to people, and one of the questions was four pictures with the question "Which of these people has a genuine smile", and lo and behold one of the pictures was the one we use for our sad-sack IT Generalist persona.

On an unrelated note, Microsoft maintains an official list of Fictitious People Names that we can use in our products. For example, you want to write documentation for SQL Server and you need a list of names for a sample database; you take the names from the official list. The list is actually Microsoft employees who have given permission to use their name this way. I'm on the list, which is why I one day got off an airplane at Sea-Tac and discovered my name on a giant Windows Mobile billboard, much to the amusement of my children.

Meanwhile, on yet another heretofore unrelated note (unrelated, that is, until I artfully stitch them all together in the next paragraph), years ago during my first tenure at Microsoft I had an official picture taken at MS Studios. These are the ones that they take for official VP biographies and such. I'd like to say that the occasion was my impending ascension to the executive ranks, but actually I was playing hockey on the Microsoft Windows team, back when the team was bad enough that I could play on it, and Brian Valentine (or someone who worked for him) arranged to have everyone get official pictures taken for the programme.

So this picture is lurking around in the MS Studios database, and yesterday I received email saying that a team working on personas for a particular group at Microsoft wanted to use my picture for one of their personas. I won't reveal which team or which persona, but I have to say it was actually a pretty good match for me, or at least me a while ago. This is unrelated to my name being in the official Fictitious list, but it's another strange perk of working here. I will now go into the Persona Protection Program and get a new name and PII data, but it will still be my smiling mug up there when people are saying "So how does Joe Schmoladoo want to use our product?"

Posted by AdamBa at 02:02 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

June 15, 2006

Shamiana in Cafe 25

I tooled on over to Building 25 yesterday and there was Shamiana set up in their serving area (yesterday the Seattle P-I had a little article about the on-site restaurants). The menu is: Major Grey Chicken Curry, Velvet Butter Chicken, Chili Fry Lamb, Saag Paneer, and Chick Pea Gujerati. All are $6.95 except for the lamb is $7.50. You can also get Mulligatawny Soup, Garlic Naan (or plain), Mango Yoghurt Mousse, and Sweet Mango Lassi as sides.

I had the lamb and of course it was delicious, this is real Google-worthy restaurant food. The woman behind the counter said they would probably change the menu after a month or so.

If you're in the area (and you've got a badge), then check it out. I know Dixie's is up in Cafe 16, the article said that Typhoon! is open in Sammamish, and I assume Acapulco Fresh is slinging the salsa in 31, although I haven't seen it personally.

Posted by AdamBa at 12:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 13, 2006

Is Microsoft Blogging, Like, Dunzo?

(dunzo == done, finished, over; no longer worth thinking about)

Consider the following recent events:

Now, there are still a lot of Microsoft bloggers, more every day. But they mostly blog about their product. Which is great for customers, of course. They have a "straight from the horse's mouth" information stream, and there's probably somebody who will help them directly with their problems.

What is disappearing are the blogs that tell stories about life inside Microsoft. Those are important because they help convince people to come work for us. Dare Obasanjo is still around but it's a pretty short list after that.

I went to a presentation class today and the key message was that you have to tell a story. Microsoft is selling itself to potential employees, and blogs are part of the story it can use to sell itself. I don't mean stories like when 25 people all blog about WinFX being renamed to .Net 3.0. I mean stories that show the real human side of Microsoft and make people think it's a place they want to work. And of course, some of those stories aren't going to paint Microsoft in the best light--but those stories are important also. To the extent that blogs show that one person can make a difference at Microsoft, they are invaluable as a recruiting device.

On top of that, I'm personally not feeling very motivated to blog right now. For one thing, I'm not on a product team anymore, so I don't have a product to write about. In Engineering Excellence our "customers" are other groups at Microsoft. Plus, working in Engineering Excellence allows me to do, as my day job, some of the thinking I used to do on my blog. I've always been interested in the "how" of Microsoft, and now I have a job where I can write papers and give talks and design courses and participate in company-wide working groups on the kinds of topics that interest me. Which is great, but it does have the ironic effect of making external blogging less interesting.

P.S. Robert Scoble quotes Alex Gounares as saying "[Microsoft] is going to accelerate its usage of blogging." Just for the record, that is NOT what I am talking about. To paraphrase Kurt Cobain's t-shirt...

Posted by AdamBa at 07:56 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 11, 2006

Exit Scoble

Robert Scoble has decided to pack up his kit bag, toss it in his new BMW, and head south to Silicon Valley, the better to be near his son and also potentially change the world and the number of digits in his bank account. I know this is true because as I was typing my previous blog entry, my wife asked, "What's this on KING 5 news about 'Irreverent blogger to leave Microsoft'?"

Some Microsoft people seem to be bagging on Scoble now, but I liked him. Sure the guy never met a Microsoft partner he didn't like, but I don't think people really appreciate just how much time he spent on his blogging and the attendant meetups and commenting. He was building up his own brand, but Microsoft also benefitted, and he was doing all that on his own time. If you wonder whether an individual can still change Microsoft, then Robert Scoble certainly did so, by dint of extraordinary hard work (and by being an extremely open and approachable person).

He's going to work for a company called PodTech.net. An intercapped name with a TLD in it? That screams "acquisition target within six months", and more power to Robert Scoble if it happens. I don't think they want a discerning industry analyst; they want someone to generate excitement, and Scoble fits the bill to a T. Remember it's only pie-eyed optimism if you're wrong. According to KING 5 his title is going to be "vice president of media development", the media in this case being "IP-based digital media", a catch-all term for podcasts, blogcasts, vlogcasts, floodcasts, aircasts, ringcasts, ampcasts, and redcasts. There's more info direct from Scoble on PT.n's site but it's one of those IBDM thingies which I don't actually consume, so I will have to wallow in self-imposed ignorance. But I wish him best of luck in the future.

Posted by AdamBa at 10:14 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

"Game on!" at the Pacific Science Center

This weekend I took most of the kids to see a cool exhibit at the Pacific Science Center called Game On!. It's all about the history of videogames, from computeer games to arcade games to consoles.

The best thing about this is that you can play all of them (actually you can play the arcade games and consoles; most of the computers don't work, I assume because of floppy disk preservation issues) and it's all FREE FREE FREE. No need for a quarter on a string, just walk up and press Start. They've got a bunch of classic arcade games like Ms. Pac Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, Centipede, Space Invaders, and Discs of Tron. Then it's on to the consoles where they have every old clunky thing you can think of (although I don't recall seeing an Intellivision which I actually have one of). In the computers, they have lots of memory lane hardware like the Sinclair ZX-81, and they even have a PDP-1 to play "Spacewar", although it doesn't seem to work.

There's also sections on the business of games, and on Japanese games, including a PS2 game where you can drive the bullet train (like Microsoft Train Simulator). Except I don't think the real trains freeze up every 10 minutes like this game did.

To prove they are not totally retro, they have an RSS feed for their podcasts.

Worth checking out. It's $2 extra for members, which we all are through Microsoft Prime. As a data point, in the yearbook for their elementary school, 9 out of 59 sixth graders listed their career ambition as being a game designer and/or working at Microsoft and/or being CEO of Nintendo and/or being the new Bill Gates (one each on those last two).

Posted by AdamBa at 09:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 06, 2006

'The Microsoft Code' Complete

Since it's a pain to click between the individual chapter posts, here is the story in one piece. It's unchanged, except I fixed a couple of typos.

----------
CHAPTER 1
----------

Renowned test manager JacquesS staggered through the narrow aisle of the stress lab. He lunged for the nearest computer he could see, a Dell. Grabbing the keyboard, the thirty-six-year-old man quickly typed a command to restart the machine, and selected an old Windows XP SP1 build to boot.

As he had anticipated, once the old, unpatched release booted up, a warning flashed on the screen indicating that he was prohibited from connecting to the Microsoft corporate network. He knew that in a building near the eastern shore of Lake Sammamish, an alarm was going off, and someone would soon be dispatched to investigate the potential security breach.

The test manager lay a moment, gasping for breath, taking stock. My network logon still works. A voice spoke, chillingly close. "Do not touch the computer again."

JacquesS froze, turning his head. The man was silhouetted in the door to the lab, with his body keeping the door from closing. "You should not have run that command." His accent was not easy to place. "Now tell me where it is."

"I told you already," the test manager stammered, kneeling defenseless on the floor of the lab. "I have no idea what you are talking about!"

"You are lying." The man stared at him, perfectly immobile except for a glint in his sleep-deprived eyes, and a nervous tic that made him tap his thumb and forefinger together repeatedly. His hair was slightly greasy. "You and your brethren possess a secret that is not yours."

JacquesS felt a surge of adrenaline. How could he possibly know this?

"Tonight the secret will be revealed and order restored. Tell me where it is hidden, and you will maintain your corporate network access."

JacquesS held up his hands in defense. "Wait," he said slowly, "I will tell you what you need to know." The test manager spoke his next words carefully. The lie he told was one he had rehearsed many times…each time praying he would not need to use it.

When the test manager had finished speaking, the man smiled smugly. "Yes. That is exactly what the others told me."

JacquesS recoiled. The others?

"I found them too," the man taunted. "All three of them. They confirmed what you have just said."

It cannot be! The test manager’s true identity, along with the identities of the three dotted-line reports on his virtual team, was almost as sacred as the secret they represented. JacquesS now realized that they had all told the same lie before their accounts were suspended. It was part of the protocol.

The attacker laughed. "When you are off trying to convince Volt to hire you, I will be the only one here who knows the truth."

The truth. In an instant, the test manager grasped the true horror of the situation.

The man smirked. "My work here is done. Thanks to your little reboot stunt, your account has already been terminated. Within 15 minutes your cardkey will cease to work. You’ll be paying full price for Office for the rest of your life!" Then he was gone.

Suddently, now, despite all the precautions…despite all the fail-safes…JacquesS was the only remaining link, the sole guardian of one of the most powerful secrets ever kept at Microsoft.

Shivering, he pulled himself to his feet.

I must find some way…

He summoned all of his faculties. The desperate task ahead of him, he knew, would require every remaining second of his Microsoft career.

* * *

RobertLa awoke slowly.

Where the hell am I?

He realized he had fallen asleep at his desk, head slumped over his keyboard. Touching his hands to his forehead, he could feel the imprint that the keys had left on his skin. That must be the impression of the backspace key just below his hairline, and there was the Shift key near his eyebrow…or was that the Enter key?

As he was trying to decide, he realized what had woken him up: There was a ringing sound in his office. He struggled to find the source. Was it is cell phone? Or his Windows Mobile device? Or was it a real telephone? Suddenly he remembered that he had set up Outlook to play a phone ringing sound when email arrived, a decision that had seemed amusing at the time.

Squinting at the screen, he saw the last remnants of the translucent envelope as it disappeared behind the taskbar. He tried in vain to catch it with a mouse click, but was forced to Alt-Tab over to Outlook instead. There was the email. He read it, but it made little sense. He was being summoned to a lab somewhere on campus.

* * *

When he arrived at the lab, there were two people there.

One was a man roughly his height, age, weight, and eye color, who introduced himself as VirgilI from the security group. The other was lying on the floor, clutching something in his hands, mumbling incoherently about his Lifetime Average Review.

"What’s going on here?" asked RobertLa.

VirgilI flipped open a tablet PC and read from the screen. "According to our logs, his name is JacquesS. He’s a test manager in the team that owns this lab. About half an hour ago he rebooted this server," He tapped the offending machine gingerly with his toe, "to an unpatched build of XP SP1." VirgilI shook his head slowly. "I don’t get it. We send out mail all the time telling people to turn on Automatic Updates."

RobertLa stared down at the man on the floor, who was starting to drool. "Anything else on him?"

VirgilI shrugged. "Seems pretty normal. Been here 6 years. Uses MSN Search about one-third of the time, Google the rest. Fills out the MS Poll and manager feedback. Looks like a find upstanding test manager. Nothing wrong until today. Of course we had to cut off his account and cardkey access after the stunt he pulled."

"Was he having performance issues? Maybe he was trending to an 'Underperformed' score on his annual review?"

"I doubt it." VirgilI pointed down. "See that thing in his hand?"

RobertLa looked closely. It was some sort of statue, with a golden shape on the top. "I have no idea what that is."

VirgilI looked surprised. "That, my friend, is a Gold Star award. You’ve never seen one? Maybe you should switch groups. But anyway, if this guy just pulled in a Gold Star, no way he was worried about a bad review."

RobertLa raised his eyebrows. "Maybe he just flipped out. Maybe his dev and PM were trying to add features without consulting him."

"Well, if he flipped out, he still had time to do this." VirgilI handed RobertLa a Post-It note pad. On the top sheet was written one of the most amazing things RobertLa had ever seen in his life.

* * *

Across campus, the man with the greasy hair and nervous tic hurried towards his goal. All four had concurred, before they lost their network access. He played back the events in his mind, how all four had desperately tried to buy back their blue badges by telling their secret. Each had told him the exact same thing—-that the secret was ingeniously hidden at a precise location on the shore of Lake Bill, near some of Microsoft’s ancient buildings.

He was getting nearer. Douglas firs surrounded him, the last remnants of the original forest that used to occupy the site of Microsoft’s campus. He ran towards the front entrance to Building 2, then veered left to pass under the elevated walkway to Building 1.

----------
CHAPTER 2
----------

RobertLa stared at the Post-It note pad. On the top sheet, in a hurried scrawl, were the words:

EXCAVATE GREEN HERBS
P.R. EMAIL ROBERTLA

He recoiled at the sight. What was his name doing there, in the middle of a crime scene? He looked at VirgilI. "Any idea what the first part means?"

VirgilI shook his head. "No. Given what the second part says, I was hoping you would know."

"Did you contact Waggener-Edstrom?"

"Why would I do that?" VirgilI asked.

"They’re Microsoft’s PR firm. The note implies that you should call them and they should email me."

VirgilI rolled his eyes. "We’re treating this as an internal issue for now. No press, no PR agency. Look, this guy just won a Gold Star and then he goes and puts a giant self-inflicted wound in his career. I don't know who could scare him like that, but somebody with that kind of power would have to be pretty high up in management."

RobertLa considered the note. "Excavate green herbs." It made no sense. They were in the middle of Microsoft’s heavily-landscaped main campus; as far as he knew, there were no herbs growing anywhere nearby. "Maybe we’re supposed to find new employees named Herb."

"And then what? Dig under their desks?" VirgilI snorted. "No, it means something else."

RobertLa looked around the lab. The computers were all running different operating systems and applications, the better to put stress on the network. Each display showed variations on the typical Microsoft server application design: tree hierarchy on the left, central area with a graphical representation of the system; actions on the right. One machine, however, showed something different: just a plain black window with a few white characters displayed near the top, following by a blinking cursor.

He peered in. "What’s this? An old DOS machine?"

VirgilI looked over at the machine. "No, it’s running that newfangled PowerShell. Used to be called Monad…we got involved when somebody claimed they had cracked it. Turned out to be total bunk, but I remember what the product looked like.

RobertLa had a vague recollection of the incident. PowerShell was going to ship with some server product…was it SQL Server? Or maybe Exchange. Yes, it was Exchange…suddenly he snapped his fingers.

"Excavate green herbs…I’ve got it! It’s an anagram for ‘Exchange Server Beta’". This machine is running the beta of Exchange 12, that’s why it was a PowerShell prompt. JacquesS was directing us to this machine!!" He looked at the machine excitedly, but could discern nothing unusual about it. On a whim he pressed up arrow to see if JacquesS had left a command in the history buffer, but it was a new window.

VirgilI approached the machine. The monitor, as with all lab monitors, was covered in dust. Really a terrible environment, anybody with allergies would have an immediate attack. He saw that someone had made a feeble attempt to clean this particular monitor, but it was a weak attempt, it looked as if a child had attempted to draw on the screen…wait, there WAS something written on the dust.

"Robert, come over here…see if you get the light striking the monitor just the right way? There’s something written in the dust!"

Now RobertLa could see it too. But if he was hoping that the writing would clear up the mystery, he was wrong. What was written on the monitor only added to the confusion.

* * *

Susan sat at her desk, gazing idly out the window. Her job as an administrative assistant wasn’t the most exciting, but at least her office afforded her a nice view of Lake Bill. The new parts of campus were largely bland; Lake Bill, in the open area between Buildings 1, 2, 3, and 4, had a pleasing asymmetry to it, as if it really had existed before Microsoft decided to construct its new headquarters around it.

Here came a man walking alongside the lake. A typical Microsoftie, greasy hair and a nervous tic. He seemed to be looking for something. Had he left a juggling ball somewhere? Parked his unicycle for later retrieval? Now he was nearing the large rock that jutted out into the lake near Building 2. Wait a minute. Susan felt her pulse quicken. Was he really doing what she thought he was going?

With a shock she realized that he was. Skin tingling, nerves jangling, she got down on her hands and knees and retrieved the sealed envelope taped to the bottom of her desk. The man who had visited her right after she moved into the office hadn’t explained much. Just left the envelope and some simple instructions.

Susan tore open the envelope and looked down at the paper inside. Four numbers, all five digits. Internal Microsoft extensions. She pressed the button to turn on her speakerphone, then thought better and picked up the handset. Trembling, keeping an eye on the man by the lake, she began to dial the first number.

----------
CHAPTER 3
----------

VirgilI was scratching his nose. "Doesn’t make any sense to me either."

On the screen, written hastily in the dust, was the following:

5     8
   +
13   21

RobertLa couldn’t figure it out. "That symbol in the middle…it looks like a Templar Cross! You know, the Knights Templar were formed in 1119 to protect pilgrims coming to Jerusalem. They were allowed to set up their headquarters on the Temple Mount. Rumor has it that they were really trying to dig up the Holy Grail, and I heard…" He paused for effect, "That they found it!"

VirgilI was looking at him patiently. "That’s nice. Myself, I was thinking it looked like a plus sign."

RobertLa looked slightly crestfallen. "Hmmff, I suppose so. What about the numbers? Wait, those numbers appear in the middle of the Fibonacci sequence! Do you know that Fibonacci was a name given to him after his death…his real name was Leonardo da Pisa! That’s right, he was from Pisa, where they have the leaning tower. And do you know that Leonardo introduced the Arabic decimal system to Europe? Imagine that, he introduced Arabic numbers to Europe and here are a set of Arabic numbers…what can that mean?" He began pacing around the room, muttering to himself.

"Well," said VirgilI, "I don’t know about that. But I was thinking. There are four numbers, and a plus sign. Maybe we should add the numbers together."

RobertLa stopped pacing. "OK, what do they add up to?"

VirgilI thought for a second. "Let’s see, carry the 1…13 times 2 is 26…the answer is 47."

RobertLa was shocked. "47! Do you know there’s a secret society at Pomona College dedicated to the number 47? And that the artist James Turrell graduated from Pomona College? And that Turrell is building a mysterious observatory in Arizona?"

VirgilI appeared nonplussed. "Is the observatory being set up so it can monitor the Knights Templar if they remove the Holy Grail from the Leaning Tower of Pisa?"

"I hadn’t thought of that," said RobertLa excitedly, "But it’s a definite possibility."

VirgilI shrugged. "Well, whatever. But I don’t know what the number 47 has to do with Microsoft. There’s no Building 47, for one thing."

RobertLa was still thinking about James Turrell and the Knights Templar. "I wonder why the numbers are arranged the way they are. Sort of like an X pattern."

"I was wondering the same thing. An X…hmmm…what does an X mean?"

RobertLa said, "The time you usually see an X around here is in front of a hexadecimal number."

VirgilI looked at RobertLa with something approaching respect. "That’s actually an interesting idea. Let’s see, if it’s really hex 47, then in decimal that would be…" He stopped, stunned. "No way. It can’t be."

* * *

"They've been RIFfed!" Susan stammered into the telephone in her office. She was leaving a message on a voicemail system. "Please pick up! They've all been RIFfed!"

The first three phone numbers on the list had produced terrifying results--someone from a moving company cleaning out an office, a co-worker raiding someone's former office for whiteboard markers, and an ominous message that the phone number was no longer valid. All three contacts had been terminated by Microsoft. And now, as she called the fourth and final number—the number that she was not supposed to call unless the first three could not be reached—she got an answering machine. The outgoing message was brief: "This is the stress lab. Leave a message and we'll get back to you."

"Someone's trying to lift the rock!" she pleaded as she left the message. "The other three are gone!"

Susan did not know the identity of the four men she protected, but the private phone numbers stashed beneath her desk were for use on only one condition.

If someone ever tries to lift up that rock—which is ridiculous, it's a giant rock, who could lift it, but I digress—it means the upper echelon has been breached, the faceless messenger had told her.One of us has been threatened with termination and been forced to tell a desperate lie. Call the numbers. Warn the others. Do not fail us.

It was a silent alarm. Foolproof in its simplicity. The plan had amazed her when she first heard it. If the identify of one was compromised, they would tell a lie that would start in motion a plan to warn the others. Tonight, however, it seemed that more than one had been compromised.

"Please answer," She whispered in fear. "Where are you?"

"Hang up the phone," a voice said from the doorway.

Turning in terror, she saw the man with the greasy hair and the nervous tic. He was holding a discarded motherboard that had been waiting in the hall for PC Recycle to pick up. Shaking, she set the phone back in the cradle.

"They are ex-Microsoft," The man said. "All four of them. And they have played me for a fool. Tell me where the secret is."

"I don't know!" Susan said truthfully. "That secret is guarded by others." Others whose cardkeys are dead!

He advanced, his fists gripping the motherboard.

----------
CHAPTER 4
----------

VirgilI let out a low whistle. "47 hex is 71 decimal. I don't believe it."

RobertLa knew a lot of numeric symbolism, but had never come across anything significant about 71, especially relating to Microsoft. "What's so special about 71?"

VirgilI shot him a look. "You don't get out much, do you? Look, you must know about the Microsoft career levels. Junior people are in the low 60s, then if you keep getting promoted you might wind up at level 70. Right?"

RobertLa nodded.

"OK, so then what happens after level 70? What if you get promoted from that?"

RobertLa had heard some vague rumors about this. "I think you jump up, don't you? To level 80 or something?"

VirgilI grinned. "Right, that's what they want you to think. But it turns out that there is one guy who got promoted from level 70 to level 71…nobody knows why…but he's the only level 71 developer in the company. And I know who he is."

"And do you think he's at work now?" RobertLa said, wonder filling his voice.

"I'm sure he is," replied VirgilI. "If you're level 71, I don't think you leave the office much."

* * *

The level 71 developer was indeed in his office, which was a clutter of plaques, Lego models, obsolete manuals, and empty Diet Coke cans. He was seated at his desk, wearing a polo shirt that showed five colored balls on the front, with the words "April Fool's Day 2006" underneath.

"Hi guys," said the level 71 developer. "What can I do for you?"

VirgilI quickly explained the situation. The level 71 developer rubbed his jaw and thought for a moment. Then he said, "I think there's something I should show you."

He burrowed through the papers piled on his desk, pulled one out, and handed it to RobertLa. It had a geometric pattern of some sort on it. Looking closer, he saw the following:

VirgilI peered at it. "If you squint at it sort of funny, it looks like the word 'Microsoft'. Is that the new logo or something?"

The level 71 developer smiled. "Right, it says Microsoft. But when I turn it over, what does it say?" With a practiced flip of his wrist, he rotated the picture 180 degrees.

RobertLa recoiled, stunned. He could feel his breath shortening, his pulse quickening, his eyes watering. A sick feeling began to radiate outward from his solar plexus. His knees felt weak and he could feel beads of sweat forming on his brow. A burning sensation grew in his eyes, and his heart began to beat faster. He gasped. "But this can only mean…it must mean…"

"Well, nothing much, actually," said the level 71 developer. "I just thought it was cool. Anyway, what were we talking about…oh right, JacquesS. I don't know him…but now that you mention it I might have gotten email from him."

RobertLa moved behind him. "It would have been sent not that long ago. It's probably still in your Inbox."

"In my Inbox?" the level 71 developer snorted. "No way. I've got an Outlook rule for email from people in test who have direct reports that I haven't sent email to in the last 14 days. Don't you have a rule like that? Don't you use Outlook rules? I can't believe it when people don't use Outlook rules."

RobertLa looked down, feeling embarrassed.

The level 71 developer swiveled in his chair and looked at VirgilI. "Well, you must use Outlook rules, right? I've got a rule for everything. See, it just puts it in one of these subfolders. It's really easy, I think people don't use Outlook rules because they're scared of them…" He was scanning his Outlook folder list, still muttering about rules.

"Do you have Desktop Search installed?" asked VirgilI. "Then you could probably find it pretty fast."

The level 71 developer waved his hand dismissively. "I don't need that. I just need to find the folder where I put it…hang on, let me try searching in Outlook."

VirgilI snorted. "Please. At least use the Advanced Find. The default Find just puts up that little box. I don't know what it really does."

"I agree," said the level 71 developer. "OK, let me search for email from JacquesS…of course it won't let me search on his email address, I have to type his name. You know, back when I started, we didn't even know people's names, only email addresses! Those were the days. That reminds me of something—"

RobertLa interrupted. "This is fascinating, but did you find the email yet?"

"Hang on…yes, here it is. OH!" He put his hands to his mouth, aghast. "It had no subject line! Boy, he's lucky, I was just about to add a rule about that. When people don't put a subject line on an email I just think—"

VirgilI leaned in. "What does the email say?"

The level 71 developer double-clicked on the empty subject line. "Here it is. It says…ummm…I'm not sure what that means."

Neither RobertLa nor VirgilI could tell what it meant either. On the screen in front of them glowed a single line of text:

OMIT FIRM SCION

----------
CHAPTER 5
----------

"This makes no sense," said VirgilI. "JacquesS goes to all the trouble to give us a disguised message to come see you, sends you a message with the last gasps of his email account, and it contains the phrase 'omit firm scion'? What the heck does that mean?"

The level 71 developer snorted. "Well, around here the 'firm scion' would be Bill Gates. And 'omit' is pretty obvious. Sounds like he's one of those bloggers who wants to get rid of Bill."

RobertLa said, "Oh right, I've heard of those guys. There's a site they all get together on to complain about management. I forget what it's called--miniature something-or-other."

VirgilI spoke, his voice steely. "You mean Mini-Microsoft." He smacked the back of one hand into the palm of the other. "We've been tracking that guy for a while...one time we picked up his signal at the Redmond library, we had that place surrounded in 5 minutes, but he got away. Must have snuck out through the sewer line." He chuckled. "Well, just keep flying around, my little mini-butterfly. Someday your gossamer wings are going to touch the nasty, sticky spider web we have spun for you, and then kapow! You're keister will be mulch in 10 seconds flat. We'll see who's the punk then!" He stopped, realizing that RobertLa and the level 71 developer were both staring at him with their mouths open. "Uh, never mind. Just an internal security issue. Thinking out loud, you know. Everything OK, guys?"

The level 71 developer blinked. "Sure, everything's fine. I've just never seen someone rip a wooden patent plaque in half with their bare hands before."

VirgilI looked down. "Sorry about that." He adjusted the collar of his shirt. "Ever since they changed the review plan from 'goals' to 'commitments', I've been a little more into my job."

"Well, moving right along," said RobertLa. "The phrase 'omit firm scion' seems like a pretty shaky link to Mini-Microsoft."

At that moment VirgilI's cell phone rang. He looked at the screen. "Excuse me, I need to take this." He stepped into the hall and closed the door. They could see him talking animatedly on his phone. At one point they faintly heard him say, "What? With a motherboard?" When the conversation was over, he stuck his head back in the office. "I've gotta run over to Building 2. Like the French say, Rémi et Aline sont dans le jardin avec Pipo."

The level 71 developer looked surprised. "What?"

"I don't know why," said VirgilI, "but whenever I get into one of these situations, I always feel like speaking a foreign language."

"But what does it mean?" asked RobertLa. "I haven't taken French since third grade."

VirgilI laughed. "Third grade. Hah! Well, let me tell you, this is…oh wait. Actually, that was from third grade. Wrong quote, never mind! Listen, keep thinking about that email from JacquesS." He disappeared down the hall.

RobertLa looked at the level 71 developer. "I don't trust that guy. He seemed pretty keen on finding Mini-Microsoft."

"I agree," said the level 71 developer. He lowered his voice conspiratorially, although they were the only two people in his office. "Personally, I kind of like Mini! Says what some of us are thinking, you know?"

RobertLa shrugged. "Well, I'm stumped as to what to do next."

The level 71 developer considered for a moment. "Describe to me exactly what JacquesS wrote on the Post-It Note."

"It just said 'excavate green herbs,' which pointed us to a machine running Exchange Server Beta, and then under that it said 'Email RobertLa.'"

"That's all? You're sure? Did he scribble anything in special black-light pen?"

RobertLa thought for a second. "Wait. It didn't just say 'Email RobertLa'. It said 'P.R. Email RobertLa.'"

The level 71 developer looked stunned. "It said P.R.? Not P.S?"

"Yes, I'm sure it was P.R." replied RobertLa.

"I see," said the level 71 developer, slowly.

"You don't think we should have contacted Waggener-Edstrom?" asked RobertLa nervously.

The level 71 developer laughed. "Waggener-Edstrom! Seriously, I think I know what P.R. means."

RobertLa raised his eyebrows.

"OK," the level 71 developer continued. "So I was sitting in a whirlpool at the PRO Club, and these two men in the next whirlpool over were talking about something called the Prieuré de Redmond."

"Oh no," said RobertLa. "Don't you start speaking French too."

"Relax," said the level 71 developer. "I means the Priory of Redmond."

RobertLa's eyes widened. "The Priory of Redmond? The secret society? I know they exist to guard something, but I never knew what it was."

"Right," agreed the level 71 developer. "Well, listen up then. These two guys were saying that the Priory's secret was the identity of a certain anonymous blogger…the blogger known as Mini-Microsoft."

"Oog," said RobertLa. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Omit firm scion—it's another hidden message. It's an anagram for Mini-Microsoft!"

The level 71 developer nodded. "That makes sense. JacquesS sent me the message so when you got here, you would recognize that it was a clue to the identity of Mini-Microsoft. He must have know he was about to get 86ed from Microsoft, and he had to pass the secret on to someone else. But according to what I heard about the Priory, there were supposed to be only four members who knew the secret. If he was telling you, it means the other three must have been downsized also! Unless you're in the Priory...are you? Is there a Priory email alias I can check if you're a member of?"

"No, I'm not a member of the Priory." RobertLa wondered why JacquesS had chosen him. "Well, it's a good thing VirgilI didn't realize what was up. Luckily he seems to be a few features short of spec complete, if you know what I mean." He looked back at the email on the screen. "Wait. Doesn't that email have an attachment on it?"

The level 71 developer swiveled his head. "Dang it, it does. Geez, it's because he sent the email in HTML format, the attachment icon is tiny. Didn't he know that Rich Text makes the attachment obvious? I can't stand people who put attachments in HTML emails. And hey, it's a Powerpoint slide deck. Great, nothing like Powerpoint to explode your storage requirements. Look, the thing is 100K and I bet it has one slide in it.

The level 71 developer was correct. The deck did only have one slide. In fact, the slide only had two words in it. But as RobertLa and the level 71 developer looked at what it contained, they knew that the situation had just gotten murkier, not clearer.

----------
CHAPTER 6
----------

The level 71 developer looked over at RobertLa. "Any idea what this means?"

In front of them was a one-slide Powerpoint deck, whose only contents was one text box:

"LLIM37 hE", said the level 71 developer, accenting the first syllable. "Too long for a license plate. And why is the H in lower-case?"

RobertLa put his face right up against the screen. "That font—I think I recognize it." He pulled a small ruler and a magnifying glass out of his pocket, and began measuring stroke lengths of the characters. "Yes, definitely! It's the font called—"

"Market?" asked the level 71 developer.

"What?" RobertLa said with astonishment. "You're also a fontologist?"

"No," said the level 71 developer. "But if you click on the text, it shows you the font name in the little drop-down box up here."

"Oh. Well, Market is famous for a few things. Note the characteristic overhanging top piece on the capital E, and the 3 that sort of looks like an upside-down E. In fact…wait a minute. Can you rotate that text box 180 degrees?"

"I get it. Like when you used to write upside-down text on your calculator," replied the level 71 developer. "It should be easy to rotate, I think it's here on the Format menu, you just choose Font or Paragraph. Hmm, there is no Paragraph choice. And Font isn’t it."

"Maybe it's on the Edit menu, under Object."

The level 71 developer clicked a couple of times. "Object just highlights it. It's probably somewhere on the Format menu. Is it Alignment? No, that's just left/right/center." He scratched his nose.

"Let's try the Text Box option on the Format menu," suggested RobertLa. "Great, it's a modal dialog with tabs. What about the Position tab?"

"No," said the level 71 developer after selecting it. "Hey, what about the Text Box tab. Of course, we'll have a dialog called Text Box and then put a tab called Text Box on it. Oh look, you can rotate the text by 90 degrees, but not 180 degrees."

"I think that means rotate each letter, not the whole thing," said RobertLa. "What about the Size tab?"

"The Size tab? Why would rotation be on a tab called Size? Never mind, here it is on the Size tab. Let's see, I can click the little up arrow 180 times, how convenient…" The level 71 developer highlighted the number and type in 180, and the text promptly turned upside down.

RobertLa read it over his shoulder. "It says the number 34 and then the word LEWITT."

The level 71 developer frowned. "And it was in a font called Market. Does that matter?"

"Hang on," said RobertLa. "There's a cafeteria next to building 34. Sort of like a market, right?"

* * *

As they entered the Building 34 cafeteria, their eyes were drawn to the giant abstract painting on the far wall, 50 feet long and 20 feet high. Intrigued, RobertLa leaned down to read the tag that described it.

"Look!" He squeaked excitedly. "The painting is by an artist named Sol LeWitt! And see that lowercase 'a' following the ID number? Someone told me that was used for paintings that were donated to Microsoft anonymously."

"Anonymously!" said the level 71 developer. "You mean it could have been donated by the—"

"By the Priory of Redmond, yes." RobertLa was reading the rest of the tag. "It also says that the painting was done directly on the wall, which means it can't be moved. So it will always be here."

The level 71 developer was looking at the painting. "You know, the Powerpoint slide had the letters in yellow and purple. And see how the painting has stripes of various colors, including yellow and purple? I wonder if there is something coded in there."

RobertLa stared at it. "Well, the painting is divided into panels. The purple and yellow parts up in that top left panel don't look like much…maybe a number 8. Then the next panel just has a diagonal yellow line in it. And the next one has a 2 in it."

"OK," said the level 71 developer, warming to the game. "The next panel has a vertical purple line, and the next one has a vertical yellow line."

"Those could be two number 1s, "said RobertLa, "And the purple and yellow lines in the last one look like a 0."

"So if we put it together, we get 8, then a slash, and 2, 1, 1, and 0." He did a double-take. "It looks like a Microsoft office number! 8/2110! Quick, we need a machine on the corporate net!"

RobertLa pointed. "There's an intranet kiosk over there."

They hurried over. The level 71 developer quickly brought up a Remote Desktop connection to his dev box, then went into Outlook. "Hang on. How can I figure out who is in office 8/2110? Man, in the old days of wzmail you could just grep through the--"

"Never mind that," said RobertLa. "I think you can find it in the Address Book. Just click on Properties…no, not that one. No, not that one either. That one there. Now look in that file!"

A single name came up in office 8/2110. "It's Mini-Microsoft!" yelled the level 71 developer. "Argh, no it's not. The person in the office is a woman, and we know that Mini-Microsoft is a man."

RobertLa thought for a second. "But the painting is old, right? So who used to be in that office?"

"Good point," said the level 71 developer. "You know, my friend is working on a project in Research that runs the Wayback Machine archive crawler against the Microsoft internet. Supposedly started a while ago." He clicked inside his Remote Desktop. "He sent me the URL…here it is."

He quickly connected to the page. "See, they would have the old *trax data…so let's go back as far as we can. Look, it's got data from 1994! So who says Microsoft missed the Internet. Anyway, let's see. 8/2110 used to be occupied by…" He stopped, then let out a loud laugh.

"What is it? Did you find who Mini-Microsoft is?" asked RobertLa. "Let me see!"

"See for yourself," said the level 71 developer.

RobertLa began to laugh also. At that moment, VirgilI ran up, accompanied by a man with greasy hair and a nervous tic. "Hey, did you guys figure it out? Do you know Mini-Microsoft's real identity?"

The level 71 developer pointed at the screen. "We figured it out, all right. There he is, boys." He smiled. "And all you have to do is run up and get him."

THE END.

Posted by AdamBa at 10:22 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

June 05, 2006

The Microsoft Code: Chapter 6

Continued from Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Chapter 5.

The level 71 developer looked over at RobertLa. "Any idea what this means?"

In front of them was a one-slide Powerpoint deck, whose only contents was one text box:

"LLIM37 hE", said the level 71 developer, accenting the first syllable. "Too long for a license plate. And why is the H in lower-case?"

RobertLa put his face right up against the screen. "That font—I think I recognize it." He pulled a small ruler and a magnifying glass out of his pocket, and began measuring stroke lengths of the characters. "Yes, definitely! It's the font called—"

"Market?" asked the level 71 developer.

"What?" RobertLa said with astonishment. "You're also a fontologist?"

"No," said the level 71 developer. "But if you click on the text, it shows you the font name in the little drop-down box up here."

"Oh. Well, Market is famous for a few things. Note the characteristic overhanging top piece on the capital E, and the 3 that sort of looks like an upside-down E. In fact…wait a minute. Can you rotate that text box 180 degrees?"

"I get it. Like when you used to write upside-down text on your calculator," replied the level 71 developer. "It should be easy to rotate, I think it's here on the Format menu, you just choose Font or Paragraph. Hmm, there is no Paragraph choice. And Font isn’t it."

"Maybe it's on the Edit menu, under Object."

The level 71 developer clicked a couple of times. "Object just highlights it. It's probably somewhere on the Format menu. Is it Alignment? No, that's just left/right/center." He scratched his nose.

"Let's try the Text Box option on the Format menu," suggested RobertLa. "Great, it's a modal dialog with tabs. What about the Position tab?"

"No," said the level 71 developer after selecting it. "Hey, what about the Text Box tab. Of course, we'll have a dialog called Text Box and then put a tab called Text Box on it. Oh look, you can rotate the text by 90 degrees, but not 180 degrees."

"I think that means rotate each letter, not the whole thing," said RobertLa. "What about the Size tab?"

"The Size tab? Why would rotation be on a tab called Size? Never mind, here it is on the Size tab. Let's see, I can click the little up arrow 180 times, how convenient…" The level 71 developer highlighted the number and type in 180, and the text promptly turned upside down.

RobertLa read it over his shoulder. "It says the number 34 and then the word LEWITT."

The level 71 developer frowned. "And it was in a font called Market. Does that matter?"

"Hang on," said RobertLa. "There's a cafeteria next to building 34. Sort of like a market, right?"

* * *

As they entered the Building 34 cafeteria, their eyes were drawn to the giant abstract painting on the far wall, 50 feet long and 20 feet high. Intrigued, RobertLa leaned down to read the tag that described it.

"Look!" He squeaked excitedly. "The painting is by an artist named Sol LeWitt! And see that lowercase 'a' following the ID number? Someone told me that was used for paintings that were donated to Microsoft anonymously."

"Anonymously!" said the level 71 developer. "You mean it could have been donated by the—"

"By the Priory of Redmond, yes." RobertLa was reading the rest of the tag. "It also says that the painting was done directly on the wall, which means it can't be moved. So it will always be here."

The level 71 developer was looking at the painting. "You know, the Powerpoint slide had the letters in yellow and purple. And see how the painting has stripes of various colors, including yellow and purple? I wonder if there is something coded in there."

RobertLa stared at it. "Well, the painting is divided into panels. The purple and yellow parts up in that top left panel don't look like much…maybe a number 8. Then the next panel just has a diagonal yellow line in it. And the next one has a 2 in it."

"OK," said the level 71 developer, warming to the game. "The next panel has a vertical purple line, and the next one has a vertical yellow line."

"Those could be two number 1s, "said RobertLa, "And the purple and yellow lines in the last one look like a 0."

"So if we put it together, we get 8, then a slash, and 2, 1, 1, and 0." He did a double-take. "It looks like a Microsoft office number! 8/2110! Quick, we need a machine on the corporate net!"

RobertLa pointed. "There's an intranet kiosk over there."

They hurried over. The level 71 developer quickly brought up a Remote Desktop connection to his dev box, then went into Outlook. "Hang on. How can I figure out who is in office 8/2110? Man, in the old days of wzmail you could just grep through the--"

"Never mind that," said RobertLa. "I think you can find it in the Address Book. Just click on Properties…no, not that one. No, not that one either. That one there. Now look in that file!"

A single name came up in office 8/2110. "It's Mini-Microsoft!" yelled the level 71 developer. "Argh, no it's not. The person in the office is a woman, and we know that Mini-Microsoft is a man."

RobertLa thought for a second. "But the painting is old, right? So who used to be in that office?"

"Good point," said the level 71 developer. "You know, my friend is working on a project in Research that runs the Wayback Machine archive crawler against the Microsoft internet. Supposedly started a while ago." He clicked inside his Remote Desktop. "He sent me the URL…here it is."

He quickly connected to the page. "See, they would have the old *trax data…so let's go back as far as we can. Look, it's got data from 1994! So who says Microsoft missed the Internet. Anyway, let's see. 8/2110 used to be occupied by…" He stopped, then let out a loud laugh.

"What is it? Did you find who Mini-Microsoft is?" asked RobertLa. "Let me see!"

"See for yourself," said the level 71 developer.

RobertLa began to laugh also. At that moment, VirgilI ran up, accompanied by a man with greasy hair and a nervous tic. "Hey, did you guys figure it out? Do you know Mini-Microsoft's real identity?"

The level 71 developer pointed at the screen. "We figured it out, all right. There he is, boys." He smiled. "And all you have to do is run up and get him."

THE END.

Posted by AdamBa at 11:39 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

June 04, 2006

The Microsoft Code: Chapter 5

Continued from Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4.

"This makes no sense," said VirgilI. "JacquesS goes to all the trouble to give us a disguised message to come see you, sends you a message with the last gasps of his email account, and it contains the phrase 'omit firm scion'? What the heck does that mean?"

The level 71 developer snorted. "Well, around here the 'firm scion' would be Bill Gates. And 'omit' is pretty obvious. Sounds like he's one of those bloggers who wants to get rid of Bill."

RobertLa said, "Oh right, I've heard of those guys. There's a site they all get together on to complain about management. I forget what it's called--miniature something-or-other."

VirgilI spoke, his voice steely. "You mean Mini-Microsoft." He smacked the back of one hand into the palm of the other. "We've been tracking that guy for a while...one time we picked up his signal at the Redmond library, we had that place surrounded in 5 minutes, but he got away. Must have snuck out through the sewer line." He chuckled. "Well, just keep flying around, my little mini-butterfly. Someday your gossamer wings are going to touch the nasty, sticky spider web we have spun for you, and then kapow! You're keister will be mulch in 10 seconds flat. We'll see who's the punk then!" He stopped, realizing that RobertLa and the level 71 developer were both staring at him with their mouths open. "Uh, never mind. Just an internal security issue. Thinking out loud, you know. Everything OK, guys?"

The level 71 developer blinked. "Sure, everything's fine. I've just never seen someone rip a wooden patent plaque in half with their bare hands before."

VirgilI looked down. "Sorry about that." He adjusted the collar of his shirt. "Ever since they changed the review plan from 'goals' to 'commitments', I've been a little more into my job."

"Well, moving right along," said RobertLa. "The phrase 'omit firm scion' seems like a pretty shaky link to Mini-Microsoft."

At that moment VirgilI's cell phone rang. He looked at the screen. "Excuse me, I need to take this." He stepped into the hall and closed the door. They could see him talking animatedly on his phone. At one point they faintly heard him say, "What? With a motherboard?" When the conversation was over, he stuck his head back in the office. "I've gotta run over to Building 2. Like the French say, Rémi et Aline sont dans le jardin avec Pipo."

The level 71 developer looked surprised. "What?"

"I don't know why," said VirgilI, "but whenever I get into one of these situations, I always feel like speaking a foreign language."

"But what does it mean?" asked RobertLa. "I haven't taken French since third grade."

VirgilI laughed. "Third grade. Hah! Well, let me tell you, this is…oh wait. Actually, that was from third grade. Wrong quote, never mind! Listen, keep thinking about that email from JacquesS." He disappeared down the hall.

RobertLa looked at the level 71 developer. "I don't trust that guy. He seemed pretty keen on finding Mini-Microsoft."

"I agree," said the level 71 developer. He lowered his voice conspiratorially, although they were the only two people in his office. "Personally, I kind of like Mini! Says what some of us are thinking, you know?"

RobertLa shrugged. "Well, I'm stumped as to what to do next."

The level 71 developer considered for a moment. "Describe to me exactly what JacquesS wrote on the Post-It Note."

"It just said 'excavate green herbs,' which pointed us to a machine running Exchange Server Beta, and then under that it said 'Email RobertLa.'"

"That's all? You're sure? Did he scribble anything in special black-light pen?"

RobertLa thought for a second. "Wait. It didn't just say 'Email RobertLa'. It said 'P.R. Email RobertLa.'"

The level 71 developer looked stunned. "It said P.R.? Not P.S?"

"Yes, I'm sure it was P.R." replied RobertLa.

"I see," said the level 71 developer, slowly.

"You don't think we should have contacted Waggener-Edstrom?" asked RobertLa nervously.

The level 17 developer laughed. "Waggener-Edstrom! Seriously, I think I know what P.R. means."

RobertLa raised his eyebrows.

"OK," the level 71 developer continued. "So I was sitting in a whirlpool at the PRO Club, and these two men in the next whirlpool over were talking about something called the Prieuré de Redmond."

"Oh no," said RobertLa. "Don't you start speaking French too."

"Relax," said the level 71 developer. "I means the Priory of Redmond."

RobertLa's eyes widened. "The Priory of Redmond? The secret society? I know they exist to guard something, but I never knew what it was."

"Right," agreed the level 71 developer. "Well, listen up then. These two guys were saying that the Priory's secret was the identity of a certain anonymous blogger…the blogger known as Mini-Microsoft."

"Oog," said RobertLa. Suddenly he snapped his fingers. "Omit firm scion—it's another hidden message. It's an anagram for Mini-Microsoft!"

The level 71 developer nodded. "That makes sense. JacquesS sent me the message so when you got here, you would recognize that it was a clue to the identity of Mini-Microsoft. He must have know he was about to get 86ed from Microsoft, and he had to pass the secret on to someone else. But according to what I heard about the Priory, there were supposed to be only four members who knew the secret. If he was telling you, it means the other three must have been downsized also! Unless you're in the Priory...are you? Is there a Priory email alias I can check if you're a member of?"

"No, I'm not a member of the Priory." RobertLa wondered why JacquesS had chosen him. "Well, it's a good thing VirgilI didn't realize what was up. Luckily he seems to be a few features short of spec complete, if you know what I mean." He looked back at the email on the screen. "Wait. Doesn't that email have an attachment on it?"

The level 71 developer swiveled his head. "Dang it, it does. Geez, it's because he sent the email in HTML format, the attachment icon is tiny. Didn't he know that Rich Text makes the attachment obvious? I can't stand people who put attachments in HTML emails. And hey, it's a Powerpoint slide deck. Great, nothing like Powerpoint to explode your storage requirements. Look, the thing is 100K and I bet it has one slide in it.

The level 71 developer was correct. The deck did only have one slide. In fact, the slide only had two words in it. But as RobertLa and the level 71 developer looked at what it contained, they knew that the situation had just gotten murkier, not clearer.

To be continued...

Posted by AdamBa at 10:39 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

June 03, 2006

The Microsoft Code: Chapter 4

Continued from Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3.

VirgilI let out a low whistle. "47 hex is 71 decimal. I don't believe it."

RobertLa knew a lot of numeric symbolism, but had never come across anything significant about 71, especially relating to Microsoft. "What's so special about 71?"

VirgilI shot him a look. "You don't get out much, do you? Look, you must know about the Microsoft career levels. Junior people are in the low 60s, then if you keep getting promoted you might wind up at level 70. Right?"

RobertLa nodded.

"OK, so then what happens after level 70? What if you get promoted from that?"

RobertLa had heard some vague rumors about this. "I think you jump up, don't you? To level 80 or something?"

VirgilI grinned. "Right, that's what they want you to think. But it turns out that there is one guy who got promoted from level 70 to level 71…nobody knows why…but he's the only level 71 developer in the company. And I know who he is."

"And do you think he's at work now?" RobertLa said, wonder filling his voice.

"I'm sure he is," replied VirgilI. "If you're level 71, I don't think you leave the office much."

* * *

The level 71 developer was indeed in his office, which was a clutter of plaques, Lego models, obsolete manuals, and empty Diet Coke cans. He was seated at his desk, wearing a polo shirt that showed five colored balls on the front, with the words "April Fool's Day 2006" underneath.

"Hi guys," said the level 71 developer. "What can I do for you?"

VirgilI quickly explained the situation. The level 71 developer rubbed his jaw and thought for a moment. Then he said, "I think there's something I should show you."

He burrowed through the papers piled on his desk, pulled one out, and handed it to RobertLa. It had a geometric pattern of some sort on it. Looking closer, he saw the following:

VirgilI peered at it. "If you squint at it sort of funny, it looks like the word 'Microsoft'. Is that the new logo or something?"

The level 71 developer smiled. "Right, it says Microsoft. But when I turn it over, what does it say?" With a practiced flip of his wrist, he rotated the picture 180 degrees.

RobertLa recoiled, stunned. He could feel his breath shortening, his pulse quickening, his eyes watering. A sick feeling began to radiate outward from his solar plexus. His knees felt weak and he could feel beads of sweat forming on his brow. A burning sensation grew in his eyes, and his heart began to beat faster. He gasped. "But this can only mean…it must mean…"

"Well, nothing much, actually," said the level 71 developer. "I just thought it was cool. Anyway, what were we talking about…oh right, JacquesS. I don't know him…but now that you mention it I might have gotten email from him."

RobertLa moved behind him. "It would have been sent not that long ago. It's probably still in your Inbox."

"In my Inbox?" the level 71 developer snorted. "No way. I've got an Outlook rule for email from people in test who have direct reports that I haven't sent email to in the last 14 days. Don't you have a rule like that? Don't you use Outlook rules? I can't believe it when people don't use Outlook rules."

RobertLa looked down, feeling embarrassed.

The level 71 developer swiveled in his chair and looked at VirgilI. "Well, you must use Outlook rules, right? I've got a rule for everything. See, it just puts it in one of these subfolders. It's really easy, I think people don't use Outlook rules because they're scared of them…" He was scanning his Outlook folder list, still muttering about rules.

"Do you have Desktop Search installed?" asked VirgilI. "Then you could probably find it pretty fast."

The level 71 developer waved his hand dismissively. "I don't need that. I just need to find the folder where I put it…hang on, let me try searching in Outlook."

VirgilI snorted. "Please. At least use the Advanced Find. The default Find just puts up that little box. I don't know what it really does."

"I agree," said the level 71 developer. "OK, let me search for email from JacquesS…of course it won't let me search on his email address, I have to type his name. You know, back when I started, we didn't even know people's names, only email addresses! Those were the days. That reminds me of something—"

RobertLa interrupted. "This is fascinating, but did you find the email yet?"

"Hang on…yes, here it is. OH!" He put his hands to his mouth, aghast. "It had no subject line! Boy, he's lucky, I was just about to add a rule about that. When people don't put a subject line on an email I just think—"

VirgilI leaned in. "What does the email say?"

The level 71 developer double-clicked on the empty subject line. "Here it is. It says…ummm…I'm not sure what that means."

Neither RobertLa nor VirgilI could tell what it meant either. On the screen in front of them glowed a single line of text:

OMIT FIRM SCION

To be continued...

Posted by AdamBa at 11:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 01, 2006

The Microsoft Code: Chapter 3

Continued from Chapter 1 and Chapter 2.

VirgilI was scratching his nose. "Doesn’t make any sense to me either."

On the screen, written hastily in the dust, was the following:

5     8
   +
13   21

RobertLa couldn’t figure it out. "That symbol in the middle…it looks like a Templar Cross! You know, the Knights Templar were formed in 1119 to protect pilgrims coming to Jerusalem. They were allowed to set up their headquarters on the Temple Mount. Rumor has it that they were really trying to dig up the Holy Grail, and I heard…" He paused for effect, "That they found it!"

VirgilI was looking at him patiently. "That’s nice. Myself, I was thinking it looked like a plus sign."

RobertLa looked slightly crestfallen. "Hmmff, I suppose so. What about the numbers? Wait, those numbers appear in the middle of the Fibonacci sequence! Do you know that Fibonacci was a name given to him after his death…his real name was Leonardo da Pisa! That’s right, he was from Pisa, where they have the leaning tower. And do you know that Leonardo introduced the Arabic decimal system to Europe? Imagine that, he introduced Arabic numbers to Europe and here are a set of Arabic numbers…what can that mean?" He began pacing around the room, muttering to himself.

"Well," said VirgilI, "I don’t know about that. But I was thinking. There are four numbers, and a plus sign. Maybe we should add the numbers together."

RobertLa stopped pacing. "OK, what do they add up to?"

VirgilI thought for a second. "Let’s see, carry the 1…13 times 2 is 26…the answer is 47."

RobertLa was shocked. "47! Do you know there’s a secret society at Pomona College dedicated to the number 47? And that the artist James Turrell graduated from Pomona College? And that Turrell is building a mysterious observatory in Arizona?"

VirgilI appeared nonplussed. "Is the observatory being set up so it can monitor the Knights Templar if they remove the Holy Grail from the Leaning Tower of Pisa?"

"I hadn’t thought of that," said RobertLa excitedly, "But it’s a definite possibility."

VirgilI shrugged. "Well, whatever. But I don’t know what the number 47 has to do with Microsoft. There’s no Building 47, for one thing."

RobertLa was still thinking about James Turrell and the Knights Templar. "I wonder why the numbers are arranged the way they are. Sort of like an X pattern."

"I was wondering the same thing. An X…hmmm…what does an X mean?"

RobertLa said, "The time you usually see an X around here is in front of a hexadecimal number."

VirgilI looked at RobertLa with something approaching respect. "That’s actually an interesting idea. Let’s see, if it’s really hex 47, then in decimal that would be…" He stopped, stunned. "No way. It can’t be."

* * *

"They've been RIFfed!" Susan stammered into the telephone in her office. She was leaving a message on a voicemail system. "Please pick up! They've all been RIFfed!"

The first three phone numbers on the list had produced terrifying results--someone from a moving company cleaning out an office, a co-worker raiding someone's former office for whiteboard markers, and an ominous message that the phone number was no longer valid. All three contacts had been terminated by Microsoft. And now, as she called the fourth and final number—the number that she was not supposed to call unless the first three could not be reached—she got an answering machine. The outgoing message was brief: "This is the stress lab. Leave a message and we'll get back to you."

"Someone's trying to lift the rock!" she pleaded as she left the message. "The other three are gone!"

Susan did not know the identity of the four men she protected, but the private phone numbers stashed beneath her desk were for use on only one condition.

If someone ever tries to lift up that rock—which is ridiculous, it's a giant rock, who could lift it, but I digress—it means the upper echelon has been breached, the faceless messenger had told her.One of us has been threatened with termination and been forced to tell a desperate lie. Call the numbers. Warn the others. Do not fail us.

It was a silent alarm. Foolproof in its simplicity. The plan had amazed her when she first heard it. If the identify of one was compromised, they would tell a lie that would start in motion a plan to warn the others. Tonight, however, it seemed that more than one had been compromised.

"Please answer," She whispered in fear. "Where are you?"

"Hang up the phone," a voice said from the doorway.

Turning in terror, she saw the man with the greasy hair and the nervous tic. He was holding a discarded motherboard that had been waiting in the hall for PC Recycle to pick up. Shaking, she set the phone back in the cradle.

"They are ex-Microsoft," The man said. "All four of them. And they have played me for a fool. Tell me where the secret is."

"I don't know!" Susan said truthfully. "That secret is guarded by others." Others whose cardkeys are dead!

He advanced, his fists gripping the motherboard.

To be continued...

Posted by AdamBa at 11:30 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack