Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will donate $100 million to help 
immunize children in developing countries against meningitis 
and respiratory and diarrheal illnesses. With the shot, however, 
the children will have Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 installed in 
them.

Still, there are some things a big company can do that
a small band of programmers could never hope to accomplish.
This was best shown to me this week by reader
Brian P. McLean, who points out that according to his
Microsoft Outlook 97 scheduling/datebook application,
Thanksgiving falls this year on Wednesday, November 26.

Thanksgiving has always fallen on Thursday before. Wednesday
may be an improvement. I don't know. 

    - Robert X. Cringely, from his "I, Cringely" column (November 7, 1997) 

A woman, worried about crime, started to carry a hand-gun. Five months 
after she'd begun carrying her gun she came out to her car in a dark 
parking lot and found it occupied by four men. She ordered them out. They 
refused to move; she pulled her gun. Instantly four doors popped open and 
her car's occupants fled into the night. Then, as she started to load her 
groceries into the car, she noticed her car (same make and model) parked 
three spots away.