Bill Gates Gives $20M to CMU for New Building

touretzky writes "Carnegie Mellon University announced on Tuesday that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had donated $20 million toward the cost of a new building to be called the "Gates Center for Computer Science". Some faculty have suggested that in acknowledgment of Mr. Gates' profound influence on the computer software industry, the building should be painted bright blue."

Before you ask

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the building will have Windows, but the Office will cost extra.

Blue

[oskard]

They can write BSOD in big white letters on the top of it.

Re:Blue

[Anonymous Coward]

Blue Screen of Death.

Blue?

[Selfbain]

They should paint 'IRQL not less or equal' on the side of the building.

Why doesn't Bill Gates blow more of his money?

[comwiz56]

Why doesn't Bill gates run around spending money on fun stuff? NSYNC guys almost buy a trip a to space. Woz has like 20 segways (and plays on a segway plo team). But why doesnt Bill Gates spend his money on such crazy things?

Why he's really doing it

[Anonymous Coward]

He just wants control of their water-walking robots. [slashdot.org] No bathtub will be safe!

Re:Blue

[Anonymous Coward]

well you know...

The infamous yellow screen of death... oh wait!

Unfortunately....

[One Louder]

Unfortunately none of the doors have locks and all of the windows are wide open by default.

Re:BSOD jokes

[oskard]

Ahhh stop. You're killing me. No, really STOP 0x0000000A BAD_BSOD_JOKES

Re:Before you ask

[Anonymous Coward]

And plenty of back doors.

Re:Bright Blue eh?

[gcaseye6677]

It will be ugly all right, if it looks anything like this [mit.edu] Bill Gates computer science building.

Re:Before you ask

[oskard]

The entrance will say "Press any key to continue_"

Re:Before you ask

[Dagrush]

unfortunately, people using the new building will have to climb through innumerable windows to get anywhere. no doors.

Other building features

[Anonymous Coward]

1. To enter, you push a button and 5 minutes later the door opens
2. All digital locks can be opened with the admin password 1-2-3-4-5
3. Vibrating Window panes will cause random crashes
4. All wall decorations are essential and directly integrated into the building and cannot be removed without destroying the entire structure

In front of the building...

[rasafras]

...you will be greeted by a 20 foot iron sculpture of clippy.

That, and the building won't have any locks.

Re:Before you ask

[baywulf]

And whenever ask someone for help inside the building the paperclips start dancing.

Re:And of course...

[gc8005]

Geez - how lame. This charitable act is just an attempt to push his company's products on college students. Someone mod me up as insightful.

In related news...

[Joey Patterson]

Carnegie-Mellon University officials today reported that several designs for metal keys to the new Gates Center for Computer Science, which hasn't even been built yet, were found on the Kazaa and Gnutella filesharing networks. CMU Campus Police and Microsoft are reportedly investigating the leaked keys.

MOD PARENT DOWN!

[Anonymous Coward]

What Slashdot thinks about Microsoft is the *ONLY* thing that matters. The TRUTH is IRRELEVANT you DIRTBAG.

If we had a beowulf cluster of Linux donations, we could overpower Bill Gates soooo easily!

Re:Before you ask

[freakmn]

...and the exit will say start...

so sad for bill...

[Chuck Bucket]

he gives all this money to a school, but still gets the borg icon treatment on /.

CB#

Re:Other building features

[ValourX]

1-2-3-4-5? That's the combination on my luggage!

It should be sky blue...

[wrinkledshirt]

...that way, maybe it won't be the only thing Bill's given us that makes things crash.

Re:$20M but...

[crimson30]

Also consider that Microsoft is the #1 employer of CS grads from CMU. This school's students and expertise have served him well

So maybe his half-ass donation is what he thought they deserve for the half-ass OS they've cranked out.

Re:Before you ask

[tiredwired]

And it is going to look just like a building Apple built 5 years ago.

Re:Before you ask

[Gary Destruction]

-If you get injured, you can visit Dr. Watson -The executive floor will have a terrace called Outlook -The employee lounge will have a small balcony called Outlook Express

Re:Poor Bill

[math major]

Of course people go to the recruitment events. Free food! A handful of people actually go because they want to work for Microsoft, but most of the people are there to heckle and get free stuff. Microsoft shirts make great rugs. I always wanted to win a laptop in one of their raffles just so I could say I got a free laptop from Microsoft and put Linux on it. At last year's recruiting speech, one of the people asked "How many of you have heard of the Blaster virus?" Everyone raised their hand. "How many of you hate Microsoft because of the Blaster virus?" The guy sitting next to me: "Just because of that?" Applause.

Re:Before you ask

[scum-e-bag]

...and it shall henceforth be known as the BBOD (Blue Building of Death)

Microsoft Skynet has become self-aware

[Gary Destruction]

Skynet [rageboy.com] was after all created at CMU. Now Microsoft is giving money to CMU. Will Terminators have glowing blue eyes instead of glowing red eyes?

Well of COURSE bright blue....

[reynolds_john]

It represents the Blue Screen of Death.

Re:Something not so funny about Bill Gates ...

[aardvarkjoe]

Second, the point of the mathematics professor was that it wouldn't be appropriate to name the building after Donald Trump even if he had payed for most of the building.

If that's what he meant, maybe he should have said that instead.

it shouldn't be appropriate to name the building after Bill Gates simply because he provided a large chunk of the financing.

Why, because an unknown mathematician and an anonymous coward say so?

Re:Before you ask

[mattjb0010]

Ctrl-Alt-Delete is the key combination for the front door

Re:Before you ask

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you're inside you have to push the door marked ENTRY to get out.

Re:Before you ask

[Forbman]

...and no discernable security systems, and only one person at a time can enter and use the building at one time.

Re:IBM

[pfriedma]

You must have never used Windows ME.

Re:Something not so funny about Bill Gates ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I searched on Yahoo! but couldn't find anything. Google [a9.com] on the other hand returned tons of useful results.

Architecturally speaking...

[r_j_prahad]

There won't be a front entryway to the building. But there will be hundreds of back doors.

obligatory simpsons...

[isaac338]

4. All wall decorations are essential and directly integrated into the building and cannot be removed without destroying the entire structure

"I wouldn't do that, that's a load bearing poster.."

Re:Give the man a break

[scot4875]

Many of these have been dealt with sufficiently already, but I'll respond to them on a point-by-point basis:

Gates Millennium Scholarship Program

To train more potential Microsoft employees! Obviously!

Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization

Only an attempt to keep people alive so that they can buy more Microsoft software!

teachers, administrators, school districts and schools

To obligate them to push a Microsoft curriculum and keep Apple and Linux out of the classroom!

Gates Library Program

Do they have any non-Microsoft Press books at these libraries? Probably not!

Children's Vaccine Program, Maternal Mortality Reduction Program, Malaria Vaccine Initiative, Alliance for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer, global polio eradication, International Vaccine Institute, elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus, Sequella Global Tuberculosis Foundation, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative

Again, keep the potential customers alive! This is one of the cornerstones of capitalism -- ever expanding markets!

The guy is obviously evil. That you can't see the motives behind these dubious donations just goes to show how easy it is to buy people's favor!

Bill Gate$ is teh eviL!!1!!!1! OMGOMG!!

--Jeremy

Just wait for SCO to get into this...

[xenobyte]

They'll buy an old building already on campus, slap a bit of paint and window dressing on it, then fence it in with a high electric fence and charge a massive fee just to look at the building (let alone using it). Then they proceed to send a bill to all the people using all the other buildings, claiming they own the concept of a building and that their buildings are based on methods found in SCO's building...

Sure, SCO's building and all the other buildings are based on far older principles and methods, but still they insist on owning the concepts because they were in the building they bought and thus it is theirs forever.....

Re:Something not so funny about Bill Gates ...

[tdemark]

If stadiums are any example, I'm sure another $10 million would allow CMU to call it:

Pepsi Presents the Gates Center for Computer Science

- Tony

Re:Something not so funny about Bill Gates ...

[commodoresloat]

I can think of a lot worse people than some geek who makes geeks mad... Hitler, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein. There's many more that have done a lot worse than do things you don't like on computers.

But nobody's naming a building at CMU "Milosevic Hall."

Then again, it does have a nice ring to it....

Re:Something not so funny about Bill Gates ...

[commodoresloat]

He was killed in a fight at a bar, and by all accounts it wasn't the least bit deliberate.

You mean Bill Gates beat him to death?

Re:Before you ask

[commodoresloat]

... and standard building maintenance will include completely powering down all the electricity in the building and then powering it back up again at random intervals.

Re:Before you ask

[NanoGator]

"The new penguin building is expected shortly after the MS building. "

Shortly? It'll take 4 years for the tenants to finish building it!

Re:Before you ask

[DenDave]

I have Visual fucking Studio sessions that have been running for far, far longer than two days. Can we watch?

Re:Before you ask

[njvic]

20M? Surely 640K would be enough?

Re:Something not so funny about Bill Gates ...

[flacco]

i think there's a point where you have to really look past the cynical fog and think, you know, he probably could have stopped at a couple billion if he just wanted the brownie points.

perhaps a donation to the FSF would clear the cynical fog ;-)

Re:Before you ask

[theguyfromsaturn]

Yeah, but they won't be "tenants" but the real owners of the building. Each will bring a few bricks or a bag of cement to participate in the collective construction. And everybody will be allowed to add extensions and new wings to the building. It will be a pleasant mix of the gothic cathedral, and more than a little sprinkling of the mauresque bazaar. And let's not forget a little touch of the IKEA mansion.

Re:sponsor for each classroom

[Have Blue]

If the finance room was named after a bank, was the room named after fast food for liberal arts?

Re:Before you ask

[Ingolfke]

So true. And actually there will be three buildings built only one used. They'll start with a single design, but a left handed architect will decide that they really should have a doorknobs for left handed people so he'll copy the plans, rework all of them for left handed folks and start his own building project.

Once the contractors are brought into the picture they'll wage a holy war over which building materials are the best. The original design will be built in steel b/c it's such a robust and flexible choice. One of contractors will completely reject the rigid structure steel requires you to work in, instead he'll choose a more flexible material, clay, because he used that once to make this wonderful outdoor grille. The left handed building will use brick b/c they're different and don't want to be mainstream.

The tenets will show up to help build the building b/c, this is a community project right. 98% of the tenets will walk around the construction site complaining about how nothing is done and how this and that need to be changed. Occassionaly people will jump in by building out their offices, or enhancing the restroom facilities near their office.

After 6 months a sign will go up announcing the completion of the project in 3 weeks. After another 6 months the sign has will still be there. 3 years later the clay project will have fallen in on itself several times, eventually becoming a worthless pile of unsightly clay. The left handed building will be completed, and will be loved by all left handed people, but will never be used by the faculty who tend to be mostly right handed. Teh left handed building will gain no mainstream acceptance. The steel building will be completed as well. Unfortunately it is the most sterile unsightly building you've ever seen. Minimilism could learn a thing or two from this building. There are no electrical outlets in the offices, only bare wires that "allow you to interface directly with the electrical module". Nice feature.

The residents of the Gates building have been watching for four years while these building were built. They'll talk about how much more robust steel is and how they wish they had more of it in their building. They'll talk about how nice the brick is, and the left handed tenets will dream of a day when they'll get left handed doors and talk about banding together and migrating all at once. Several people will talk about all of the space over in the steel building, but will complain that the tenets are hard to talk to because they're always fixing things in their building and all that manual labor makes the whole building wreak of sweat, the hygeine habit of the steel building's tenets is generally questioned. One of the women complain that when she went over to the steel building and asked to use the restroom, she was pointed an empty room, when she asked why the room was empty she was met w/ a nasty look and a sharp "Hey it's free lady! Build it yourself. We can't do everything for you... newbies."

Slashdot - News and commentary on par w/ CBS

Re:XP BSOD == Cold Reboot

[Anonymous Coward]

At least on XP, it also pops up a Qwality Feedback window asking if you want to send your dump to Microsoft.

Yeah, I'd like to send my dump to MS. Who should I send it to? : p

Water Proplems in Gates Building

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

You guys/gals missed the obvious problem here. Certainly there will be tremendous water problems in this building.

Several leaks will appear in the roof, which will require a never ending number of *patches*. However, these patches will then cause an ever increasing static load on the roof, requiring removal of certain Fixtures in the building. These fixtures in the building must be removed because the building can no longer *support* them.

Next, due to all of the leaks and subsequent rise in relative humidity inside the building, mold will form at an astounding rate, spreading to other buildings. Then, one of the biology students in attemp to 'help', will introduce a mold *VIRUS* [seps.org] which will spread like wildfire to all of the *buildings* on campus