Engineers Tell How Feedback Shaped Windows 7

[:FI:Bowling Bob]

Windows 7: "I'm up here, boys!"

I get the impression that the Windows 7 launch is a lot like seeing an old girlfriend suddenly show up on your doorstep wanting to get back together. She's had some work done, apparently: stomach stapling to take off some of the weight, breast augmentation, and a radical nosejob to make her look as much like your current girlfriend as medical science will allow.

She's pretty, of course, almost too pretty. She still wears far too much makeup and carries that desperate look in her eyes. The fragrant haze around her is the perfume she overuses to mask the scent of failure.

But standing there in that low-cut top, you'd almost forget for a moment what a psycho she was- how she used to shut down in the middle of a date and forget everything you were talking about and how she was only happy when you were buying her things. You'd almost forget about carrying around her legacy baggage or those nights when, for seemingly no reason at all, she would simply stop speaking to you and when you asked what was wrong she'd just spit a string of hex code at you and expect you to figure it out.

You complained about her for years before finally deciding to get rid of her, and here she is again. Though, somehow she seems like a completely different person now.

"I'm up here," she says when she catches you staring at her chest.

Tempted though you may be, you know that over time she'll get bored and slow down on you just like she always does. And then you'll be right back where you started: trapped. She keeps you by convincing you that you don't have a choice. You're just not smart enough for one option or rich enough to afford the other.

"But I'm different now," she says, batting her eyes innocently. "I've changed."

Indeed she has. Apparently, she's really into Cabala now or something like that. It's helped her discover loads of untapped potential in herself. But it also means that you'll have to buy all new furniture to fit with her understanding of feng shui. That's not the only change she has in store for you. The minute you let her move in, she'll have a new alarm system put in that succeeds only in preventing your friends from coming over on poker night.

She doesn't love you, but she doesn't hate you, either. The truth is that she couldn't care less one way or the other. She's here because she doesn't want to be alone. Like all human beings, especially those well past their prime, she wants to feel wanted and, after a string of lost jobs and bad investments, she needs a place to stay.

But all in all, she's OK. She's a seven. She'll do, I guess.