Sometimes news stories can be a whole lotta fun. Just this morning, I saw that the astronaut, Steve Robinson, who conducted minor repairs on the Discovery shuttle this morning most likely went to the same high school as a very good friend of mine! What a small world.
But what got me writing was this CNN article. Apparently, Microsoft has had a bad photo of the plot of land at De Anza Blvd. and I-280 in my hometown of Cupertino, CA on its Virtual World website. The newsworthy aspect of the story is that particular parcel of land is now the Apple Computer campus (with the very geeky new road: Infinite Loop).
I would merely have laughed off the story and continued on my merry way, but a closer examination of the picture shows a landscape that I don't remember. Microsoft claims the picture is "outdated," but I can personally attest that prior to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, that site was a Motorola site with a couple of very large buildings on it. After the earthquake damaged those buildings, they remained on that site for several years, empty and condemned. I know personally because my dad taught me how to drive in the abandoned parking lot.
As the picture shown has no hint of condemned Motorola buildings, nor does it show the sprawling Apple campus, I can only conclude that the picture shown either (1) was taken during the very brief window in time when those condemned buildings were taken down to build the Apple campus, or (2) was taken before the Motorola buildings were even constructed (which must have been a very long time ago), or (3) is a complete fabrication as the CNN article coyly suggests. As 1 would take incredible timing and 2 would seem to undermine the utility of having a "Virtual World" project because of the obsolescence of such old data, I am left with a tantalizing possibility of number 3.
A charitable person would go with possibilities 1 or 2, but 3 is so much fun...
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