I know some people on the Windows team. My immediate reaction when I tried the beta was, "Oh shit, I have to let them know what someone has done to their work before it's too late! The public is about to see this!". Obviously, after half a second of thought, I realized they already know and use what I was seeing for the first time. But it was so shockingly bad that I instinctively thought it was some kind of mistake that they must not have seen yet.

When I did talk to them next, it was more along the lines of expressing condolences. I thought since it was objectively bad, it goes without saying that they also think it is bad, and some internal politics led to what was released, ruining their hard work. To my surprise, they defended it and claimed to really like it. I found this so baffling that I've since been struggling with several theories; "either they are crazy or I am crazy, I'm not sure which anymore", some kind of Stockholm Syndrome, or something contaminating the water around Redmond.

I ruled out the possibility that it's me who is crazy after a few rounds of a game where I hand my laptop to a coworker, who uses windows exclusively (and one even develops drivers for it), and told them to try and close Internet Explorer and shut down the computer. Invariably the result was trying for 5 or 10 minutes before walking away in frustration, sometimes with colorful language.