[News] Maddog on Brand Power for GNU/Linux, Understanding "Free"
Roy Schestowitz
Hash: SHA1
Penguin Awareness
,----[ Quote ]
| Also important for graphics art re-use is
| that the license for the use of the
| original image of Tux is very liberal,
| with Larry Ewing, the copyright holder,
| giving people permission to use the image
| as long as the user acknowledges him as
| the author and the GIMP as the creator of
| the image "if someone asks". The last
| phrase is probably enough to give most
| lawyers shivers, but it has allowed Tux to
| show up in the original unmodified form in
| areas as diverse as Plumbing supply
| trucks, air-conditioning repair services,
| lottery tickets and fireworks.
|
| Of course Wikipedia has an extensive
| listing on Tux, so I will not go into all
| of the history behind him, but I do want
| to pass on one story:
|
| When Tux made his first appearance in 1996
| I was at a trade show, and a friend of
| mine who ran a Linux business selling
| distributions, T-shirts, and other Linux
| "things" came up to me and declared his
| disgust with the choice. I asked him why
| he did not like it, and he said that Tux
| was "fat and silly looking" and that we
| should have had as a mascot a tiger or
| shark, something with teeth and fangs to
| rip Microsoft apart.
`----
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Paw-Prints-Writings-of-the-maddog/Penguin-Awareness
Linux is free. What exactly is free?
,----[ Quote ]
| The exact same freedom is there for Linux.
| The information on Linux processes are
| readily available and you can do what you
| wish with them. In fact, the licenses
| associated with Linux are designed to
| provide and protect that freedom. Linux
| distributions are the end product of the
| application of Linux information and can
| be given away or sold according to the
| whims of those who prepared the
| distribution. Generally the Linux
| distribution is free as in cost and
| support contracts are what make money.
|
| So how does this effect the end user of
| Linux? Doesn't this mean that the only
| benefit is that they have a quality
| operating system to use for free? No, that
| is not the only benefit although it is the
| benefit most often hawked by Linux
| advocates. What this does mean for the end
| user is they have the freedom to
| independently verify whether the chosen
| Linux distribution actually does what is
| claimed and that there are no hidden
| nasties.
`----
http://www.locutus.us/Linux_is_free_What_exactly_is_free
Recent:
20 “Really Cool” Tux Icons for Sports Enthusiasts
,----[ Quote ]
| Before, we've posted here several cool and funny tux icons and some scary
| ones too. This time, we will showcase some of the finest tux icons that
| sports fans/Linux-users may love.
`----
http://www.junauza.com/2009/07/20-really-cool-tux-icons-for-sports.html
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEARECAAYFAktDXGQACgkQU4xAY3RXLo6vHACgpG5zGbNd+zIHUipJaebQl9wB
dL4AnjME6TlIzKXMeCSG1x83gHYPG/7t
=hu1J
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Chris Ahlstrom
> Penguin Awareness
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| When Tux made his first appearance in 1996
>| I was at a trade show, and a friend of
>| mine who ran a Linux business selling
>| distributions, T-shirts, and other Linux
>| "things" came up to me and declared his
>| disgust with the choice. I asked him why
>| he did not like it, and he said that Tux
>| was "fat and silly looking" and that we
>| should have had as a mascot a tiger or
>| shark, something with teeth and fangs to
>| rip Microsoft apart.
> `----
>
> http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Paw-Prints-Writings-of-the-maddog/Penguin-Awareness
The penguin icon is more appropriate -- Microsoft is being pecked to death
by ducks. :-)
--
In Marseilles they make half the toilet soap we consume in America, but
the Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they
have obtained from books of travel.
-- Mark Twain
Rex Ballard
> Roy Schestowitz pulled this Usenet boner:
> > Penguin Awareness
----[ Quote ]
> >| I asked him why
> >| he did not like it, and he said that Tux
> >| was "fat and silly looking" and that we
> >| should have had as a mascot a tiger or
> >| shark, something with teeth and fangs to
> >| rip Microsoft apart.
> >http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Paw-Prints-Writings-of-the...
> The penguin icon is more appropriate -- Microsoft is being pecked to death
> by ducks. :-)
Linus chose the Penguin as the Linux mascot when he was scuba diving
in Australia before speaking at a Linux conference. He, like so many
of us had seen the cute little birds waddling around on land, thinking
they were "cute but slow". While under water he happened to be
between some penguins and a school of herring. Seeing several
penguins coming at him at early 40 mph under water made him realize
that the birds were actually quite extraordinary.
He decided that Linux was much like those penguins. From the user
interface point of view, Linux wasn't the most glamorous thing anybody
had ever seen. This was before KDE and GNOME was in early versions.
Even Red Had was only at release 3.something. But Linux was fast,
secure, reliable, and powerful. All the things that Windows wasn't.
Linus realized that if he tried to take Linux to the desktop as a
direct competitor to Microsoft, there wouldn't be the capital to
compete or to defend itself against various legal obstructions
Microsoft might try to use to shut Linux down entirely.
Instead, Linus encouraged the development of Linux as a PC based
server, and also as a user installed desktop environment. As projects
like Wine and desktop applications got more plentiful and robust in
the competitive environment, Linus declared Linux "ready for the
desktop" in 1998. Mostly due to pressure from Linux distributors,
especially Bob Young who was head of Red Hat at the time. Bob was one
of the first to try to estimate the number of Linux users and came up
with some good metrics to measure relative growth based on various
indicators. Since Linux could be freely downloaded, could be burned
onto CDs or DVDs, and could be shared freely on corporate networks, it
was clear that the number of PCs sold with Linux wasn't a good
indicator, nor was the number of CDs sold, or the number of downloads
from "official" sites. Bob came up with indications that showed a
possible multiplier. Much of this was based on the number of units
actually sold or downloaded through "official channels" versus the
number of uniquely identified systems accessing the free update
servers.
Linux growth continues to be hard to measure. The most often used
statistics used by Microsoft excludes Macs, and covers only the top 10
OEMs, based on unit volumes. Virtualization, cygwin, Live-CD, Live-
DVD, USB-drives, and dual-boot capabilities have led to hundreds of
millions of Linux installs, most of which allow users to run Linux and
Windows concurrently or with little more than a reboot.
Ezekiel
>"Rex Ballard" <rex.b...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:3ef407b8-3100-4594...@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
>On Jan 5, 12:20 pm, Chris Ahlstrom <ahlstr...@launchmodem.com> wrote:
>> Roy Schestowitz pulled this Usenet boner:
>
>> > Penguin Awareness
>
>----[ Quote ]
>> >| I asked him why
>> >| he did not like it, and he said that Tux
>> >| was "fat and silly looking" and that we
>> >| should have had as a mascot a tiger or
>> >| shark, something with teeth and fangs to
>> >| rip Microsoft apart.
>
>
>> >http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Paw-Prints-Writings-of-the...
>
>> The penguin icon is more appropriate -- Microsoft is being pecked to
>> death
>> by ducks. :-)
>
>Linus chose the Penguin as the Linux mascot when he was scuba diving
>in Australia before speaking at a Linux conference. He, like so many
>of us had seen the cute little birds waddling around on land, thinking
>they were "cute but slow". While under water he happened to be
>between some penguins and a school of herring. Seeing several
>penguins coming at him at early 40 mph under water made him realize
>that the birds were actually quite extraordinary.
Perhaps you ought to let Linus know this story. His version of why he
selected the penguin is quite different than yours.
<quote>
Re: Linux Logo
Linus Torvalds (torv...@cs.helsinki.fi)
Sun, 12 May 1996 09:39:19 +0300 (EET DST)
</quote>
http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_History_of_Tux_the_Linux_Penguin
Then again Rex, you are a habitual liar. Care to backup this bullshit claim
you made? Of course not - like the true "advocate" that you are, you will
simply run away.
<quote>
The Vista EULA also permits them (MS) to access ANY information stored on
your PC and use it for ANY purpose.
</quote>
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ea9f79216b1220da?hl=en
Clogwog
news:3ef407b8-3100-4594...@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
On Jan 5, 12:20 pm, Chris Ahlstrom <ahlstr...@launchmodem.com> wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz pulled this Usenet boner:
> > Penguin Awareness
----[ Quote ]
> >| I asked him why
> >| he did not like it, and he said that Tux
> >| was "fat and silly looking" and that we
> >| should have had as a mascot a tiger or
> >| shark, something with teeth and fangs to
> >| rip Microsoft apart.
> >http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Paw-Prints-Writings-of-the...
> The penguin icon is more appropriate -- Microsoft is being pecked to death
> by ducks. :-)
>
> Linus chose the Penguin as the Linux mascot when he was scuba diving
> in Australia before speaking at a Linux conference. He, like so many
> of us had seen the cute little birds waddling around on land, thinking
> they were "cute but slow". While under water he happened to be
> between some penguins and a school of herring. Seeing several
> penguins coming at him at early 40 mph under water made him realize
> that the birds were actually quite extraordinary.
>
> He decided that Linux was much like those penguins.
Rewriting history, eh!, you're suffering from pseudologica fantastica!
Some quotes from Linus on the penguin;
Thu, 9 May 1996 17:48:56 +0300 (EET DST)
"Anyway, this one looks like the poor penguin is not really strong enough to
hold up the world, and it's going to get squashed. Not a good, positive
logo, in that respect.."
"Now, when you think about penguins, first take a deep calming breath, and
then think "cuddly". Take another breath, and think "cute". Go back to
"cuddly" for a while (and go on breathing), then think "contented"."
Hadron
Rexx "King Maker" Bullshitter Ballard telling lies again? LOL. What a guy.
He invented the stealth bomber you know! He also knows how o use Vim
better than Liarnut.
Rex Ballard
> >"Rex Ballard" <rex.ball...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:3ef407b8-3100-4594...@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
> >On Jan 5, 12:20 pm, Chris Ahlstrom <ahlstr...@launchmodem.com> wrote:
> >> Roy Schestowitz pulled this Usenet boner:
> Re: Linux Logo
> Linus Torvalds (torva...@cs.helsinki.fi)
> Sun, 12 May 1996 09:39:19 +0300 (EET DST)
> </quote>http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_History_of_Tux_the_Li...
> Then again Rex, you are a habitual liar. Care to backup this bullshit claim
> you made? Of course not - like the true "advocate" that you are, you will
> simply run away.
This was back in 1995-ish when Linus was going around the world
promoting Linux at the invitation of Linux user groups, many of whom
were growing enough to fund his flights and pay him a reasonable
speaking fee. Tux evoloved. Linux wanted a "cute penguin, who has
just filled his belly with herring and is sitting and relaxing".
Tihat was Ewing's inspiration. Several versions came out. Various
Linux vendors have used various kinds of Penguins to promote Linux.
Emperor Computers uses the Emperor Penguin in their promotions.
Others use smaller penguins to promote Linux as smaller and simpler.
And of course there are picture of Penguins doing nasty things to
Windows or Bill Gates.
Penguins, especially Emperor penguins are interesting creatures. They
go hundreds of miles into Antarctica to lay their eggs. The father
takes the first shift until the eggs hatch during the coldest part of
Winter. By the time the ice and snow melts the baby penguins are old
enough to swim and have a better chance of escaping from sea lions and
other predators.
> <quote>
> The Vista EULA also permits them (MS) to access ANY information stored on
> your PC and use it for ANY purpose.
> </quote>
Such as [but not limited to] information for customer support, problem
diagnosis, or to offer you products and services to enhance your
experience.
A good lawyer often uses this tactic in a contract. They provide a
"such as" clause, but since there are no limitations you agree only to
initial part of the clause. In this case, you agree to let Microsoft
collect information on your computer without telling you what it's
collecting. The example is provided to overcome your objection, but
since the language does not limit the use of information collected,
Microsoft could hack into your computer, and publish what it finds on
MSNBC if they want to.
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ea9f79216b1...
Chris Ahlstrom
> Then again Rex, you are a habitual liar. Care to backup this bullshit claim
> you made? Of course not - like the true "advocate" that you are, you will
> simply run away.
C'mon, Zeke, you know that Rex is basically honest, but also a bit
doddering. Unfortunately, it makes it difficult to trust everything he
says.
> <quote>
> The Vista EULA also permits them (MS) to access ANY information stored on
> your PC and use it for ANY purpose.
> </quote>
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ea9f79216b1220da?hl=en
http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx
That let's you look up EULAs, and there are a ton of options:
Store-bought versus OEM
Regular versus service pack
About 20 different versions of Vista
Sounds like a lot of potential room for tweaking. Bleh. Who's going to
read more than a couple, except for a lawyer?
--
The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with
commoner things. It is chief of the world's luxuries, king by the grace of God
over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the
angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because
she repented.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"
Rex Ballard
> On Jan 5, 3:19 pm, "Ezekiel" <not-z...@the-zeke.com> wrote:
> > >"Rex Ballard" <rex.ball...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> > >news:3ef407b8-3100-4594...@m16g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
> > >On Jan 5, 12:20 pm, Chris Ahlstrom <ahlstr...@launchmodem.com> wrote:
> > >> Roy Schestowitz pulled this Usenet boner:
> > <quote>
> > Re: Linux Logo
> > Linus Torvalds (torva...@cs.helsinki.fi)
> > Sun, 12 May 1996 09:39:19 +0300 (EET DST)
Here's a few links.
http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_History_of_Tux_the_Linux_Penguin
In the beginning, sometime in early 1996, several people were talking
on the linux-kernel mailing list about a suitable logo/mascot for
Linux. Of the many, many suggestions, many involved parodies of other
operating system logo's - or were strong, noble beasts such as Sharks
or Eagles. At some point (I'm not sure when), Linus Torvalds (the
father of Linux) casually mentioned that he was rather fond of
Penguins - which rather stopped the debate in its tracks.
[snip]
There are certain Linux supporters who don't like the penguin. Yes, I
know that's hard to believe. For example, Alan Mackey promoted a Fox
as an alternative mascot - there were quite a few supporters of that
idea - but Tux is now pretty much universally accepted and the unnamed
fox is no longer a contender.
Once again, Linus has words for these people:
"Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really
embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen
a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a
lot more careful about what they say if they had."
One Linux distributor, Walnut Creek I think (but I'm not sure), had
been using a character who looked a bit like Marvin the Martian - it
was a ball with arms and a helmet like a Roman Officer. It was cute
but didn't really catch on. They put out CDs containing 3-5 Linux
distributions on as many CDs from 1994 to 1996. Eventually they
switched to Tux too.
> > </quote>http://www.sjbaker.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_History_of_Tux_the_Li...
> > Then again Rex, you are a habitual liar. Care to backup this bullshit claim
> > you made? Of course not - like the true "advocate" that you are, you will
> > simply run away.
In this particular case, it wasn't that hard to back up.
If you want an interesting education, have a real lawyer explain the
EULA clause by clause, and advise you as to whether you should agree
to the contract or not. Most lawyers would probably tell you that
signing that contract would be a really be a bad idea. To make it
more interesting, change all references to "The licensor" and don't
let them know who the actual writer of the contract actually is.
> >http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ea9f79216b1...
Ezekiel
Bullshit. You're lying again. If this ridiculous claim were true then there
wouldn't be a company on the planet that would use MS-Windows. Yet just
about every law-firm (packed with lawyers) and Fortune-500 company uses
Windows every day. So are you claiming that your employer IBM is too stupid
to read the EULA and that's why they use Windows on the desktop. Law firms
use Windows because MS can use ANY information on their computer for ANY
purpose.
As usual Rex - you are completely full of shit. You like to make ridiculous
statements that simply don't hold up in the real world. If this BS claim of
yours was correct then there would be LOTS of legal warnings, notices and
interpretations all over the internet. Yet - nobody anywhere knows about
this except for you. You know why this is... it's because you are once again
making up BS.
>> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ea9f79216b1...
>
Ezekiel
"Chris Ahlstrom" <ahls...@launchmodem.com> wrote in message
news:hi0lob$a3e$3...@news.eternal-september.org...
> Ezekiel pulled this Usenet boner:
>
>> Then again Rex, you are a habitual liar. Care to backup this bullshit
>> claim
>> you made? Of course not - like the true "advocate" that you are, you will
>> simply run away.
>
> C'mon, Zeke, you know that Rex is basically honest, but also a bit
> doddering. Unfortunately, it makes it difficult to trust everything he
> says.
Then he needs to stop making ridiculous claims and trying to pass them off
as some sort of "fact."
>> <quote>
>> The Vista EULA also permits them (MS) to access ANY information stored
>> on
>> your PC and use it for ANY purpose.
>> </quote>
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ea9f79216b1220da?hl=en
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx
>
> That let's you look up EULAs, and there are a ton of options:
>
> Store-bought versus OEM
> Regular versus service pack
> About 20 different versions of Vista
>
> Sounds like a lot of potential room for tweaking. Bleh. Who's going to
> read more than a couple, except for a lawyer?
And I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts that not a single one of these EULAs says
that MS has the right to use "ANY" information on your computer for "ANY"
purpose they want. There are 10's of thousands of law firms around the
world that use Windows. Somehow not a single one of these law firms is aware
of Rex's claim and continue to use Windows every day - all the while
allowing MS the right to use ANY info on their computer for ANY purpose that
MS wants. No lawyer in the world is smart enough to figure this out except
for Rex Ballard in COLA.
Gimme a break.
Hadron
> Ezekiel pulled this Usenet boner:
>
>> Then again Rex, you are a habitual liar. Care to backup this bullshit claim
>> you made? Of course not - like the true "advocate" that you are, you will
>> simply run away.
>
> C'mon, Zeke, you know that Rex is basically honest, but also a bit
No he isn't. He's worse than you.
> doddering. Unfortunately, it makes it difficult to trust everything he
> says.
Because most of what he says he plucks from the sky.
>
>> <quote>
>> The Vista EULA also permits them (MS) to access ANY information stored on
>> your PC and use it for ANY purpose.
>> </quote>
>>
>> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ea9f79216b1220da?hl=en
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx
>
> That let's you look up EULAs, and there are a ton of options:
>
> Store-bought versus OEM
> Regular versus service pack
> About 20 different versions of Vista
>
> Sounds like a lot of potential room for tweaking. Bleh. Who's going to
> read more than a couple, except for a lawyer?
You wont even read the links sent to you to prove Roy is lying, so we
know you wont.
Hadron
Ahlstrom is either very, very dim or he is trolling. At this stage this
kind of sucking up and excuse making for "advocates" is nauseating. I
see he's also kowtowing to the useless "chrisv" now too ...
Chris Ahlstrom
> "Chris Ahlstrom" <ahls...@launchmodem.com> wrote in message
> news:hi0lob$a3e$3...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> Ezekiel pulled this Usenet boner:
>>
>>> Then again Rex, you are a habitual liar. Care to backup this bullshit
>>> claim
>>> you made? Of course not - like the true "advocate" that you are, you will
>>> simply run away.
>>
>> C'mon, Zeke, you know that Rex is basically honest, but also a bit
>> doddering. Unfortunately, it makes it difficult to trust everything he
>> says.
>
> Then he needs to stop making ridiculous claims and trying to pass them off
> as some sort of "fact."
Yep.
>> http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx
>>
>> That let's you look up EULAs, and there are a ton of options:
>>
>> Store-bought versus OEM
>> Regular versus service pack
>> About 20 different versions of Vista
>>
>> Sounds like a lot of potential room for tweaking. Bleh. Who's going to
>> read more than a couple, except for a lawyer?
>
> And I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts that not a single one of these EULAs says
> that MS has the right to use "ANY" information on your computer for "ANY"
> purpose they want. There are 10's of thousands of law firms around the
> world that use Windows. Somehow not a single one of these law firms is aware
> of Rex's claim and continue to use Windows every day - all the while
> allowing MS the right to use ANY info on their computer for ANY purpose that
> MS wants. No lawyer in the world is smart enough to figure this out except
> for Rex Ballard in COLA.
>
> Gimme a break.
So you've read them yourself, and know for sure? All versions?
What if Rexx was actually referring to a version of the EULA that
Microsoft floated, but quickly rescinded? There's been enough funny stuff
actually quoted from Vista's EULA, which was apparently a pretty extreme
EULA by some accounts.
One thing to watch for in COLA is arguments based on old information.
Probably a lot more common than any troll's lies.
--
Knucklehead: "Knock, knock"
Pee Wee: "Who's there?"
Knucklehead: "Little ol' lady."
Pee Wee: "Liddle ol' lady who?"
Knucklehead: "I didn't know you could yodel"
DFS
> Ezekiel pulled this Usenet boner:
>
>> Then again Rex, you are a habitual liar. Care to backup this
>> bullshit claim you made? Of course not - like the true "advocate"
>> that you are, you will simply run away.
That's exactly what he'll do. I've asked Rex for 3rd party proof dozens of
times, and not once has he responded with any. Not a single time.
> C'mon, Zeke, you know that Rex is basically honest, but also a bit
> doddering. Unfortunately, it makes it difficult to trust everything
> he says.
Anything he says.
Rex Ballard is a habitual, constant liar who has no compunction whatsoever
about lying about anything and everything, and trying to take credit for
others' inventions. He's by far the biggest lying fraud I've seen on the
Internet.
Rex personally claimed full or partial inventor credit for:
=====================================================
* Java: "Sun reworked the [Dow Data Protocol] code a bit and created a new
Language/Protocol called Java."
* GPL: "As we reviewed the goals, we drafted the language for what was first
known as the "General Public License".
* Linux itself: "Contributor to General Public License (GPL) software pool,
including work-for-hire that lead to JAVA (Dow Data Protocol), Client/Server
computing (RPC), and Linux."
* Netscape and the Web browsing industry: "Meanwhile, I was making
reccomendations to the publisher's mailing list. I was making
reccomendations on how the Mosaic browser could be modified to provide
electronic commerce, royalty distribution, and advertizing accounting. In a
few weeks, the author's of Mosaic implemented those changes in a new browser
called NetScape. After a bit of tuning and a few thousand downloads,
NetScape issued it's IPO and made headlines everywhere. In a matter of six
months, I had generated a 4 billion dollar industry."
* secure http: "I wrote the initial specification for SHTTP."
* the concept of remote procedure calls.
* SSL (secure sockets layer): "Netscape took this high level project
description, along with my usual 4 page description of how this might be
done (you can see from my posts on cola that I'm not exactly one to write
short notes). A few weeks later, they had implemented SSL."
* Internet standards: "Developed databases, operating systems, and
applications for distributed processing systems of up to 1000 CPUs in fault
tolerant (99.997% uptime) configurations. This work led to many of the
standards now used on the Internet and Intranet."
* explosion of Linux web servers: "I told the publishers about Linux and
showed them how they could set up a dedicated PPP link to a local internet
service provider and publish their content via the Web, for under $1000.
Suddenly there were about 8000 web servers on the internet, mostly powered
by Linux."
* $2 million per day in revenue/savings at FedEx
* creator of $1 billion industries
* is "unofficial" Cisco Network Engineer #5
* helped create one of the first digitized voice response systems
* saved IBM nearly $24 million
* dual-boot Windows and Linux is his idea
* the success of Yahoo and Amazon: "Now imagine you are one
of 200 or even 2000 or even 8000 people observing this conversation - being
conducted between this consultant and a handful of questioners who are
asking very pointed and specific questions. Now, suppose that 100 or 200 of
those "lurkers" started posting their results, and started asking questions
as to how to take it to the next level? They have really funny names like
Yahoo, Amazon, and Lycos. At first, these are unheard of names, but before
long, they became huge names."
* Military weaponry: "It was then that my aviation club teacher showed me a
film of some "toys" which the military had developed out of notes taken from
my locker. Things like drone missles, personnel detectors, and terrain
following missles." (DFS: heeee!!! This one's priceless!)
* God-like feats of programming: here he personally did in 2 days with perl
what 6 Visual Basic programmers couldn't do in 2 years: "Then of course,
there was that I created a PERL script to parse the marketscope alerts feed,
convert it into HTML, and post it to a web site, all without operator
intervention. That took about 2 days. Right after that, we had a team of 6
VB programmers (including 2 from Microsoft) who said they were going to
convert the marketscope feed into Microsoft Office documents, and then serve
them up using IE and MS-Office. It took them 2 years, cost a whole bunch of
money, and when they got done, we decided that waiting 2 minutes per page
for financial news feed "alerts" was just too slow."
* features in MS-DOS: "They even let me send samples
of my code to Microsoft, along with my reccomendations to CP/M. We slapped
copyright notices all over everything and sent it via registered mail. The
decided not to hire me, and decided to use my reccomendations in MS-DOS. The
neglected to pay Data-Law for this copyrighted material. Instead, they just
did a "clean room" implementation."
* features in Windows 2000: "They [Microsoft]
spent 18 hours pumping me for design ideas for Windows 2000 and then
withdrew their offer (which I wasn't going to accept anyway). They said I
didn't have the "Microsoft Religion". But they incorporated about 20 of the
30 reccomendations I proposed."
* a 3-octave singing voice: "Unfortunately, singing at Kit's every night
caused some damage to my vocal chords and my 3 octave singing range was
reduce to 2 1/2, which meant the leading roles in Musicals were not an
option."
* electronics and operating system kernels: "I can show you how to create a
static memory circuit, cpu, or parallel to serial I/O device using a diode
matrix and inverters. And I can show you how to go from those simple
components to a full blown computer. And from there we can use Machine code
to code a COSMAC ELF, or Assembler and machine code to code an 8085, or
FORTH to code a 6803 microcontroller, or use C to code a multitasking
kernel.
* his behavior in the theater program in college was Robin
William's inspiration for his character Mork on Mork & Mindy.
* his online writing is the basis for Nicholas Negroponte's book
"Being Digital"
=====================================================
It's just too pathetic that more cola "advocate$" support Rex than are
willing to question his lying bullshit.
Linosuck, we're real sick of your shrill sucking up to bald-faced liars like
Rex and non-contributing vicious turds like the loser chrisv. When are you
going to grow a pair and tell them where to get off?
Hadron
>
> It's just too pathetic that more cola "advocate$" support Rex than are
> willing to question his lying bullshit.
>
> Linosuck, we're real sick of your shrill sucking up to bald-faced liars like
> Rex and non-contributing vicious turds like the loser chrisv. When are you
> going to grow a pair and tell them where to get off?
Yup. That's pretty much how it is. I mean even chrisv laughs at
him. *THATS* how bad he has become.