The Most Incorrect Assumptions In Computing? 1496
Miss Muis writes "After reading once again that Moore's Law will become obsolete, I amused myself thinking back to all the predictions, absolutes and impossibles in computing that have been surpassed with ease. In the late 80s I remember it being a well regarded popular 'fact' that 100MHz was the absolute limit for the speed of a CPU. Not too many years later I remember much discussion about hard drives for personal computers being physically unable to go much higher than 1GB. Let's not forget "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" from the chairman of IBM in 1943, and of course 'Apple is dying...' (for the past 25 years). What are your favorite beliefs-turned-on-their-heads in the history of computing?"
My Personal Favorite... (Score:5, Insightful)
Totally untrue. *BSD rules.
Re:My Personal Favorite... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Proof that Moore's Law will come to an end (Score:5, Interesting)
What isn't yet clear is just what error correction itself means. Could a designer get a bit smaller scaling, but only by making the chip unable to run any existing programs? Could we turn quantum effects to our advantage with what is called Quantum based computing? Will Intel or IBM want to make a computer that needs a completely different approach to writing every last bit of software it can run?
The answers to the first two questions are unknown. The third, however, is an obvious NO! Mor's law will stop, either because we can't make the switches any smaller, or because we stop using transistors.
the list (Score:5, Funny)
640K is enough for anyone. (that one was easy)
This Internet thing is a fad.
No one will want to look at a man stretching his bottom wide open.
640K--not true (Score:4, Informative)
Re:640K--not true (Score:5, Funny)
But he definitely wrote (or at least took the "credit" for writing):
in "The Road Ahead".
-Peter
Re:640K--not true (Score:5, Funny)
Re:640K--not true (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is that Bill Gates is denying it. Bill Gates also says that Microsoft is not a monopoly. Bill Gates saying something does not necessarily make it true.
$.02
Re:the list (Score:5, Funny)
CB doesn't have the visual impact of the net. Take the following exchance:
CB Prankster on 19 "Breaker one-nine"
CB Victim on 19 "go ahead"
CB Prankster on 19 "Hey good buddy, check out channel 17!"
CD Victim on 19 "OK.. *click click*"
CD Victim on 17 "Hi"
CB Prankster Accomplice on 17 "Ha ha! I'm pulling my ass open!"
CD Victim on 17 "Oh dammit, fell for that again.."
I have this thing for The Man..
RAM (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Simpsonism (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Simpsonism (Score:5, Funny)
Frink: Well, theoretically, yes, BUT the computer matches would be SO PERFECT as to eliminate the thrill of romantic conquest.
Glaven!
IT
Video hardware... (Score:5, Funny)
Right...
How about (Score:5, Funny)
oh, wait....
My favorite (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft Works
my personal favorite (Score:5, Funny)
Re:my personal favorite (Score:5, Funny)
The REAL legacy of Microsoft Bob: (Score:5, Informative)
The REAL legacy of Microsoft Bob [pmt.org], from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Microsoft Bob was a project managed by Melinda French, who later married Bill Gates [wikipedia.org] to become Melinda Gates [wikipedia.org].
Storage Space (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Storage Space (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. In 1982 I had a BBS running on an Apple ][+ with 2x 143K floppies. In '84 I bought a 10 MB hard drive for the BBS and thought "Holy moly.. I'll never fill this up.."
Re:Storage Space (Score:5, Funny)
If you ask Ray Kurzweil he might say (Score:5, Interesting)
About Kurzweil [kurzweilai.net]
Re:If you ask Ray Kurzweil he might say (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an interesting intellectual exercise, but the idea that we are merely computers is nothing more than the continued novelty of the computer, just as we once thought of ourselves and the world as clockwork. Wishful thinking, or perhaps professional myopia. Everyone thinks their field is the key to the universe. But this is not theory, so until someone can actually create complex life, I see no reason to believe people like Ray. Show me the money.
Picking up chicks (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Picking up chicks (Score:4, Funny)
download (Score:4, Informative)
Download (actual) - definition of the transfer of data from an network to your machine.
Uses:
1. "I downloaded the software from the CD to my computer."
2. "I downloaded the file from the internet."
3. "I downloaded the file into my e-mail and sent it to him."
Only #2 is correct.
I had to berate my father for WEEKS before he learned the intricacies of Download vs. Upload vs. Install.
Chris
Re:download (Score:5, Funny)
Upload it to the refrigerator.
Download it from the refrigerator.
Install it.
Uninstall it.
Re:download (Score:4, Informative)
But if you're downloading data from a site, the site is not also uploading that data to you. The action exists at only one end of the operation, at the initiator of the action.
The location can be virtual (i.e. using the local machine to log into a remote machine to have the remote machine upload a file to the local machine is uploading, not downloading).
However, FTP has a (rarely implemented) feature where the controller of the transfer is neither sender nor receiver. One can trasnfer files from one host to another while controlling it from a third, and the data doesn't even pass through the third machine. Is that neither uploading nor downloading, or both? IMO, it is simply transferring.
Home Computer (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Home Computer (Score:5, Interesting)
The second worst would be that we would be in a paperless society. Uhm, yeah, unfortunately some shmock invented wysimolwyg PRINTERs too.
Other than that, I see new predictions fail all the time, and even being reinvented. Who else remembers the "Gorilla Arm Syndrome" of the 80's with touch screens? They were predicted to take over, but that didn't happen. And it ain't happening now either, with the flatbed computers -- touch screens just aren't ergonomic enough for any prolonged use, as most people can't keep their hands in the air for any length of time.
Same with gyroscopic mice -- they're going the way of the Dodo, despite happy predictions.
Regards,
--
*Art
How about... (Score:5, Funny)
#1 on the list (Score:5, Funny)
~Philly
There have been some real humdingers... (Score:5, Funny)
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, Founder, Digital Equipment Corporation
Or my personal favorite...
"Trust me, this is way better than OS/2." - The dude at Computer City that sold me my copy of WIndows 95. Bastard.
Re:There have been some real humdingers... (Score:5, Interesting)
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olsen, Founder, Digital Equipment Corporation
I don't think Watson's quote really fits into these sorts of discussions because the entire nature of what a 'computer' is was entirely different when he said it.
Olsen's quote, however, is simple lack of vision since he was addressing fairly modern era PCs directly.
Re:There have been some real humdingers... (Score:5, Interesting)
IBM continues to be one of the leading (if not the leader) computer companies, and as a business has been around for more then a century, and has always been profitable. They clearly have recovered from a momentary laps in judgement, which, in historical context can be forgiven.
DEC, on the other hand.. Well, Olsen was a dumbass, plain and simple. He also is quoted as saying "Unix is snakeoil". What is amazing is not that DEC got swallowed up by Compaq, a companies whose core business is putting computers in peoples homes, but that they managed to survive as long as they did with morons like Olsen at the heml.
A little Googling and: (Score:5, Interesting)
-- Bill Gates, from "OS/2 Programmer's Guide" (forward by Bill Gates)
9600 baud (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:9600 baud (Score:5, Informative)
Computers make life easier? (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember working at a research firm for an internship, and the head of our department said over lunch one day that he actually spent more time dealing with problems he was having with his computer than actually doing any useful work. I've noticed this with myself also, and even though I enjoy figuring out what's going on with my computer, I imagine many people don't. Email and websurfing always suck away my working hours, what with a PC right here on my desk, and not to mention that I get asked to help other people out with their machines every once in a while, it wastes both our time.
Makes me think though...wasn't it always implied that computers would save peoples time? Has that assumption yet proved that it is indeed true? I'm not so sure it has, although maybe that's because we aren't using the things the right way. Perhaps we are waiting for a computer savvy workforce and then this might be true...but then again, who knows...
You're not kidding (Score:5, Interesting)
100MHz was the absolute limit (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but that was because your MHz display had only two digits.
Ars Technica: Ultimate Limits of Computers (Score:5, Informative)
Entitled "The Ultimate Limits of Computers," it deals with issues including not only Moore's law, but quantum mechanics... such as Plank's constant, Boltzmann's constant, the gravitational constang, the application of quantum mechanics to thermodynamics, and other interesting things that I barely (read: don't) understand.
40MB Hard Drive is Plenty (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember telling my father once after he had bought a 40Mb hard drive that this should last him forever. Nothing could ever fill up more than this. Of course this was well before the days of .mp3 and .mpg.
When I was a kid, I remember watching the Jetsons and when George came home from work he coomplained that he had just finished a hard day at work pushing buttons. I remarked to my father that Noone could ever get a job where all they did was push buttons all day. Now, except for the one knob on the 'scope under my desk, all my interfaces to the outside world ARE buttons.
I guess I'm full of underestimations...
Re:40MB Hard Drive is Plenty (Score:5, Funny)
Pardon me?
Re:40MB Hard Drive is Plenty (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, that ought to be a law of some sort... like 'the availability of pornography will increase at a rate sufficient to match any advances in data storage and transfer technology.' Yeah, I like that. Scott's law on digital smut. Bound to hold true longer than Moore's Law.
Re:40MB Hard Drive is Plenty (Score:5, Funny)
Well with a MCSE you can get a job clicking icons.
My favorite... (Score:5, Insightful)
THE INTERNET IS GROWING TOO FAST, AND WILL COLLAPSE UPON ITSELF PRESENTLY.
I think he just wants everyone to know that he invented Ethernet, and needs to throw this story out there every couple years so people don't forget he actually did accomplish something at some point in time. Like 20 years ago.
- A.P.
One year from now... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been ten year that I hear this statement continuously. Last time I broke the MBR on a server without a CD drive, I had no other choice than to boot on a floppy.
Re:One year from now... (Score:5, Interesting)
She loves her USB drive. In the past, when she wanted to bring work home (which is very often) she would either put it on a zip disk (which are too damn slow and are not reliable) or burn a CD, which was reliable but took too long. Floppy was out because the file was too big (MS Access database). Now she just drags the file to the "removable drive" icon and she's done. It's USB 2.0 (the fast one -- er, is that fast or high speed?), so it copies damn fast.
Oh, the system can be booted from USB or CD, so crash recovery is still possible.
Ken Olson of DEC (Score:5, Funny)
or something to that effect.
"Whereas computers today weigh 1 ton and require 18,000 vaccum tubes, computers in the future will weigh only 1/2 ton and have under 1,000 vaccum tubes." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949.
.com bubble is sustainable... (Score:5, Funny)
But, it does have a great shiny mission statement:
"It's our responsibility to synergistically provide access to world-class sources as well as to assertively facilitate enterprise-wide opportunities" - Dilbert Mission Statment Generator [dilbert.com]
(Stock brokers in a flurry) BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY! BUY!
Dying ...? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dying ...? (Score:5, Funny)
modded down untill it becomes a cliche, then modded up untill it becomes annoying, at which point it will be modded down again...
the cycle of life...
Remember the failures (Score:4, Interesting)
"You won't have to work, machines will do everything for you."
Flying Cars !
Isn't it interesting that the only the failed predictions are the ones that people remember - no matter if they are exceeded or undershot.
Its almost as if, if you want to be quoted and remembered, you need to make high sounding, but wrong predictions. The more smug the eventual reader, the more notice they take.
History, here I come.not computers, (Score:5, Funny)
Great Heinlein-ism (Score:5, Interesting)
Paperless office, bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
That computers would bring about the "paperless office".
Not only they didn't, but they made people consume more paper than ever before. On top of all the paper spent, the cost of printing pages increased, as industry made us believe that ink jets were better, and B&W laser passee.
For more discussion see an article in Newsday about it [newsday.com]. There's even a full book dedicated to the question of why the paperless office never came to be [amazon.com].
my favorites (Score:5, Interesting)
"I don't understand why people would need more than 4gb..." (Bill Gates in an interview on 64 bit ccomputing, in which he said he didn't understand peoples' interest in it)
XML will replace relational databases
OOP will lead to more robust, easier to maintain and higher quality software
By making COBOL resemble English, anyone can program.
computers in the classroom (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been into computers for quite some time, and am enrolled in Computer Science at university. It's been obvious to me for years that computers in the classroom are a waste of time, energy, and resources for everyone involved.
I try to tell people this, and they wonder why I say that, given my experience with computers. No doubt it's because the people making the decisions have no clue.
Most adults on
Of course, we did have computers at school. Good ol' ICONs, and IBM 8086s. We had typing class a couple times a week, and learned to use a word processor, which is about as far as it needs to go. Leave computers for their own courses in high school (Computer Science and maybe some kind of class for basics.)
Is it not obvious that more harm is being done than good, when it comes to computers in class? There are just so many things wrong with the whole idea. Perhaps one day when computers become more appliance-like, they'll be more beneficial in class, and will be put to use in such a fashion as to not create dependancies.
What do you think?
Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the problem is that computers aren't being used in their strengths: As long as you use computers as fancy notepads and chalkboards, computers are useless in a classroom.
However, if you cater to their strengths and capabilities, I think computers are invaluable:
1) Their ability to network and connect classrooms with other locations, such as other classrooms, servers with data such as photographs, maps, and things you can't store in a classroom.
2) Their ability to virtualize. See things you can't afford to go see, do things you can't afford to go do, teach things you can't afford to otherwise teach! Books, encyclopedias, and videos offer a very static virtual representation, where a computer can be interactive! Not only can you 'see' different animals at various depths of the ocean with a computer (which a video can do just as well), you can *explore* too! Find out what happens at various pressures to your ship, to your body, see how snowflakes form, how ants find food; and then fiddle with a few settings, and see *different* snowflakes, see the ants starve, and see your ship crumple! You can design airplanes, and see if they fly or fall, you can create space stations, and see if your astronauts starve, overheat, or get bored to death!
3) Interactivity. Very tied to virtualization and networking, you can interact with a computer in a way that you cannot with a video or a book. You can change things, simulate things, watch things, and then go back and change more things. You can have a classroom that happens to have access to a freshwater lake do experiments and research, connected to a classroom that happens to have a database, some programming kids, and a good grasp of math, and at the end of each day each classroom can learn things that before networking neither could!
4) Data manipulation and storage. You can store lots of photographs, keep tremendous databases, perform tedious analysis, and create pictures out of raw numbers that a child, or even an adult, cannot. Measure the temperature, humidity, rainfall, pressure, cloud cover/sunlight, and wind at 400 locations 10 times a day across a city, and have the kids create programs to access, correlate, and manipulate that data and see if they can spot trends, correlations, and causations!
So yes, there are reasons to have computers in the classroom. No, right now no one does it properly.
Modems. (Score:5, Funny)
ARE THEY OUT OF THEIR MINDS?! THE PHONE LINES WILL BURN UP!
Good Times (Score:5, Interesting)
Luckily Microsoft proved that assumption was false.
My Mac Friend... (Score:5, Funny)
I keep on telling him that its just a bug and his computer isn't faster than his broadband connection. But, he doesn't beleive me.
SAP (Score:5, Insightful)
"In the year 2000..." (Score:4, Insightful)
(proof that fear is the best marketing tool)
Power versus utility (Score:5, Insightful)
True, right now, the yearly, 'we'll-be-helpless-without-faster-computers!' cycle appears to have stopped or slowed down. Big IT buyers seem to have realized that you don't need a machine that could run a weather model to replace a typewriter and that's a real good thing.
But what about software? I could be wrong. I don't do that much with my computer except surfing and writing, but much of what I see makes me wonder where all the really miraculous power of my computer is going.
I've got an operating system that takes up non-trivial space on my harddrive and aside from a constant need to keep up with the virus writers, or dealing with stuff to make Microsoft happy, I'm not seeing the bennies.
You'd think that with all this godawful power, there'd be a little more substance.
You'll go blind! (Score:5, Funny)
MHz Myth (Score:5, Insightful)
I would rather point to Alan Turing (Score:5, Interesting)
Japanese 5th Generation Software would dominate (Score:5, Interesting)
Since at the time, they had finished doing just that with consumer electronics industry and were well on the way to doing just that to the automotive industry, most CS types were justifably concerned.
Well, the rest of the story is that it didn't happen. Not even a whimper of it got over to the western world.
Dvorak on the mouse (Score:5, Interesting)
DRM, Copy Protection ... (Score:5, Funny)
"With Laserlok we will eliminate software piracy once and for all!"
"With Cactus Datashield we will eliminate Audio CD ripping once and for all!"
for each $drm_product
for each $technology
"With {$drm_product} we will eliminate {$technology} piracy once and for all!"
end
end
Re:DRM, Copy Protection ... (Score:5, Funny)
Awesome.
Leisure society (Score:5, Interesting)
- my grade 10 high school teacher19 years ago
I can't believe I haven't seen this one yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
World Market for 5 computers... (Score:5, Interesting)
What he *meant* was "There's a market for 5 really high-end machines far and above the rest of the competition". The word "supercomputer" wouldn't be around for a few decades yet. And what do you know? Even today, there's a small handful of machines at the truly high end (currently, above 5 teraflops or so)
Multitasking (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 3.0 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 3.1 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 3.11 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive 32bit multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 95 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 95OSR2 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 98 - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows 98SE - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
Windows ME - "Yes! This new version of Windows is a FASTER preemptive multithreaded multitasker!"
NT 3.5 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP1 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP3 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP5 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP6 - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP6A - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
NT 4 SP6ASRP - "Yes! This new version is rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
2K - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
XP - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
AS2k2 - "Yes! This new version is FASTER! Rock solid stable, and rock solid secure!"
Longhorn - "Yes! This new version is Trustworthy(tm)!"
Re:Bill Gates once said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a Wired.com article [wired.com] with some more details
Re:Bill Gates once said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Back to the original topic, I'd point to the idea that sticking children in front of computers somehow magically benefits them.
Re:Bill Gates once said... (Score:5, Funny)
"Meanwhile, I keep bumping into that silly quotation attributed to me that says 640K of memory is enough..."
Hmm....looks like he said it atleast once. Flaimbait....check
Re:Bill Gates once said... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, Gates claims he never said it. Great. I'd leave it at that, but I went to a talk he gave at the University of Waterloo in 1989, and he did meekly accept responsibility for that quote. We all politely chuckled, and the talk went on.
I could easily be mistaken, as that was quite a while ago, but I distinctly remember it as a mea culpa.
Re:Bill Gates once said... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've used a computer that had 900K of memory and ran MS-DOS just fine. All of it was conventional memory. No tricks.
The 640K limit comes from the following architectural limitations:
(1) Intel 8086 physical addresses are 20 bits long.
(2) IBM partitioned the 1 megabyte address space into 640K of memory space, 384K of device space.
Other manufacturers made MS-DOS computers that were not PC register compatible. Some of them did allocate more of the 1024K address space to memory. MS-DOS works just fine up to the physical addressing limit of the 8086.
Back around 1981, I read a Byte article about the new IBM PC which said that it had a gigantic memory space. And they were right! Filling up that 640K would cost about $5000 at the price of memory back then. I think it's reaasonable for a personal computer to have enough address space to handle $5000 worth of memory (especially when $5000 in 1981 dollars is worth quite a bit more than $5000 in 2003 dollars).
Are you using a 64-bit desktop yet? Because if you're not, your 2003 desktop computer can't handle $5000 of memory!
Re:Bill Gates once said... (Score:5, Informative)
Most people preferred to spend $2000 on a PC with a 16-bit address space rather than $10000 on a PDP-11 with a 22-bit address space.
I think that 20 address bits were plenty for 1981. The real problem was that there was no upgrade path for about 10 years after that. The Intel 8086 was 20 bits, fine. The Intel 80186 was 20 bits, okay. The Intel 80286 had "protected mode" addressing to increase the addres space, but it was nearly impossible for an operating system to context switch between "protected mode" and "real mode" (there was no instruction to do it, so an OS had to actually REBOOT THE PROCESSOR and then recover all its state on the fly).
So until the 80386 came out, there was no way to get a new system with both (a) support for old programs and (b) support for more address space. And during that 10-year dry spell, that's when all those extendad / expanded memory schemes came out, and that's when the 1 megabyte limit really hurt.
Correction: (Score:4, Interesting)
I just know that was driving you all nuts.
Then who did say it? (Score:4, Insightful)
If he didn't say it then who did? And how did the quote get attributed to him?
Or who wrote the original article attributing this to Gates.
Currently, AFAICT, there is only Gates' comment that he didin't say anything that moronic as "proff" that he never made the quote in the first place.
Hardly a compelling rebuttal.
Re:My favorite lie (Score:4, Insightful)
"Linux is good enough right now for the desktop."
is being laughed at right now.
Re:My favorite lie (Score:5, Informative)
My, how things have changed.
There are so many applications that do everything I needed to do on Windows, now. So you can't live without Kazaa? Download Apollon, the KDE FastTrack client. Need word processing? AbiWord/KWord are excellent pieces of work. Outlook got you down? Ximian Evolution has everything you need. Instant messaging? Gaim/Kopete. Music playing? XMMS/JuK will replace Winamp/Foobar quite handily. Graphics? The Gimp. Video/DVD playback? Xine tackles everything I throw at it. Development? KDevelop/xemacs. Web work? Quanta Plus/Bluefish. CD recording? K3b is every bit as good as Nero and is free. Web browsing? Konqueror/Mozilla/Firebird/Galeon/Epiphany. Usenet? Pan kills every similar offering on Windows.
Additionally, KDE supplies me with various features that Windows can't match. I want to save an image from a website directly to my webspace, via either FTP or WebDAV? Right-click, "Save As," click "FTP" and Save.
In addition, I paid $0 for all of the software on my computer, have ready access to the source code if I'd like to add a feature, and am not raped by vendor lock-in. I also am not subject to the ~30 holes in Internet Explorer this year, or worms like Blaster, Slammer or Welchia.
There are really only a handful of things Linux isn't better at right now, and those are very, very steadily improving. The first and most obvious would be gaming, and even though older games like Starcraft and Diablo 2 run very well under Wine, newer games like Unreal Tournament 2003 are being released natively for Linux, there's still nowhere near the selection. I concede that; it's all about choosing the right tool for the job. The second is video editing, which really isn't very good on PC either with the sole exception of Adobe Premiere. I don't touch either of these things often, so it's not a tremendous deal for me.
I wouldn't say it's good enough for Joe User right now, though. Package management and software installation still needs to be simplified for the average user (.deb should be the de facto standard, IMHO). Installation could be less painful if you don't know what you're doing. GTK+ needs a better file selector, admittedly, though I hold the opinion that GTK+ is generally worse than Qt to begin with, so I don't have trouble finding Qt-based replacements.
My older brother, who has barely touched a computer in his life, can work at my KDE setup with ease. I consider this a small victory.
Re:My favorite lie (Score:5, Funny)
And I'd be much happier giving my mother (despite three college degrees and quite a high IQ, Macs are too complex for her) a Linux box than a Windows box or Mac.
Reminds me of a Dilbert strip.
PHB: Make it simple enough so even my mother could us it.
Alice: It's already simple enough that a squirrel could use it. How much dumber is your mother?
Re:The truth might be out there (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I Invented... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I Invented... (Score:5, Interesting)
The question was 'What have you accomplished in congress?' or something similar. So now let's look at his response in that *CONTEXT*.
Did Al Gore take the initiative IN CONGRESS in creating the internet? You bet he did! In fact, Newt Gingrich said that if there had been no Al Gore, there would be no internet as we know it today. (Of course, that was a few years ago. But still.) He was the prime mover behind getting funding for it. And without government funding, the internet would never have grown like it did, and may well still be some strange, escoteric thing that connects a few universities together... and AOL (or *shudder* MSN) could be the 'Information Superhighway'.
So, you can still say that since he didn't explicitly SAY 'in Congress' in response to the question about what he did in congress, he was actually claiming to have invented the entire internet from scratch. But at that point, anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty would have to admit that this was a 'lie' that was created entirely by the press and was perpetrated on an American public that is instantly ready to believe anything they hear, as long as it's bad.
-fred
Re:Al Gore (Score:5, Insightful)
Links:
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_10/wig
Obligatory Futurama Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Re:DAMN IT. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, as a normal, sane person, I understand it: he is 100% correct.
Befor the Congress pushed for it's opening to the world, there was no such thing known as the 'Internet'; there was a closed network of universities and military computers (ever wondered what DARPA means?).
He, as a congressman, was one of the main players in opening that network to the world, so he played a very important role (if not the most important) in the creation of the 'Internet'.
It seems to me that the un-normal, un-sane person in this thread is, you.
Full Snopes debunking of mythical quote (Score:5, Informative)
Thankfully, your link debunks it too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, while I may dislike the man, I'm tired of hearing the same tired, stupid jokes repeated over and over again.
- A.P.
Re:Al Gore (Score:5, Informative)
According to Vint Cerf (Widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. )
"VP Gore was the first or surely among the first of the members of Congress to become a strong supporter of advanced networking while he served as Senator. As far back as 1986, he was holding hearings on this subject (supercomputing, fiber networks...) and asking about their promise and what could be done to realize them. Bob Kahn, with whom I worked to develop the Internet design in 1973, participated in several hearings held by then-Senator Gore and I recall that Bob introduced the term ``information infrastructure'' in one hearing in 1986. It was clear that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it. As Senator, VP Gore was highly supportive of the research community's efforts to explore new networking capabilities and to extend access to supercomputers by way of NSFNET and its successors, the High Performance Computing and Communication program (which included the National Research and Education Network initiative), and as Vice President, he has been very responsive to recommendations made, for example, by the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee that endorsed additional research funding for next generation fundamental research in software and related topics. If you look at the last 30-35 years of network development, you'll find many people who have made major contributions without which the Internet would not be the vibrant, growing and exciting thing it is today. The creation of a new information infrastructure requires the willing efforts of thousands if not millions of participants and we've seen leadership from many quarters, all of it needed, to move the Internet towards increased availability and utility around the world. While it is not accurate to say that VP Gore invented Internet, he has played a powerful role in policy terms that has supported its continued growth and application, for which we should be thankful. We're fortunate to have senior level members of Congress and the Administration who embrace new technology and have the vision to see how it can be put to work for national and global benefit. "
Re:Al Gore (Score:5, Funny)
Politians NEVER do this.... righhht. (Score:5, Informative)
He fathered the bill that changed that odd, government and acedemic research network known as Arpanet into the Internet where people from all around can use it for all different sorts of purposes.
So if he wrote the bill, does that not mean he didn't take initiative in creating the Internet? Would it not be unreasonable for him to bring up this fact while he was campaigning and trying to get people to see "Hey, look what I did!"?
So please, get with it and stop political trolling. Thanks!
Side note on Al Gore's "well-informed"ness. (Score:5, Informative)
Your copy of the Snopes article is not what they posted. Anyone who actually read what you posted would have noted this glaring discontinuity.
I can appreciate the clarification on Gore's "inventing" the Internet. But I think Gore gets too high a mark here and I'd like to point out why I think so as a side note to a comment I read in Snopes' essay.
Snopes cites Vince Cerf saying "that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it" but by 1999 (the copyright date on the Cerf page Snopes cites), Clinton/Gore had brought us the 1996 Telecommunications Act (which was a big step toward the media deregulation many groups across a wide political spectrum rail against today), the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [wikipedia.org], and the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act [wikipedia.org]. So I come away thinking that Al Gore's legislative history deserves a more mixed review than Cerf (and Snopes) describe.