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Gates Gets Government Guards for Gala
Nick Irelan writes "The home of the world's richest man was a 'temporary security zone' when he held a party for members of the National Governors Association. Bill's guests included Newt Gingrich, Tommy Thompson, and Leon Panetta. Gates also put in $150,000 for the governors' meeting held the next day. News.com covered this story very well." If your invitation to Gates' place got "lost in the mail", you can read about a Microsoft intern who got to have dinner with the big cheese.
From the linked interns blog and speaking of Bill Gates: "His response (verbatim, might I add), "well it was the dumbest thing I've ever read!". I have actually heard him say this very statement with a crass addendum or modifier in response to an engineers rather thoughtful bit of insight into a problem. Perhaps he was having a bad day, but I found this to be more than a little arrogant and perhaps may go part way in explaining why Microsoft has problems with innovation. As to the title, "Gates gets government guards for gala", I would suggest in Bill's defense that the guards are for some of the guests which is not unusual. I've not been to a soiree at the Gates compound, but I have been to plenty of other events with government folks who pack their own "escorts". Gates likely has his own security detail which if they work like other security details, will usually defer to the secret service (or other federal) detail supervising any government officials who may be present.
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I've argued at length with Bill Gates, He's sharp!
It was a little over 10 years ago, and the man and i argued about computer technologies and programming.
He had a variety of perfect angles at defending his position, and was fully up to date on all the latest trends and tools. This should not have been but was. Perhaps it was his hobby.
Mevertheless the guy was packed with info and loved a heated loud debate with a non-employee.
I will always respect that man's brain, even if I hate every microsoft product except some early mac products of theirs.
By the way he had NO SECURITY DETAIL of any kind at this San Jose party. (This was before his pie in the face attack in Belgium, but after Bill Joy (?) abduction).
Bill Gates is a super geek giant, and truly knows it all.
This may be flamebait but who cares. Theres too many idiots on slashdot who just need a clue. Some slashdot people hate Bill Gates because he is the man behind Windows, ooh the evil microsoft company that attacks cool noble things like Linux. Jeez, give me a break. Open source zealotry has its place, but comparing the "good" the linux movement did versus what Bill is accomplishing now; I think Bills the clear winner.
/ 05/09/gates /index_np.html
And despite all the useless mud that open source fanboys sling at Gates, I say Gate's effort in donating and founding organizations to promote education; world health as well as civic and arts organizations in perhaps the neediest regions of the globe makes him #1 in my book.
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Five years ago, in a story on Bill Gates' philanthropy, Salon asked the question, "Is Bill Gates a Closet Liberal?" At the time, Gates had not yet really opened the floodgates of his charitable giving, but a close look at the causes he had supported indicated he was interested in reproductive health and family planning issues, and fighting the spread of infectious diseases, with a focus on the Third World. Since then, Gates has publicly promised to give away 95 percent of his wealth -- $43 billion as of September 2002 -- and he appears to be living up to his words.
In "Health, Wealth, and Bill Gates," a new installment of "NOW With Bill Moyers" airing Friday night on PBS, Gates talks at length about his involvement in global health issues. The interview is a fascinating, detailed look at how and why Gates is giving away his billions. And while it doesn't definitively answer the question of whether Gates is a liberal -- saving dying children is not the province of a particular ideology -- one thing emerges: Gates may go down in history as the single individual who did more to help the world's neediest people than anyone who has ever lived. In the interview, Gates comes off as knowledgeable, sincere and determined to use his wealth to effect massive change. Whatever you think of his business practices, when it comes to global health he is one righteous dude.
Source:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003
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Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
See aerial photos of his house.
(mirror site) http://cryptome.sabotage.org/gates-eyeball.htm
(main site) http://cryptome.org/gates-eyeball.htm
- which I'm sure will get me modded down in the eyes of various goverments: Why not just drop all this protection of big and important politicians? Yeah, I know why, but just think about it - the average guy in power wuld have to put a bit more effort into not creating enemies, for one thing.
I remember a story about the Russian Czar visiting the king of Denmark; and they went to look at one of the famous landmarks in Copenhagen, the 'Round Tower', which is a church tower with a (at that time) advanced observatory at the top and no staircase inside (another story is that one king used to drive his carriage up there, but I'm not so sure about that). The story goes that the Czar wanted to demonstrate his absolute power over his soldiers as well as their courage, so he ordered a young lieutenant to climb over the balustrade and jump to his death (they were standing at the top of the tower), and the man started doing so, somewhat reluctantly I imagine, but none the less.
The King promptly got this stopped, of course - he didn't want to have that kind of spectacle in his city, but he admitted that he was impressed. 'But I have another kind of power', he said, 'I can go out into the countryside, unarmed, to any farmhouse, rich or poor and stay the night, and the farmer will be my personal guard. When hearing this, the Czar fell silent.
Only a meager decade or so ago, we adored him, and Microsoft
The self-professed technical-elite began to harbor widespread Microsoft-hatred in 1987, and it was cemented in their culture by 1994, long before Slashdot ever came online.
Not a year ago everyone here got hard for SCO
SCO was never adored, only tolerated- it was viewed as a company prehaps trying to do the right thing, but too incompetent to amount to much.
beloved Apple has no problem whipping out the DMCA to prevent real competition.
Anyone who thought Apple was pro-competition simply hasn't been paying attention, especially to their old experiment in clone-licensing.
They didn't run it like Enron, he ran it honestly albeit aggressively.
The numerous falsehoods that have supported Microsoft through the years are well known and documented. The very terms "vaporware" and "FUD" were invented to make it simpler to talk about how Microsoft works.
But the route they took to get it there, was frankly, brilliant.
Brilliance is not virtue. There is nothing contradictory about the concept of an "evil genuis" (or an amoral genius) (or a repetentant, evil genius, who dispurses ill-gotten treasure to the world's indigents)
That's about all I can think of at the moment, it was an interesting experience but I didn't come away as impressed as some people have. If I had that much money to spend on a house I'd have hired a better architect and told him to do something genuinely innovative.