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Bill Gates Gives $20M to CMU for New Building
touretzky writes "Carnegie Mellon University announced on Tuesday that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had donated $20 million toward the cost of a new building to be called the "Gates Center for Computer Science". Some faculty have suggested that in acknowledgment of Mr. Gates' profound influence on the computer software industry, the building should be painted bright blue."
Yes, the building will have Windows, but the Office will cost extra.
Even when he tries to do something nice, he gets flamed. The man just donated 20 million to the school. give him a break
They can write BSOD in big white letters on the top of it.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
Blue Screen of Death.
Funny thing about Carnegie Mellon -- there's a lot of people there who spell Microsoft with a dollar sign and refer to it as the "evil empire," yet every Microsoft presentation is standing-room only. There are plenty of people there that actually respect Microsoft as a company, and of course President Jared Cohon was more than happy to accept a $20 million gift.
Now the Gates Center is a $50+ million project. If you want to name the building in your honor instead, you could always kick in the rest of the dough.
For more information, click here.
By the time he's dead, there will be so many buildings with his name on them, he'll be everywhere, like all the towns with Carnegie libraries today. And like Carnegie, he'll be remembered fondly for all the stuff he did that still endures, and not for the things Slashdot likes to bash him for today.
Like it or not...
Ahhh stop. You're killing me. No, really STOP 0x0000000A BAD_BSOD_JOKES
Sigs are for Terrorists.
Brown University got $100M today. Bill's cheap! :)
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
1. To enter, you push a button and 5 minutes later the door opens
2. All digital locks can be opened with the admin password 1-2-3-4-5
3. Vibrating Window panes will cause random crashes
4. All wall decorations are essential and directly integrated into the building and cannot be removed without destroying the entire structure
You mean like the Gates Foundation (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm)r e he basically gave away almost 1.2 billion last year? Is half a billion for education plus half a billion for world health enough?
whe
I was looking into going to CMU for their esteemed Computer Science program, but now I just hope they wont let this influence their set of courses, breadth of experience, or heterogeneous computer labs...
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
$1 billion over 20 years to establish the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program, which will support promising minority students through college and some kinds of graduate school.
$750 million over five years to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, which includes the World Health Organization, the Rockefeller Foundation, Unicef, pharmaceutical companies and the World Bank.
$350 million over three years to teachers, administrators, school districts and schools to improve America's K-12 education, starting in Washington State.
$200 million to the Gates Library Program, which is wiring public libraries in America's poorest communities in an effort to close the "digital divide."
$100 million to the Gates Children's Vaccine Program, which will accelerate delivery of lifesaving vaccines to children in the poorest countries of the world.
$50 million to the Maternal Mortality Reduction Program, run by the Columbia University School of Public Health.
$50 million to the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, to conduct research on promising candidates for a malaria vaccine.
$50 million to an international group called the Alliance for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer.
$50 million to a fund for global polio eradication, led by the World Health Organization, Unicef, Rotary International and the U.N. Foundation.
$40 million to the International Vaccine Institute, a research program based in Seoul, South Korea.
$28 million to Unicef for the elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus.
$25 million to the Sequella Global Tuberculosis Foundation.
$25 million to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which is creating coalitions of research scientists, pharmaceutical companies and governments in developing countries to look for a safe, effective, widely accessible vaccine against AIDS.
Source: New York Times
And all this was of the year 2000. Now I have not checked this, but I suspect the charitable donations from every Linux distro CEO combined would fall well short of this. Admit it, Bill Gates is in fact doing some good in this world.
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One mathematics professor lamented that money buys anything -- including undeserved honors. He commented that Stanford University might as well name the building after "Donald Trump" since he is a billionaire.
Your mathematics professor should take a refresher course in logic. Bill Gates paid for most of the building. Donald Trump didn't. See the difference?
In any case, as long as you have a shiny nice new building on Bill's dime, who gives a crap what it is called? I never gave a second thought to the names on the buildings at my university even though many were named after robberbarons significantly more sinister than Bill Gates has ever been in their day and within their own respective markets.
As far as I am concerned, he is an unethical shmuck who bears principal responsibility for the suicide of Gary Kildall
That's funny, I always thought Gary Kildall bore principal responsibility for his own suicide. Isn't that what suicide is?
I can't stand people who bash Bill and his foundation. Sure bash Microsoft if you must, but why the foundation?
Yes he is mega rich but he still doesn't have to give the money away does he?
I am sure he could find other ways to get rid of the money. Instead he is doing some good.
His foundation has practically wiped our Malaria in third world countries.
I suppose he did that for advertising as well??
No I am not a MS support, Linux is my vehicle of choice, but I am man enough to applaud someone doing good for the community.
Would be nice if some of the wallies posted here could do the same.
Yeah I know, fat chance of that.
Games Programmer And Designer
I totally agree. In fact, it was downright despicable to give the campus only $20 MILLION dollars out of the $50 million needed to actually complete the structure. He should just go back to campus, apologize for his rudeness, rip up the check he gave to the college and go home and write a letter of apology for his rudeness.
Who cares if he's really rich? If he gave away $20 million every day, he wouldn't be for very long, would he? No matter how you look at it, $20 million is a LOT of money.
I am sometimes absolutely appalled by the unappreciative nature of some people.
All of Stanford University itself is named after a railroad robber baron.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Uh... hate to break it to you, but most campuses name buildings after whoever fronts the cash, not after anyone "inspiring". I find it particularly ironic that this interchange was sparked as a result of discussions at Stanford, which is named for Leland Stanford: not an academic luminary, but a man who made a lot of money in railroads and used that moeny to endow a college.