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Bill Gates Handwriting Analyzed

Kaal Alexander Rosser writes "The BBC is reporting that a doodle left behind at a Davos press conference given by Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono shows the writer to be: "an unstable man" amongst other things. The Gates Foundation has confirmed the doodle was left there by Bill Gates."

609 comments

  1. unstable by minus_273 · · Score: 5, Funny

    i dont know about gates, but his OS is damn unstable.

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
    1. Re:unstable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good job on explaining what the fuck "davos" is.

      Speaking of which. What the fuck is "davos"?

    2. Re:unstable by davesplace1 · · Score: 2, Funny

      He may be unstable and we all know his OS is unstable, but his checking account is very stable.

    3. Re:unstable by Dorothy+86 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'd say it's not stable... it should be more related to an endothermic reaction... it pulls all of the money everywhere else into itself...all that cool money definitely chills the bank a little ;-)

    4. Re:unstable by FiReaNGeL · · Score: 1

      I wonder if he used a Blue Pen of Death... :)

    5. Re:unstable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unstable? Man, get off your a**, buy a deicent machine and stop using windows 95, no wonder all you wackos hate Bill sho much, if you updated your friggen OS once and a while you woudnt have any problems, sheesh!

    6. Re:unstable by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Funny
      What the fuck is "davos"?
      Direct Access Virtual Operating System.

      Not to be confused with Domestos, a chemical for cleaning toilets or Bobby Davro who isn't used for cleaning toilets, more's the pity.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:unstable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't go around using old redhat distros, or any other old Linux distro and complain that "Linux is unstable!" like a little baby, I think you should try one of the other flavors, like win2k or windows server 2003, with latest service packs. and quit your bitching.

      BTW, you probably won't ever try anyway, fraid you might like it.

    8. Re:unstable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Territorial?
      Taxes
      Rich World
      G-8
      EFF?
      Thanks
      visible
      Africa
      Malaria
      Park Allegro?
      US
      GATES Global vaccine
      G 6
      Debt cancellation
      MSF ad up?
      6000
      Trade
      Debt
      MCA?
      Pepsi AIDS?

      Note the reference to G-8 then G 6 - which wo countries are going down?

      What is the Gates global vaccine?

    9. Re:unstable by sulevi+tankkinen · · Score: 1

      even more unstable than linux?

    10. Re:unstable by MerlinTheWizard · · Score: 0

      Do we have any sample of Windows' handwriting? That could explain a lot. :)

    11. Re:unstable by Talrias · · Score: 1

      It's a town in Switzerland where the World Economic Forum occured this year (and in fact every year).

      Chris

      --
      aterr - an open source threaded discussion board.
    12. Re:unstable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't try Win2k or Windows Server 2003. The EULA is unacceptable. And when I click "do not agree", it won't install.

      On a more serious note, the lost love for Microsoft is easy to understand. Microsoft's business strategy is to crush Linux in order to protect its cash cow. That affects people personally. So people get pissed. Microsoft sees it as a business and forgets about the personal factor.

      If, say, a company larger than MS existed and was dead set to run MS out of business and you loved your Windows box, wouldn't you hate that other company?

    13. Re:unstable by syates21 · · Score: 1

      Just to pick a very small nit, I believe it was held in NY city after the 9/11 attacks.

      Otherwise, I believe you are right that Davos is the normal host town.

    14. Re:unstable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know, nobody would be talking about the accuracy of this, err, "science" if they reported that his hand writing revealed that he is a chronic masterbater.

  2. Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd have to say, no surprise there. Anyone who is a geek knows were all at least a little unstable... You have to be to be attracted by Technology more than girls.

    1. Re:Speaking as a geek... by oliana · · Score: 5, Funny

      I believe the correct sentiment is "more successful" with technology than girls.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, asses suck this joke.
    2. Re:Speaking as a geek... by eno2001 · · Score: 0

      Ahhh but Gates is not a geek. He is a business man. A cunning business man at that. He knows little about technology other than what most salesmen know. He doesnt' have a deep understanding of the "how" of computing, mostly just the "why". Kind of like the recent article here on Slashdot about how your technological prowess won't help you as a consultant. It's your ability to give a client that "warm fuzzy" feeling that will get you farther in consulting. Mediocrity leads to popularity. Mastery leads to obscurity.

      --
      -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
    3. Re:Speaking as a geek... by mr.newt · · Score: 1

      Actually, what he was trying to say is that he is more attracted to technology than he is to girls, not that he is more attracted to technology than girls are attracted to technology.

    4. Re:Speaking as a geek... by mr.newt · · Score: 1

      Nevermind. (open mouth, insert foot)

    5. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Xilman · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Ahhh but Gates is not a geek. He is a business man. A cunning business man at that. He knows little about technology other than what most salesmen know. He doesnt' have a deep understanding of the "how" of computing, mostly just the "why".

      Wrong, wrong, wrong!

      Have you ever met Bill? I have. He most certainly has the geek nature. He most certainly does have a deep understanding of the "how" of technology and asks very penetrating questions if you're demonstrating something to him. He's a good business man too, but don't let that lead you into underestimating his technical abilities.

      Paul

      --
      Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
    6. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Paul Allen?!? You've got a slashdot account too??? Hey, how 'bout those Blazers?

    7. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Captoo · · Score: 1

      Actually, Gates worked as a programmer in the early days of Microsoft.

    8. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Locke2005 · · Score: 2, Funny

      You'd be suprised how successful you can be with girls when your pickup line is "Hey baby, I've got $50 billion worth of Microsoft stock!"

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    9. Re:Speaking as a geek... by eno2001 · · Score: 1

      I have to note that I'm speaking as "not a geek" but an artist who happens to use computers (mostly *nix but some WIndows, Mac and Atari here and there). I haven't seen any example of Bill Gates demonstrating much more technical ability than I have and I would not call myself a geek. I can look at source code and edit it when I run into problems compiling or don't like a certain behavior, but I'm not a programmer or a geek. I have a pretty good working knlowledg of the underside (ie. the Windows registry, AD, dns, dhcp, nfs, nis, kerberos, etc...) of most OSes and apps and how they work, but that still doesn't make me an OS "guru" or a geek. I'm just a guy who had to learn this stuff to accomplish what I do when I'm being a musician or working with images. I'm sure there are things that Bill knows much better than I do, but I'm sure there are things I know (technology-wise) better than he does. If I'm not a geek, then he can't be a geek. Now, I also know that he would beat the pants off of me in the business world because I don't know jack about business other than when I'm getting screwed by the more malicious businesses. So his strength lies mainly in business with just enough technical knowledge to get by. To the average person Bill Gates might be a geek. But to a geek, he is not a geek.

      --
      -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
    10. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually what he meant to say is he's more attractive to technology than he is attractive to girls.

    11. Re:Speaking as a geek... by eno2001 · · Score: 1

      From most of what I've read about him, he didn't actually write anything from scratch but mostly modified code that Microsoft bought from other people. (ie. Changing all references to QDOS in the OS code they bought that became MS-DOS) I'm sure he did some programming at some point, but I'll bet he hasn't done any real programming in decades now. I seriously doubt that he's using CMD or VBScript to do much at home these days. More than likely he's just using internally developed MSI packages to install the programs he wants to use at home. Those MSI packages were probably thrown together by a staffer at MS for him to preview some bleeding edge stuff. There is a big difference in starting from scratch and just modifying other people's work. Most of what I do at home is a mixture of starting from scratch and modifying, but I still say I'm not a geek. I only do this out of necessity. If I could afford to buy all the software I need to make music and edit video and images, I'd sooner buy than build.

      --
      -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
    12. Re:Speaking as a geek... by aussie_a · · Score: 2, Funny

      Did you get a chance to ask him what he runs at home? I bet he would have said Linux. Otherwise he isn't a geek. Only true geeks use Linux.

      *closes down IE*

    13. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Acer500 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Youre wrong about Gates not writing anything from scratch.

      He wrote most of the succesful software for the Altair, probably one of the first personal computers, including the boot sequence and a BASIC compiler.

      Its true that he probably hasnt written anything significant in decades, but thats what happens to programmers in management positions (see the thread about that here on /. )

      --
      There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
    14. Re:Speaking as a geek... by kevinx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not a geek? You my friend are in denial. You read slashdot and claim to have an understanding of ad,dns,dhcp,nfs,nis, and kerberos. You attempt to conceal your geeky-ness under the banner of artist.

      I'm sorry I have to break this to you, but you are a geek. I don't care how cool your friends are.

      And for the record, Geek != Loser.

    15. Re:Speaking as a geek... by s-orbital · · Score: 1

      I think you mean to say, "A true geek would only use Linux". There is a difference in the logic there, as you are saying that all linux users are true geeks, and you meant to say that all true geeks use linux.

      --
      Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
    16. Re:Speaking as a geek... by eno2001 · · Score: 1

      Actually, the reason I've stopped thinking of myself as a geek is that I find most geeks and I don't relate to each other at all. I don't care about gaming much other than occasionally playing third person shooters. The most important thing to me is music and most geeks don't tend to have a background in music. I do. What always amazes me is when I ask a geek how they got into computers and they DON'T tell me it was because of music. I used to assume that most geeks were originally musicians. I don't think of geeks as losers either. Some of my best friends are geeks. They just don't happen to be into a lot of the same things I am so I assume that I'm not really a geek. remember the only reason to get into comptuers from my perspective is music. Everything else is just incidental.

      --
      -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
    17. Re:Speaking as a geek... by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      I'm speaking as "not a geek"
      I would not call myself a geek.
      but I'm not a programmer or a geek.
      doesn't make me an OS "guru" or a geek.
      If I'm not a geek, then he can't be a geek.


      Methinks the Lady doth protest too much (brutalized shakespear reference, not bad you a girl joke).

      I, personally, am proud to be a geek, bad shakespeare references and all.

      To the average person Bill Gates might be a geek. But to a geek, he is not a geek.

      Well, I for one have never programmed my own compiler....

    18. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      IMHO, you've entirely missed his point. After all, even without knowing Bill personally, it's obvious that his need for affluence and control so outweigh his technical qualities that it is quite safe to see him entirely as a business person with little or no real interest in the technical aspects of a particular development.

      Bill's geekness is simply marketing, so well done that I'm quite sure even he believes he is one.

      I'm also sure he thinks he's a good guy.

    19. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Kainaw · · Score: 1

      What always amazes me is when I ask a geek how they got into computers and they DON'T tell me it was because of music.

      I didn't get into computers because of music, but I did research with two people who did. In that research, I met many people who went from music to math to computers in a very natural way. One of the papers we wrote may be of interest to you. It is about using computers to define Zipf-Mandlebrot sets in popular music - here.

      --
      The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
    20. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > What always amazes me is when I ask a geek how they got into computers and they DON'T tell me it was because of music.

      Interesting that you mention this. When I was in college one of my computer science profs told us that in the early days of the computing industry (1940s and 50s) there were no comp sci majors at schools.

      So when companies like IBM, DEC and Sperry wanted to hire new college grads they had to find them in other, more traditional departments. Of course they hit the math and science majors, but surprisingly a lot of early programmers came from music departments.

      The reason was that they had years of experience working with a symbolic language (sheet music), had to follow sequences, loops, timing, etc and also were used to thinking about the complex interactions among multiple instruments and multiple pieces of music.

    21. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Scryer · · Score: 1

      Hmm -- he's *still* not a geek then. As far as I can tell, he did a much better job of picking a wife than of picking an operating system. Granted she's not a calendar pin-up, but she's presentable and smart, and appears to be sensible... unlike Windows!

    22. Re:Speaking as a geek... by SteveRosenbach · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I never met Bill, but I know lots who have, some many times, and they agree with Paul (Xilman(191715)) A lot of companies have gone out of business by underestimating BillG. I must admit that I'm a big admirer of Bill's. See http://therosenblog.blogspot.com/2004/10/happy-bir thday-billg.html And to the best of my knowledge, Bill NEVER did anything like this: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/15/143721 7&tid=221&tid=98&tid=1

    23. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still sounds like denial.

      Most people would define geek by what they know, not by what they like or what they dont like. (What a strange thought! Do only geeks not like music?)

      I think a quailfer would be in order: Hard-core! You are not a hard core,or a deep geek. Or even better, you might be a COMPUTER geek but not just a geek.

      Any way you slice it you can do things with computers that 99% of the popouls can not, hence your a geek. If you want proof just ask 10 ranodm people on the street if they even know what HALF of the things you listed are ABOUT(ie compuers,horse breeding, flowers).

    24. Re:Speaking as a geek... by kevinx · · Score: 1

      It's funny you say that because, I remember the stereotype of "Band Geek". Which has absolutely nothing to do with computers and everything to do with music. I see a geek as someone who is almost fanatic in nature. A geek possesses much greator understanding of perticular fields then the norm and they are enthusiastic, almost to the point euphoria. You could be a programming genious who hates computers but does it for a living; you wouldn't be a geek. You could have no computer skills whatsoever but be able to talk for hours about any classical composer; that's a geek. Geeks are passionate and a bit over the top. Makes no difference what the interest is.

      BTW, Music and Art can be very technical. Perhaps more than any other field. Talk to a passionate painter about the dynamics of lighting. Those folks and be much geekier than even your biggest startrek nerds.

    25. Re:Speaking as a geek... by bushidocoder · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Larry Osterman wrote an article once where he talked about a presentation he had with Bill about a portion of the IPX stack in NT4. Bill wasn't familiar with the project prior to the meeting, so it started off with Larry just telling him what was supposed to be accomplished.

      After a couple minutes, they got into the technical part and after Bill had spent two or three minutes looking over stack trace information he abruptly starts screaming at the team about how the memory footprint was too large, and then stopped, thought a minute, and accounting for a dependant project off the top of his head, spit out what he thought was the appropriate memory size for the stack. Everyone in the room stared at him slack-jawed - he quoted a number that was too small by half. No one outside the marketing department would make up a number like that.

      But they had an explicit order from BillG to rewrite the stack to that size, so they went back to the drawing board and, after bringing in some more BSD hackers, realized that not only was his number achieveable, but he'd hit the number they could theoretically reach given the dependencies with other portions of the system right on the head. Although that section of NT has been revisitted in every version since NT4.0, no one has been able to improve on the memory footprint of that section of the kernel.

      That's not neccesarily the sign of a genius - I know people who can look at a database and give the same sort of summary judgements. But when a man can make realizations like that within 10 minutes of having learned about a technology, at a bare minimum you have to give him credit for being a geek.

    26. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And music was probably an easier major than math or science, the question really is: where did the good comp sci people come from? And music was probably an easier major than math or science, the question really is: where did the good comp sci people come from? The ones who actually did more than code what they were told, the ones who innovated.

    27. Re:Speaking as a geek... by jaoswald · · Score: 1

      You are at least the second person to claim he wrote a BASIC compiler.

      1) It was an INTERPRETER
      2) He had Paul Allen's help

      Now, he apparently DID write
      Donkey, a lame driving game distributed with MS-DOS.

    28. Re:Speaking as a geek... by mr.newt · · Score: 1

      Hehe, yeah. I misread the reply.

    29. Re:Speaking as a geek... by NaruVonWilkins · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Larry walked by as I read that. Very strange. You know he just celebrated 20 years? He brought 20 dozen bouncy balls instead of 20 pounds of candy.

    30. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Cruxus · · Score: 1
      eno2001: Actually, the reason I've stopped thinking of myself as a geek is that I find most geeks and I don't relate to each other at all.

      Yes, yes, sometimes relating to other geeks can be hard. An interest in computers does not necessarily imply an interest in mathematics, physics, or science fiction. Aside from computers, where my interest currently lies in Web design, I'm interested in the French language, creative writing, drawing, history, politics, cooking, bicycling, tennis, etc. I have found computer science, as a university major, to be tediously boring. I'm aware knowing about the various abstract data types and algorithms is useful in writing efficient programs, but I don't get anything out of that stuff. However, like most of my fellow geeks, I am blessed with astonishingly poor social skills and little luck with members of the opposite sex; I'm sure I'm not the only geek who seems to hit it off with a woman only never to see or hear from her again.

      --
      On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
    31. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Melinda's no oil painting.

    32. Re:Speaking as a geek... by smokebomb2 · · Score: 1

      You're definitely a geek, and somewhat naive. But you're in good company.

    33. Re:Speaking as a geek... by bobsil1 · · Score: 1

      I've met Bill. He is not a deep geek any more, but he is definitely a geek. His lack of social skills, rocking, mild Asperger's comes out of that.

    34. Re:Speaking as a geek... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, you are WRONG WRONG WRONG! Bill Gates is an IDIOT when it comes to technology. He is great as a businessman, and marketer, and a good tactician without any morals (and thus a great businessman). He doesn't know dick about computers. He flunked out of university (computer classes), but had enough business sense to stay the hell away from technology himself, and allow others to do it for him (his strength, and his ultimate downfall). I give you the Microsoft registry as an example of utter nonsense (what gibberish, if you are going to have a master control file, at least make it legible, there is no need to have anything as complicated or ugly as shown), the 'lumping' of disparate pieces of software together (browser and operating system-- breaks first semester fundamental rules of programming, very stupid--), and winsock (what the hell were they thinking?) as prime examples of how Bill doesn't know a bit (pun intended) about how computers should work. The fact that his stuff is on a great lot of home computers shows that he can market to the masses. The fact that fewer of his warez are touching the upper reaches of computing, (he scores about 1 out of 500 in supercomputers) shows that those who know what the hell should be going on don't touch his garbage. Supercomptuers don't get viruses. Home boxen should expect (at last count) 150,000 for Bills boxes (and counting).

  3. Bill Gates doodles... by fitten · · Score: 5, Funny

    are probably nothing more than variations of the $ sign... =)

    1. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by rcamans · · Score: 1

      I don't know about that. I get paid $.
      Is there a special symbol for giga-dollars?
      Because that is what he gets paid in.

      --
      wake up and hold your nose
    2. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by sasquatch21 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bill uses Perl?

    3. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by Tenebrious1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      are probably nothing more than variations of the $ sign... =)

      I heard there were drawings of some short squat bird and the words "die die die" over and over again...

      --
      -- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
    4. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by IvoryRing · · Score: 2, Funny

      You really mean 'the Tux, the', surely.

    5. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by saur2004 · · Score: 1
      Bill uses Perl?

      EEEP! Dont give them ideas for the next patent suit.

    6. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I never knew Gates spoke German. Makes sense though.

    7. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by Doc+Ido · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, he uses Perl.NET.

    8. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      G$? ohh wait that's underwear.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    9. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some reference to the Perly Gates seems appropriate.

    10. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by aussie_a · · Score: 1

      How is G-Soft underwear?

    11. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 1

      After all, no one with a goofy haircut could be evil...

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
    12. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 1

      hehe good one

      c'mon boys, lets buy him out! what, you don't think I got rich by writing a bunch of checks!

    13. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, you see a $ is a bill, a billion $'s is a Bill. Some also call them Bill H's to make the distinction in human speech.

    14. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      sorry it's the perl in me I see $ and pronounce it as string.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    15. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by Sumbody · · Score: 1

      Is it on eBay yet? Who's got a link?

    16. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by akgoatley · · Score: 1

      You of course mean g-scalar.
      Ashton

      --
      (-(friend^2))^(1/2)
      Incoming mod-bombing for having a different viewpoint, 2 o'clock! Heads up!
    17. Re:Bill Gates doodles... by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      You're right, I don't know where I got pronouce $ as string???? But I do it in perl while reading perl code. I do it in greep for things like cap string ^$. or in shell for things like string one $1 or string display $DISPLAY. I even seem to say string fifty dollars when I see $50.00

      Can't think of the origins of that habit though. must be part of string theory :)

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  4. handwriting analysis? by tuxette · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Geez, what next? Are they going to do his star charts? or read the coffee grind remains in his mug?

    --
    People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
    1. Re:handwriting analysis? by chris09876 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No kidding... it's a bit drastic when they start to analyze peoples handwriting to develop a personality profile like that. I doubt there's anything accurate and important they can determine by looking at handwriting.

      It's easy to modify your handwriting style. It takes some time, but you can adjust your habits to write "in whatever font" you want. I don't understand how people can draw useful conclusions from it. ...especially if you scribble something down in a hurry.

    2. Re:handwriting analysis? by coyotecult · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The sad thing is they THOUGHT they were doing it on Tony Blair, and attributed all these not-so-hot characteristics dissing his leadership abilities. I'm still trying to figure out how they can determine all of that, and not realize that it's not even Blair's handwriting. Big gaffe. Serves them write. I'm so tired of pseudosciences -- especially ones that have been admitted in court as evidence.

    3. Re:handwriting analysis? by Biff+Stu · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      The thing that really baffles me is why this pseudo-science is so widely accepted in Europe.

      Oh well...I guess we have our polygraph tests in the states.

    4. Re:handwriting analysis? by coyotecult · · Score: 2, Funny

      ....Serves them right? I swear I did not do that on purpose.

    5. Re:Handwriting analysis? by MerryGoByeBye · · Score: 2, Informative

      Is that why every major government intelligence house in the Western world devotes so many employees to it? Because oddly, I've never heard of a phrenologist working for the CIA and the astrologer/psychic they hired a few decades ago as a consultant was unceremoniously relieved of her duties after a string of nothing but failures, whereas the handwriting analysis unit is still around.

    6. Re:handwriting analysis? by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      I'm sure the graphologists would have a world of time analysing that typo.

    7. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing that really baffles me is why this pseudo-science is so widely accepted in Europe.

      It isn't.

      Oh well...I guess we have our polygraph tests in the states.

      Yup, which aren't admissable in court. How about the lack of floors numbered 13?

    8. Re:handwriting analysis? by tuxette · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not, except for entertainment. We have a few shows here that have used polygraphs as entertainment as well ;-)

      --
      People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
    9. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well the CIA believes in a lot of imaginary things like WMD's in Iraq.

    10. Re:Handwriting analysis? by multiplexo · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Is that why every major government intelligence house in the Western world devotes so many employees to it? Because oddly, I've never heard of a phrenologist working for the CIA and the astrologer/psychic they hired a few decades ago as a consultant was unceremoniously relieved of her duties after a string of nothing but failures, whereas the handwriting analysis unit is still around.

      Would these be the same Western intelligence agencies who for years overestimated the capabilities of the Soviet Union and were completely blindsided by 9/11? I'd hardly use the fact that the CIA, of all organizations, employs a group of graphologists as an endorsement of the validity of graphology. The fact that they had even hired a psychic/astrologer as a consultant explains a lot about why they're so fucked up, the fact that they apparently still have graphologists on staff just confirms this.

      --
      cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
    11. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Those people are dedicated to verify that the writings belong to a particular person, not to analyze the personality of the writer.

    12. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Jeff+Hornby · · Score: 1

      And what does it say about these experts that they can't even identify who wrote something when there are numerous public samples of their handwriting available?

      I'm guessing it was the handwriting analysts at the CIA who concluded that there were WMDs in Iraq.

      Jeff

      --
      Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
    13. Re:handwriting analysis? by coyotecult · · Score: 1

      Indeed they would. Tell me, good sir, since I am pretty sure you are as learned in the field as any of the experts ::wink:: -- what does it mean?

      Tell me who I am!

    14. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's easy to modify your handwriting style. It takes some time, [snip] ...especially if you scribble something down in a hurry.

      Something that was scribbled down in a hurry is the type of thing that they'd want to analyze.

      Sure, someone could 'fake' a handwriting style. But it takes a deliberate effort, and I don't think it would be easy to keep it up for writing several pages.

    15. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Couldn't we just read Bill Gates' entrails?

    16. Re:handwriting analysis? by nogginthenog · · Score: 1

      They might as well examine his 'morning download'. There's as much science involved as in handwriting analysis. Why people still believe this mumbo-jumbo is beyond me.

    17. Re:Handwriting analysis? by phats+garage · · Score: 1
      I'd like to make a few observations here:
      • I find the terms "government" and "intelligence" somewhat contradictory, and
      • I reject the proposition that the CIA knows the worth of any field of study.

      Other than that, your post is noted.

    18. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Unnngh! · · Score: 1

      I think there's some confusion between analyzing handwriting samples to determine if a particular person wrote the sample (which is a valid practice, if not necessarily a strictly scientific discipline), and making ethereal predictions about one's character based on said sample...

    19. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have polygraph tests in the US but the results aren't allowed as evidence in the courts.

    20. Re:Handwriting analysis? by thephotoman · · Score: 1

      Um...there's also the use of handwriting to give a likely probablility of the identity of the writer. It's not that accurate, but it can lead to hunches, which are what the intelligence sector has to operate on.

      Astrology might be better put to use in weather forecasts, as the positioning of the planets, moon, sun, and other relatively close objects could possibly have an effect on our weather. Besides, predicting the weather isn't that accurate of a science anyway.

      --
      Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
    21. Re:handwriting analysis? by Mister+Incognito · · Score: 2, Interesting

      FWIW. Years ago when I was still at school, I had an impacting experience over a weekend. I was at class, and when I switched "consciousness" on :) I was shocked at how different my handwriting had become since last friday.

      After that I decieded that hey, there may be a relation between personality and style. And that while it is true you might adopt a different style, who is to tell you that doing that won't affect your personality?

      Now.. thinking about the post above.. I may even point out that scribbing things in a hurry might also be relevant, if you think about it...

    22. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There were hundreds of tons of nerve gas and other toxins unaccounted for, that Saddam admitted to having after the first Gulf War, but that he didnt destroy in the manner that he agreed to. And that's not even looking at whether he disclosed 100% of his stockpiles in the first place.

      Where did it go? The concept that he would have had it destroyed in secret and not tell anyone is silly. There was absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing that.

    23. Re:handwriting analysis? by AviLazar · · Score: 1

      Go ahead, start writing and try to change your style of writing - you will notice (quite quickly) that your writing goes back to its original style. There are some things that are incredibly hard to do unless you give it 100% concentrated effort. Changing your writing style is not something you can just do casually - you have to work at it like a madman. Given that, do you think Billy was concentrating on his writing style?

      The science of interpreting the psyche via writing is widely known and accepted. Again, as I said in another post, while it is not 100% accurate - very little in psychology really is.

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    24. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Mister+Incognito · · Score: 1

      There had been repeated warnings coming out of the intel community. I don't understand why do you mix CIA / FBI with govt. decisions. If policy dictates not to pay attention, no attention will be paid and no action will be taken.

      In other words, your hardware may signal an IRQ but without an IRQ handler in your OS to care propely your machine will go boom :P

    25. Re:Handwriting analysis? by chman · · Score: 2, Funny

      "...only a little more authoritative than phrenology..."

      Of course you'd say that, you have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter!

      --
      This comment was formatted for readability, but I forgot the line break tags
    26. Re:Handwriting analysis? by radtea · · Score: 1


      Graphologists may still be used because the quality of their work is being compared to that of other personality profilers, whose record is considerably less than stellar. Psychics who claim to predict events can easily be discredited when the events don't happen. Phrenology was relatively easy to discredit becuase its practice was extremely quantitative. Graphology does not predict events and is extremely qualitative in technique. It is therefore almost impossible to discredit.

      Polygraphs share the same characteristics--because polygraph reading is entirely qualitative, proponents can always claim that poor results are due to poor readers, and that if only they had been the ones doing the reading all would have been well.

      --Tom

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    27. Re:Handwriting analysis? by hackstraw · · Score: 1

      and before anybody jumps on this bandwagon, let's remember that handwriting analysis is only a little more authoritative than phrenology or astrology

      Yes and no.

      Any aspect of an animal's behavior or physical environment to some extent has something to say about that animal. Its even more so for human animals because we pretty much collectively create our environment.

      Take for example your average slashdot reader. Being that I have met very few /.ers in person, from the people I have met and from people's posts, I can summarize a typical /.er as a bright, introverted, introspective, geeky, slightly antisocial, slightly angry with a passive aggressive twist person.

      The same can be said to a degree with astrology. The stars and planets go through cycles and even something as simple as one's birthday does influence them and their behavior. Lets take for example someone that becomes twoish and becomes "self aware" in the summer vs the winter. A summer kid would probably be more comfortable with their body, being naked, going barefoot, etc. Whereas the opposite might be true in the winter.

      Bumper stickers say a good amount about a person. Think someone with the "Don't like my driving call 1-800-EAT-SHIT" sticker. Think they are a pissed off individual? Probably.

      With phrenology, that too is not that far fetched. Don't you kinda have an idea what a person is like when you see them? Their facial affect, size of their body, and whatnot? I do. Sometimes I'm wrong. But there certainly is some degree of correlation there.

      The problem with any of these things is if they are taken to be a single measurement to mean something. I described the "average slashdotter", but surely there are those that are more extroverted or whatever else disagrees with my description, but I would imagine I'm pretty much on target.

    28. Re:handwriting analysis? by Glog · · Score: 1

      Actually, the next step is to do a goat sacrifice and read the entrails ...

    29. Re:handwriting analysis? by darco · · Score: 1

      The reason that the handwriting was analyzed at all was because they thought it was Tony Blair's handwriting, and they wanted to take a pot-shot at him--describing him as 'struggling to concentrate', 'not a natural leader', 'struggling to keep control of a confusing world' and 'an unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure'. Now that we know it was in fact good ol' Bill's note, it gets on slashdot. :)

      --
      — darco
    30. Re:Handwriting analysis? by UpnAtom · · Score: 1

      According to The Power Of Nightmares William Casey led the CIA astray in regards to Soviet military technology.

      Makes you wonder if Porter Goss' agenda is any more helpful.

      As regards to graphology, it's easy enough to scientifically evaluate different correlations.

    31. Re:handwriting analysis? by darco · · Score: 1

      That one's handwriting is generally consistent and hard to change is not in contention. What is in contention is the correlation between one's handwriting and one's state of mind.

      --
      — darco
    32. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Analyzing *who wrote it*, not to form a personality profile, you twit.

    33. Re:handwriting analysis? by TrickyRaven · · Score: 1

      why a goat? I'd sacrifice a longhorn, but I guess reading it's entrails might be in breach of license.

    34. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      Would these be the same Western intelligence agencies who for years overestimated the capabilities of the Soviet Union and were completely blindsided by 9/11?

      Probably not - the CIA warned Bush months ahead of time that there was a real risk of terrorists using passenger planes as missiles and Clinton warned him of the risk bin Laden posed as part of the handoff. As for the USSR, better safe than sorry, right?

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    35. Re:Handwriting analysis? by mangu · · Score: 1
      Think someone with the "Don't like my driving call 1-800-EAT-SHIT" sticker. Think they are a pissed off individual? Probably.


      Or maybe they just have a sense of humor. If psychologists knew as much as they pretend to, we wouldn't need jails.


      The problem with trying to infer something from limited information isn't the danger of generalization. The problem is the lack of numeric knowledge. If one had an effective measure of "extrovertedness", one would be able to state that slashdotters have an average of extroversion of "x", with "y" standard deviation.


      But psychologists eschew numbers. About a hundred years ago someone invented one way of measuring the intelligence of a human being. Ever since, there have been many psychologists trying to prove that IQ is an invalid measurement.


      If you have numeric knowledge, then you can do tests to verify your measurements. Suppose you invent one way to measure the probability of someone committing a crime or of committing suicide. Compare your measurements with the crime and suicide statistics in a sufficiently large sample of the population and you'll know for sure how right your measurement is. But if you just state that people who cross their 't's in a particular way are prone to suicide or to crime, without providing any way of putting numbers in your observations, then you are just stating your unsupported opinion.

    36. Re:handwriting analysis? by rainer_d · · Score: 1
      > Geez, what next? Are they going to do his star
      > charts?

      The CIA reportedly analyzed the urine of Leonid Brezhnev while he was out of the USSR (SALT negotionations, IIRC) to gain information about his health-status...

      --
      Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
    37. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing that really baffles me is why this pseudo-science is so widely accepted in Europe.

      Oh well...I guess we have our polygraph tests in the states.

      ...and creationism, intelligent design, whatever you want to call it. I wouldn't even give that the credibility of being called a psuedoscience though

    38. Re:handwriting analysis? by tuxette · · Score: 1

      Were their findings inconclusive due to the high vodka content in the urine?

      --
      People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
    39. Re:Handwriting analysis? by quanticle · · Score: 1

      Then where are said WMD's?

      America's own weapons inspectors, who went to Iraq after the war, said the weapons aren't there.

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    40. Re:Handwriting analysis? by donothingsuccessfull · · Score: 1
      The same can be said to a degree with astrology. The stars and planets go through cycles and even something as simple as one's birthday does influence them and their behavior.
      There may be corellation but what about causality?
      Personally I feel obliged to maintain my "elegance, charm and good taste" in order to keep venus in orbit.
    41. Re:handwriting analysis? by AviLazar · · Score: 1

      handwriting analysis is a common, and well accepted psychological tool. While someone may try to change their writing to trick the tool - it is really hard to do. In fact, in one of my Communications classes we tried to do this (writing one full page). I could not maintain more then one-two sentences - it was awkward. Nobody in the class could. Now that is with a concerted effort; now imagine if you are just "doodeling"...

      /.'ers may not want to believe it is possible, but again in psychology - it is very well accepted.

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    42. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, exactly - that's the question. Where are they? What happened to them? Who has them now, or are they still amazingly well-hidden?

    43. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you not read the parent post? He said that changing your writing style is not in contention. He aknowledges the fact it would be hard to change your writing style. What he disputes is the actual analysis process.

    44. Re:Handwriting analysis? by quanticle · · Score: 1

      The best case scenario is that these weapons never existed. In that case, the only thing the Administration is guilty of is lying.

      The worst case scenario is that these weapons did exist, but have since "disappeared". In this case, the Administration is guilty of the same crime that the accused Saddam of... i.e. allowing terrorists to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    45. Re:handwriting analysis? by aussie_a · · Score: 1

      it's a bit drastic when they start to analyze peoples handwriting to develop a personality profile like that.

      I agree whole-heartedly. I've found rummaging through people's dumpsters to be much more reliable.

    46. Re:Handwriting analysis? by hackstraw · · Score: 1

      If psychologists knew as much as they pretend to, we wouldn't need jails.

      Wow. Show me a psychologist that believes that jails are an acceptable form of behavior modification and I'll show you one that has failed Psyc 101. Psychologists study behavior (or at least the behavior of rats and undergrads).

      If one had an effective measure of "extrovertedness", one would be able to state that slashdotters have an average of extroversion of "x", with "y" standard deviation.

      That can be defined and measured.

      But psychologists eschew numbers. About a hundred years ago someone invented one way of measuring the intelligence of a human being. Ever since, there have been many psychologists trying to prove that IQ is an invalid measurement.

      Psychology didn't commonly use the scientific method until the '60s. Physicists today still talk about Newton's "laws" and are trying to disprove them. Thats the nature of science. One person throws up some theory with some kind of support behind it and its fairly accepted by most people until someone has a better accepted theory. After all, it was a fact that the Earth was the center of the universe and it was flat. IQ is synonymous with BS. However, Spearman did do a lot of good measures in statistics in trying to determine IQ. Its a very interesting read for those who care about science and statistics.

      If you have numeric knowledge, then you can do tests to verify your measurements. Suppose you invent one way to measure the probability of someone committing a crime or of committing suicide. Compare your measurements with the crime and suicide statistics in a sufficiently large sample of the population and you'll know for sure how right your measurement is. But if you just state that people who cross their 't's in a particular way are prone to suicide or to crime, without providing any way of putting numbers in your observations, then you are just stating your unsupported opinion.

      You have hit the screw on the tailbone!

    47. Re:handwriting analysis? by Ninwa · · Score: 1

      He obviously didn't read it, don't waste your breath as changing your writing style is obviously the not the only thing that's hard. Try changing your reading style. Yeesh. -N

    48. Re:handwriting analysis? by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1

      To re-iterate the point by the grandparent, it is even harder to change the lines in your hand than to change writing styles. Does that imply that handreading is a correct way of determining someone's future?

    49. Re:handwriting analysis? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1
      handwriting analysis is a common, and well accepted psychological tool.
      I would argue with you, but I've got to go and disembowel a goat so I can see if my next attempt to turn lead into gold will work.
      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    50. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "Drastic is some 'loid considering that it's a newsworthy story."

      What, sir, is a "'loid"? Not that I disagree with you (assuming it's something bad), piss-poor fucking article.

    51. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Queer+Boy · · Score: 1
      were completely blindsided by 9/11

      Were they blindsided by 9/11? Last I checked you can't start a war for what you think is going to happen, it actually has to happen for that. Condeleeza Rice testified that they had prior knowledge to 9/11 that an attack was being mounted. Plus, how was the Bush administration going to confuse people into thinking Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are the same person if we don't let them kill a paltry 3000 people?

      --
      Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
    52. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If they didn't exist (but what puts the neg on this theory is that a lot of what Saddam declared in 91 and 92 was destroyed - the whole problem is that a significant fraction was *not* destroyed), then the liar is the administration that inflated the totals of WMD in the first place and then made it impossible to determine the truth - Saddam's.

      As for the second part, it depends entirely on when they were "disappeared". My opinion is that Saddam had them quietly shipping out of the country and stored, to be returned after the US backed down from its saber-rattling like it had done for the past 11 years. Or they're out in one of the freaking deserts somewhere. It was only blind chance that we found those buried jets, and "hundreds of tons" of chemicals and compounds don't take up a huge amount of space. Less than the jets, I'd say.

      If it was after the attack, then you could make the case for negligence on part of the administration. But there's still a difference between not locking something down well enough and actively handing it to them. The cops aren't charged with grand theft auto if someone steals a car from the impound lot.

    53. Re:handwriting analysis? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't that in itself be conclusive? You could, for example, conclude that he was totally ratted.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    54. Re:handwriting analysis? by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      Well, let's analyse this. "Serves them" write. So it clearly serves them some writing. Now, serving can also mean delivering legal papers. And since this was written on paper, we have another link there. You also mentioned it has been used in court. Clearly you are concerned about the legal system.

      Obviously, from this, I can deduce that you're a deranged serial killer, abd you know that your handwriting will identify you as the culprit if the police ever get a sample of it.

      Am I close?

    55. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm no graphology expert but I would hope slashdot readers would have more of an open mind. Most totally untrained people can distinguish between males and females based on handwriting. Is it too difficult to imagine that certain handwriting characteristics are correlated with other behavioral phenomenon? If you studied the way people tie their shoes you may come to some conclusion about x% who tie their shoes tightly correlates with y% who have attribute Z.

      Understanding that there is a correlation in these things does not determine causality. You probably cannot change your personality by simply writing differently as graphotherapy states. Because personality and handwriting are both effected by brain structure it is unresasonable to compare graphology with the pseudosciences that have no reasonable explainations "ie. astrology or tea leave reading."

    56. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, fingerprint analysis on some glass he leaves behind.

      In 5 years, genome analysis next time he spits or hands back a glass he's drank from.

      Leave the guy alone. You want to attack his business practices, his OS, etc. on their merits, fine, but attacking him this way is way too similar to nerd bashing.

    57. Re:Handwriting analysis? by ex-geek · · Score: 0
      Wow. Show me a psychologist that believes that jails are an acceptable form of behavior modification and I'll show you one that has failed Psyc 101. Psychologists study behavior (or at least the behavior of rats and undergrads).
      Jails don't modify the behaviour of inmates. (Actually they probably do modify it, but to the worse) Instead they are supposed to modify the behaviour of the rest of us by detering us from choosing crime to achieve our goals.
    58. Re:Handwriting analysis? by stinky+wizzleteats · · Score: 1

      You don't have to astroturf in this thread. No one is taking it seriously enough to worry about. Move along.

    59. Re:handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It can be done much quickly and easily than most think, I have done it. My handwriting after february 1999 is completely unlike my handwriting before january 1999. My current handwriting is an exact copy of someone else's, which I did out of necessity during those months (all legal, it was just convenient to do it that way). Later on I studied calligraphy and learned to use other types of pens, which means I don't even cross my t's the same way twice in one sentence, unless I'm careful. My class notes are usually in two or three languages and use at least 2 handwriting styles. Yeah, I'm a freak, so what?

    60. Re:handwriting analysis? by Your+Pal+Dave · · Score: 1
      Why people still believe this mumbo-jumbo is beyond me.


      Mumbo, perhaps.
      Jumbo.... perhaps not!
    61. Re:Handwriting analysis? by mangu · · Score: 1
      Show me a psychologist that believes that jails are an acceptable form of behavior modification and I'll show you one that has failed Psyc 101. Psychologists study behavior (or at least the behavior of rats and undergrads).


      But if psychologists knew enough about human behavior to predict with reasonable accuracy who is most likely to commit crimes then we would be able to prevent crimes before they happened. All we currently know is that there is some correlation between crime and some social parameters, such as low education level and poverty. That not enough, because the vast majority of people who are poor and illiterate are honest, and there are also rich and well educated criminals.


      If we had better means of evaluating people for criminal tendencies we would be able to help those people, or at least to watch them better. As things stand now, we can't even predict which people will return to crime after being released from jail.


      The best comparison for the current state of the psychology science isn't with Newtonian physics. Psychology today is much closer to Aristotelian physics, when people tried to determine the laws of nature more by philosophical musings than from the hard work of measuring what nature is trying to show us.

    62. Re:handwriting analysis? by darco · · Score: 1

      You are responding to the wrong assertion. I make no claim that attempting to change one's writing style is not difficult.

      My assertion was that there is little basis for a link between one's individual handwriting style and their state of mind. The example in this story would appear to corroborate this.

      --
      — darco
    63. Re:Handwriting analysis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Pentagon and the CIA are famous for pissing tax dollars away on stuff like graphology, remote viewing, etc.

      I seem to remember a couple years ago the US Defence Department even had Michael Drosnin, the author of The Bible Code, give a speech to some intelligence officials where he claimed that the Old Testament provides encoded messages as to the whereabouts of bin Laden.

      Your tax dollars at work.

    64. Re:handwriting analysis? by AviLazar · · Score: 1

      People with PhD's seem to think you can predict a person's psyche (at least in some part) via their handwriting. As for predicting the future - I don't think anyone (except palm readers) are claiming that.

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    65. Re:handwriting analysis? by AviLazar · · Score: 1

      Unless I read it wrong - they associated the handwriting (initially) to Blair. So the analysis did not fit the person. Then they realized the handwriting was Bills. They are still doing an analysis.

      As for your belief that handwriting analysis does not work - many PhD's seem to disagree with you.

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    66. Re:handwriting analysis? by darco · · Score: 1

      That the analysis "did not fit the person" is exactly the point I am making. Why would someone's handwriting say one thing about one person, yet the same handwriting say something different for someone else? Methinks that, at the very least, this specific case is total bunk.

      I have yet to see any compelling case study showing the accuracy of determining one's state of mind solely through handwriting analysis. It just seems too far fetched for me to take on faith.

      --
      — darco
    67. Re:Handwriting analysis? by hackstraw · · Score: 1

      But if psychologists knew enough about human behavior to predict with reasonable accuracy who is most likely to commit crimes then we would be able to prevent crimes before they happened.

      Criminals commit crimes. You don't need a PhD to figure that out. Take a poll in jail or prison and ask if its their first run in with the law.

      All we currently know is that there is some correlation between crime and some social parameters, such as low education level and poverty.

      Wrong again. Poor and stupid people get caught and punished more. If OJ were not a millionaire, he would be in prison -- even if he is innocent. Take for example "white collar crimes" or mafia kind of stuff. These people have cash and brains and probably commit about the same number of crimes as your stereotyped criminal. But they get punished at a much lower rate.

      As things stand now, we can't even predict which people will return to crime after being released from jail.

      The odds are pretty good, at least for long stints in prison. Jail is just jail. Think about it. You go to prison for 10 or so years. You come out as the lowest part of society. You typically have no money, and often are outcasted by your family (or they suck in the first place) and odds are your "friends" are like you were before you went to prison if not in prison now. You've seen that little question at the bottom of most job applications? "Have you been convicted of a crime other than minor traffic violations? Yes _ No _ If Yes explain here: "

      I don't know about you, but I would not jump at the chance to hire a convicted felon. Also, what kind of skills are they going to have? If nothing else, social skills. Prison is not known for promoting this like "strong oral and written communication skills" like you see on many job applications.

      The best comparison for the current state of the psychology science isn't with Newtonian physics. Psychology today is much closer to Aristotelian physics, when people tried to determine the laws of nature more by philosophical musings than from the hard work of measuring what nature is trying to show us.

      Go to a library and pick up a Psych Journal some time. Not "Psychology today", I mean a scientific journal. For example, I have done research with the effects of neonatal ethanol exposure on maternal retrieval behavior of these neonatally exposed pups (yeah rats). For this experiment, there were 3 groups of pups. 1) control, "normal" rats 2) rats where the mom's drank alcohol and 3) "pair fed" rats where the mother's were fed the same amount and kinds of food as the ethanol ones to eliminate confounds due to nutritional deficiencies. These pups were put at the end of a 8 foot runway and out of sight of the mothers. There was a backdraft in the runway to eliminate the sense of smell. Then all of the moms were put at one end of the runway and the pups at the other end. All of the moms would go and pick up all of the other pups except for the ones from the drunk moms. The only thing that could be different from the pups would be their vocalizations. So we recorded their calls with a 1/4" reel to reel deck at 60 ips, fed those recordings to a computer, and wrote software to run FFTs and power analysis on the vocalizations. It ended up that there were significant differences between the ethanol pups and the others in terms of the frequency power and duration of the 2nd harmonic in their vocalizations by using an ANOVA. Now what caused the differences in the vocalizations is not known. If it was a developmental issue from being in a drunk womb. If the mom's vagina was too relaxed from being drunk all the time and didn't properly shape the heads on the way out. Who knows. But there was a clearly defined behavior "pup retrieval" and scientific measurement and analysis of the causes of the retrieval or nonretrieval.

      To me psych is more of a science than the "hard sciences". The hard sciences have been pretty easy until recen

    68. Re:handwriting analysis? by AviLazar · · Score: 1

      They have psych profiles (public and private) on famous people (i.e. Blair and gates). They compare the writing to these psyche profiles and get the answers. They applied the wrong profile to the writing - so the data is erroneous.

      Handwriting analysis can also be used without knowing the subject - but obviously that is more limited as you are omitting a lot of information.

      You do not have to take my word for it- if it's real or not - it is accepted in the psych community as real and they are far more knowledgeble then you me and everyone on /. (when it comes to this field).

      There are compelling case studies - they are buried in my notes from college and honestly I am not going to unbury it to satisy someone I do not know (no offense meant at all).

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    69. Re:handwriting analysis? by darco · · Score: 1

      Hey, it's all good. If they are out there, I'm sure I'll run across them one day. :)

      --
      — darco
  5. Aha by spellraiser · · Score: 4, Funny

    The 'unstable man, unstable OS' jokes may begin ... now.

    --
    I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
    1. Re:Aha by essreenim · · Score: 1

      such as 'struggling to concentrate[on repelling Linux]', 'not a natural leader[at repelling Linux]', 'struggling to keep control of a confusing world[of Linux]' and 'an unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure[of Linux]', equally apply to Mr Gates.

    2. Re:Aha by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      The 'unstable man, unstable OS' jokes may begin ... now.

      Someone jumped the gun.

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    3. Re: Aha by Cyn · · Score: 2, Funny

      such as 'struggling to concentrate[in bed]', 'not a natural leader[in bed]', 'struggling to keep control of a confusing world[in bed]' and 'an unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure[in bed]', equally apply to Mr Gates.

      Apologies to Mr. Gates - it needed saying.

      --
      cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
    4. Re:Aha by Phu5ion · · Score: 0

      you are what you program.

      --
      Slashdot is kind of like Playboy; we aren't here to read the articles.
  6. Wow by Quasar1999 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Really, handwriting analysis? This is the computer age... I don't even know how to write... I put an 'X' in the 'sign here' section... everything else I type... If they analysed my handwriting, well... they'd think I was a 2 year old with a crayon. ;)

    --

    ---
    Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I bit like my 98 year old gran, apart from she cant type. :)

    2. Re:Wow by MPHellwig · · Score: 2, Funny

      "If they analysed my handwriting, well... they'd think I was a 2 year old with a crayon. ;)"

      Naah, much to easy this one ;-)

    3. Re:Wow by winkydink · · Score: 1

      Huh? The retraction said the doodle wasn't done by Tony Blair, but was done by Bill Gates. That was the gist of the /. posting, was it not?

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    4. Re:Wow by Sparr0 · · Score: 1

      then, by definition, "X" is your signature.

    5. Re:Wow by rcamans · · Score: 1

      and if they thought that, they would be giving you way too much credit. heh heh

      --
      wake up and hold your nose
    6. Re:Wow by Foofoobar · · Score: 4, Funny
      If they analysed my handwriting, well... they'd think I was a 2 year old with a crayon


      I thought most Visual Basic users were. ;)
      --
      This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
    7. Re:Wow by prash_n_rao · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Personally, I prefer thumb prints to signatures.

      Anyway, I wonder what they can make out from my preference for the Lucida font family.

      --
      This is not my sig.
    8. Re:Wow by essreenim · · Score: 3, Interesting
      I found a great sight with downloadable hand writing sheets in my final CS year. It had a sentance fully in hand (thatch-writing), with lots of sentances below with dots, so you could practice again and again. It was really good as it calmed me for the exams. I felt like I was back in playschool writing my lovely curly and puposeful writing. I actually felt like taking up caligraphy. There is something spitiual about this writing, something we are sadly losing in the computer age. I did it to recontruct my ability to write in time for my exams as my writing was awful before. Afterwards, not only could I write better, I felt happier, like a return to serenity. Sounds gay? Yeah I was surprised too but I can't knock hand writing. We should all do it

    9. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " Eat up Martha "!

    10. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "site"
      "sentence"
      "spiritual"
      "reconstruct"

      "something we are sadly losing in the computer age"

      Like proofreading?

    11. Re:Wow by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

      Back in the 70s, there used to be "Handwriting Analysis Computer" travelling shows that toured the shopping malls. Lots of consoles, flashing lights, spinning tape drives, clicky-clack noises .. and 100% snake-oil bogus fake!

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    12. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes, thank you that was giving me a headache.

    13. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      ...[web] sight...sentances...spitiual...recontruct...

      Yeah, I agree. Know what else we're losing in the computer age?
      Yep, you guessed it: the ability to spell.

    14. Re:Wow by sharkey · · Score: 1

      No kidding. Analyzing handwriting is such rot. When they get a phrenologist a chance at what's under the bowl-job, THEN we'll get some solid information!

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
    15. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh, I wrote my name in Wingdings and printed that on a whole bunch of sticky labels. Whenever I need to sign something, I stick one of the labels there. BTW, my initials in Wingdings are a clock and a bomb, go figure.

    16. Re:Wow by essreenim · · Score: 1
      :/

      I found a great site with downloadable hand writing sheets in my final CS year. It had a sentence fully in hand (thatch-writing), with lots of sentences below with dots, so you could practice again and again. It was really good as it calmed me for the exams. I felt like I was back in playschool writing my lovely curly and puposeful writing. I actually felt like taking up caligraphy. There is something spiritual about this writing, something we are sadly losing in the computer age. I did it to reconstruct my ability to write in time for my exams as my writing was awful before. Afterwards, not only could I write better, I felt happier, like a return to serenity. Sounds gay? Yeah I was surprised too but I can't knock hand writing. We should all do it

    17. Re:Wow by essreenim · · Score: 1
      Sorry, here is v2.0

      I found a great site with downloadable hand writing sheets in my final CS year. It had a sentence fully in hand (thatch-writing), with lots of sentences below with dots, so you could practice again and again. It was really good as it calmed me for the exams. I felt like I was back in playschool writing my lovely curly and puposeful writing. I actually felt like taking up caligraphy. There is something spiritual about this writing, something we are sadly losing in the computer age. I did it to reconstruct my ability to write in time for my exams as my writing was awful before. Afterwards, not only could I write better, I felt happier, like a return to serenity. Sounds gay? Yeah I was surprised too but I can't knock hand writing. We should all do it

    18. Re:Wow by quanticle · · Score: 1

      Do you remember the address of said site? I could use some improvement in my handwriting as well.

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    19. Re:Wow by essreenim · · Score: 1
      Nooooooooo,

      purposeful not puposeful

    20. Re:Wow by essreenim · · Score: 1
      No, I tried and failed to find it.

      Try this :

      It's not quite as good but it has downloadable sheets as well. They are in PDF format.

    21. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      porpoiseful?

    22. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FFS, somebody mod this twat redundant!

    23. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, that Visual Basic must be a pretty damn useful piece of software then.

    24. Re:Wow by Foofoobar · · Score: 1

      Well... only for two year old mentallities.

      --
      This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
    25. Re:Wow by essreenim · · Score: 1
      Can I assume you are an earlier poster? Don't bother correcting my spelling if you don't want me to correct it...then you won't have to waist your time and mine by complaing all the time.

  7. What's this you say? by xCepheus · · Score: 1

    A "news" article saying something bad about Bill Gates on Slashdot?!

    Will wonders never cease????

    1. Re:What's this you say? by Foofoobar · · Score: 1

      If the doodled shoe fits...

      --
      This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
  8. I first read that as by WormholeFiend · · Score: 2, Funny

    a "doodie".

    I thought, pity the lab technician who had to do this for media purposes.

  9. Speaking of doodles by savagedome · · Score: 3, Funny

    Paula: Can you grab my purse.
    George: Yeah.( reaches for the purse and finds a piece of paper . he looks annoyed.
    Monks , next day .George showing Jerry the piece of paper he picked up
    Jerry: Yeah! So
    George; Don't you see what this is?
    Jerry: Yeah! It's a doodle.
    George: Yeah!, a doodle of me...look at the size of the nose , the ears, all my features are distorted.
    Jerry: Oh!.It's an affectionate caricature.
    George: I'm grotesque . I look like a troll.
    Jerry: It's just a drawing.
    George: Don't you see what this says? How can you possibly like somebody ,if you think they look like this?

  10. Unstable by WilyCoder · · Score: 1

    Lack of stability leads to corporate strong-arming, so as to achieve more stability in one's life? Hmmmmm.

  11. Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by brian+ferullo · · Score: 4, Funny

    what bad joke is this setting up?

    1. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by 955301 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar within 5 minutes of one another and sit down.

      With an obvious need to one up the other two egos in the room, Tony orders a kamikazi and says, "I know they say the three of us are quite unstable, but I believe I have you chaps beat, even on that front. I overthrew a country on the advice of a Texan." He passes a "one-free-knighting" coupon to the bartender for escro on his challenge.

      Gates, drinking a screwdriver and squiggling on a piece of paper, blurts out "It's not like Britain didn't do that to the same people before. Try dominating the world with a collection of buggy software and an army of marketroids. Allow the single most significant collaborative creation of the 20th century to be brought to its knees. Then get back to me". He passes a check totaling the GNP of a small country to the bartendar to see Blair's challenge.

      Bono, not even inclined to remove his sunglasses responds passes a black I-pod to the bartender. "You see that blonde, at the end of the bar? I'm going to eat her now." He downs his tequila, walks up the blonde, stabs her repeatedly, then eats her, and returns to the conversation.

      The bartender interjects and says to Bono "I don't think your instability counts... after all, you're on drugs, and that makes it artificial." Bono, looking puzzled because he hadn't taken a pill in at least three days says "Hell, I'm not on drugs". The bartender passes the pot to Gates, refills the men's drinks and replies, "of course you are, that was a bar-bitch-you-ate".

      --
      You are checking your backups, aren't you?
    2. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... that's just not right.

    3. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't get it... whats a bar-bitch?

    4. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't get it.

    5. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Consider

      "bar-bitch-you-ate"

      vs.

      "barbituate"

    6. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by fbform · · Score: 1
      Vile Pun.

      I hope for your sake that you retreaded an existing joke and didn't come up with that all by yourself!

      --
      Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
    7. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    8. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      It's a rehash. But very nicely done. But it still indicates severe instability (not that analyzing jokes is an exact science, you understand).

    9. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by 955301 · · Score: 1

      Yep, look for a joke about a bear in a bar in Billings, Montana. I was in an Irish pub this weekend and heard a women tell it splendidly. I could never tell jokes - I always have to write them down.

      --
      You are checking your backups, aren't you?
    10. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by joemc79 · · Score: 1

      I want my 45 seconds back!

    11. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by 955301 · · Score: 1


      No way man! Reader beware! Besides, read the grandparent. He *begged* for a bad joke on topic. What was I supposed to do?

      --
      You are checking your backups, aren't you?
    12. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by Reteo+Varala · · Score: 1

      I don't even WANT to know what thinking up this joke says about you...

    13. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... by 955301 · · Score: 1

      too late!

      --
      You are checking your backups, aren't you?
  12. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OSS zealots use comical information to further their comical cause.

  13. Graphology is a joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See http://www.erexchange.com/articles/db/FED39D930E8D 4949B94D00BA56A8FBBB.asp

    It is frightening how many people actually believe in this quackery.

  14. WHERE'S THE BEEF? by SenatorOrrinHatch · · Score: 1, Interesting

    so uhh the real question is:
    where's a scan of these notes and doodles?

    --
    The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.'
    1. Re:WHERE'S THE BEEF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The doodle can be found here.

  15. Handwriting analysis? by Jeff+Hornby · · Score: 3, Informative

    and before anybody jumps on this bandwagon, let's remember that handwriting analysis is only a little more authoritative than phrenology or astrology

    --
    Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
  16. Hitting the Nail on the Head ! by bushboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hey, the poor guy has been hammered left right and center for years - can you blame him for being a bit troubled !

    I bet he draws penguins and apples and little tiny bugs and all sorts of odd things when he's bored !

    --
    A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
    1. Re:Hitting the Nail on the Head ! by Sparr0 · · Score: 1

      ok, i got 2/3... who are the little tiny bugs for?

    2. Re:Hitting the Nail on the Head ! by Xentor · · Score: 3, Funny

      They're not bugs. They're undocumented features

      --
      "The amount of intelligence on this planet is a constant. The population is growing." -Cole's Axiom
    3. Re:Hitting the Nail on the Head ! by Psmylie · · Score: 1
      " who are the little tiny bugs for?"

      I'm guessing... Microsoft?

      --

      psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo

    4. Re:Hitting the Nail on the Head ! by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      im guessing here but:

      if you think of mac you think of apples
      if you think of linux you think of penguins
      if you think of windows you think of bugs

      not true actually, when i think of windows i get frustrated at how caged in i feel when im forced to use it

    5. Re:Hitting the Nail on the Head ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not true actually, when i think of windows i get frustrated at how caged in i feel when im forced to use it

      Caged in? From a freaking operating system? On a freaking computer? No wonder you are a virgin. Retard.

  17. Consistent by gmuslera · · Score: 1

    He was the head of Microsoft, and now seems to be the hand too. Maybe the analysis showed that he is unsafe too.

  18. See for yourself by SYFer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a look at the actual doodle .

    --
    "...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
    1. Re:See for yourself by Runny · · Score: 1

      I don't buy it. If it were Billy's doodling, it would've been done on a Tablet PC. Or is this a sign that he doesn't believe in Tablet PC's??! Conspiracy theorists, please investigate.

    2. Re:See for yourself by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      That looks just like our CFO's last re-org presentation, combined with an AKC Canine Agility competition judging worksheet. The proximity of "taxes" and "real world" just about sum it up, though.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    3. Re:See for yourself by sapped · · Score: 1

      I don't care which one of them wrote it. The quality of the handwriting makes me feel better about mine though.

      Seriously, my handwriting skills have dropped to almost pre-school levels due to non-use. I type everything these days.

    4. Re:See for yourself by javatips · · Score: 1

      This was the only Tablet PC that Gates could rely on. This particular implementation never failed him.

      But as with any Microsoft OS, access to the data is wide open.

    5. Re:See for yourself by Ithika · · Score: 1

      I assumed it would be Blair's the first time round too... why would Gates be talking about MSPs (Members of Scottish Parliament)?

    6. Re:See for yourself by Gordonjcp · · Score: 1

      Because he may not be familiar with the term, and want to look it up when he's finished in the meeting?

    7. Re:See for yourself by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Well, my handwriting was so bad that when I got into highschool my old man insisted that I take a typewriting course. This was in those long-forgotten days when our library had a PC-XT and the computer lab had seven Apple 2s, so I learned how to type on those awesome old IBM Selectric typewriters (still the best goddamn feeling keyboard ever invented, would give a lot for somebody to make a computer keyboard that felt like that). If we goofed off, the teacher would make us type on an old manual, and grade us on how good our touch typing was!

      After that, I never wrote again. I can sign my name, and that's as far as it goes. If I'm writing, it's just printing now. I tried a couple of years ago to make a Z and couldn't even remember how to do it.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    8. Re:See for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Ditto. My handwriting sucks.

      Looks like he was writing down some playstation cheat codes too.

    9. Re: see for yourself by ruzel · · Score: 1

      My analysis: it looks like the handwriting of someone who types a lot.

    10. Re:See for yourself by quanticle · · Score: 1

      Maybe he was worried about XP Tablet PC edition crashing on him like XP Media Center did during E3, and, of course, Windows 98 famously crashing during the widely publicized tech. demo.

      After you get burned 3 times, it sorta starts to sting, y'know...

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    11. Re:See for yourself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, c'mon! The guy is *obviously* playing Bejeweled on a piece of paper! DUH!

    12. Re:See for yourself by Gob+Gob · · Score: 1

      For myself I see the diagramtic interpretation of breaking down a project into modules which can be investigated and solved.

      There are a few elements of tight rope balance and balance in general. The former being a path A->B the latter being a balance.

      Additionally there are seperate shapes for phyisical and virtual (orgainsational) groups.

      The hard drawn triangle on one side indicates an absolute spectra pushing from different directions leading to a resolution; it is goal orientated.

      The triangle / dimond at the top of the page is the doubt meaning == the solution, the current absolute unknown.

      The X shaped device is the "idea", this is a doodle.

  19. Doodles is Stuff That Matters?!? by xmas2003 · · Score: 0

    Must be a slow news day ...

    --
    Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
    1. Re:Doodles is Stuff That Matters?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any time something is slightly anti-Bill-Gates, it's "News for Slashdot. Stuff that gets in the hits and gets us filthy rich!".

  20. Wow by wondermog · · Score: 1, Informative

    Slashdot posts the original story the same day that FARK runs the retraction. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1463867, 00.html

    --
    freeminimacs, just becau
  21. Not unstable.. bored! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unstable?
    Bored, more likely.

    I mean.. you're at a table next to Bono and Blair.
    Blair goes off with his "Praise Bush!" speach, after which Bono throttles the poor sod.

    While yes, it would probably be quite entertaining - one can only take so much violence before getting bored.

    1. Re:Not unstable.. bored! by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      violence with those three boring?

      wtf?

      I'd go sit with them and join in.

  22. How reliable are those interpretations? by bogado · · Score: 0, Redundant

    In what science is those concluisions take, this seems "too mistical" for me. You write this way then you're crazy, you write that way "then you must be normal". Many things influence your handwriting.

    My handwrite is so ugly and uneven that I could bet this kind of analisys would turn out that I should not be trusted, so beware.... :-D muahahahhahah

    --
    []'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins

    ^[:wq

    1. Re:How reliable are those interpretations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think a pen influences handwriting more than anything. Give me a rolling writer and my handwriting is nice. A ball point and it's not.

    2. Re:How reliable are those interpretations? by bogado · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, but I bet you wouldn't get as well in portuguese also. So we make it even, ok.

      --
      []'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins

      ^[:wq

    3. Re:How reliable are those interpretations? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I haven't the foggiest idea what you mean.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  23. Kaal Alexander Rosser.... by dragin33 · · Score: 0

    Get a job.

  24. Mmm by rbarreira · · Score: 1

    The "struggling to concentrate" part probably just means that Blair's conference was being really boring, I guess...

    --

    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  25. Not surprising. by Nosf3ratu · · Score: 0
    Honestly, is anyone surprised that this man is "unstable"?

    More like "certifiably insane", if you ask me.

    --
    The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori
  26. horoscope says... by cwebb1977 · · Score: 0

    it's a bad day for work, so I'll stay home, I trust both horoscopes and handwriting analysis'

    --
    www.weberseite.at
  27. Want to see the doodle? by sebFlyte · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you want to see the doodle in full, you can here.

    --
    "Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend." - Emil Michel Cioran
    1. Re:Want to see the doodle? by savagedome · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually, George Bush's doodle was also found. You can see it here

  28. I thought Sonny Bono was dead? by tbase · · Score: 0

    Didn't he die in a skiing accident?

    oh wait...

    --

    666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
    1. Re:I thought Sonny Bono was dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And, even more offtopic...

      Sonny Bono's presence would've at least made sense had he been alive. What the hell was Bono doing at an economic summit?

    2. Re:I thought Sonny Bono was dead? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using his powers for Kim Jung-Il now that Alex Baldwin is dead?

    3. Re:I thought Sonny Bono was dead? by tbase · · Score: 1

      Alex Baldwin is dead? Does Alec know?

      --

      666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
  29. Bear in mind... by gowen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most of those assessments were made when the "graphologists" in question were under the belief the doodle was Blair's. So we should withhold judgement until we have second opinions from the Phrenologists, Dowsers and any other Pseudo-Scientific Charlatans who feel like chipping in with their worthless, substance less opinions...

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
    1. Re:Bear in mind... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, your opinion is of such incredible worth and substance! Amazing, I bet your shit doesn't stink at all!

    2. Re:Bear in mind... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Run along, little boy.

    3. Re:Bear in mind... by gutbucket · · Score: 1

      Most of those assessments were made when the "graphologists" in question were under the belief the doodle was Blair's.


      Actually, not. The graphologist was working on assessing the doodler. The newspapers are the ones who focused on the the PM. The graphologist was hired to speak to the handwriting only. I believe she was told that it was Tony Blair who did the writing, but she didn't focus on that...

      The graphologist in question was interviewed on BBC radio this AM. I heard it on my commute. She said that she did not assess based on the name, but strictly on the handwriting. And she said that her analysis applies to 'whomever wrote the notes'. It's the newspapers that focused on Blair. It's the graphologist who focused on the handwriting.

      --
      Just do what you do best
      Arnold "Red" Auerbach.
    4. Re:Bear in mind... by gowen · · Score: 1
      I believe she was told that it was Tony Blair who did the writing, but she didn't focus on that
      Right. And those TV psychics, they're actually contacting the dead, as opposed to cold reading the audience.
      --
      Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  30. 'Scuse me by AtariAmarok · · Score: 1

    Excuse me while I go consult the "I Ching" to find out whether Microsoft intends to embed Internet Explorer in "Office 2007".

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  31. Handwriting Analysis.... by big-giant-head · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Right up there with reading tea leaves and goat entrails.

    Now analysis to verify for a court that this is the defendants handwriting yes or no,for example is a science.

    Tying some Psychological profile to someone's doodle is a joke......

    --

    So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
    1. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by bitswapper · · Score: 1

      Right up there with reading tea leaves and goat entrails.

      Aren't those techniques reserved for windows sysadmins?

    2. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by dr_dank · · Score: 1

      Right up there with reading tea leaves and goat entrails.

      All fine bathroom reading materials to be sure.

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    3. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by operagost · · Score: 1

      No, that's how managers set project timelines.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    4. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by pvc · · Score: 1

      Just a small comment for those who haven't come across graphology before: try it.

      Seriously, just grab a book on it and have a play. Don't take it too seriously but give it a whirl; it's surprisingly interesting. There's more information there than you'd think.

      Just don't take a small amount of text/doodlings and extrapolate a huge character profile from it; only journalists do that :)

      pvc

    5. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by jc42 · · Score: 1

      So has anyone yet published the followup article that compares their doodles with their horoscopes?

      Anyone know their birthdays?

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    6. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by gstoddart · · Score: 1
      Tying some Psychological profile to someone's doodle is a joke......


      Especially if you think you're doing an analysis on Tony Blair but you're using Bill Gate's handwriting to do it.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Right up there with reading tea leaves and goat entrails.

      Reading Gates' entrails would be very accurate.

    8. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by kaustik · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I agree. People that believe in this silliness are the same type of quacks that post Bible verses in their .sig...

    9. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've tried it. It's astrological nonsense.

      "You're a strong and bold character. You enjoy masturbation in private and like to drink cokes occasionally."

      Gee, why does that sound like everyone I know?

    10. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by nEoN+nOoDlE · · Score: 1

      How can you compare handwriting analysis to tea leaves and goat entrails? One is a direct translation of the thoughts from someone's mind and the other is complete randomness. Why are signatures so unique and used as a de-facto identifier if handwriting and doodling has no psychological bearing.

      Are these results accurate? I don't know and they might very well have been tainted by knowledge of who they were trying to "read," but that doesn't mean that all handwriting analysis is off base.

      --
      Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
    11. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by ifwm · · Score: 1

      "Why are signatures so unique and used as a de-facto identifier if handwriting and doodling has no psychological bearing."

      Because whether they are reproducible (signatures for identification) is completely unrelated to what they say about personality.

      Mostly because they're bunk when it comes to predicting personality traits. And yes, I am an expert, and I have read reams of research.

      Lastly, they are NOT accurate at all. Graphology is completely useless for determining personality traits. Vague generalizations are possible, by using the same con-artistry that has kept psychics and astrologers in business.

    12. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by Moderatbastard · · Score: 0
      Tying some Psychological profile to someone's doodle is a joke......
      Am I the only one who read that as "someone's doodoo"?
      --
      1/3 of jokes get modded OT. If you get the joke, mod 1 in 3 insightful/interesting/underrated to restore karma balance.
    13. Re:Handwriting Analysis.... by Threni · · Score: 1

      > Just don't take a small amount of text/doodlings and extrapolate a huge
      > character profile from it; only journalists do that :)

      And graphologists.

  32. Him2? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Blair left his doodles behind for analysis, too. And so we can conclude from the absence of Bono's doodles, and consequent lack of analysis, that Bono is paranoid, justifiably.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Him2? by miseryinmotion · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bono happens to draw comic versions of himself and The Edge fighting evil across the galaxy, and always takes them home to ink and color.

    2. Re:Him2? by Dynedain · · Score: 1

      Actually the article is about how the the British press thought the doodles were Blair's and provided an analysis that fit their editorializing. Subsequently it has been revealed that they were actually Gates' doodles.

      --
      I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
    3. Re:Him2? by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      It's a joke, son - we're spluttering about a series of articles about doodles.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

    4. Re:Him2? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jokes are funny. That wasn't funny. Ergo, not a joke. Why don't you work on it and come back tomorrow to try again.

    5. Re:Him2? by jwdb · · Score: 1

      Actually, if you read the article you'lle notice that those are Bill's doodles. The press, in their rush to roast Blair, mistook the notes for his and published some not-too-flattering articles about their prime minister. Now it's Blair's turn to sit back and laugh while the press tries to take back their "analysis" of the doodles.

      Jw

  33. WTF?!?! by Bronz · · Score: 1


    Seriously. WTF. It's like you plug in "Bill Gates" into Google ... hit I'm feeling lucky ... and you got youself a headline.

  34. "objective" by jxyama · · Score: 1
    i usually don't believe much in psychological analysis like this because they are usually very, very subjective, a lot of "conclusions" heavily biased by prior knowledge.

    the fact who "analysts" thought was the source of writing turned out to be incorrect makes it pretty interesting. :)

    1. Re:"objective" by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Once, back in high school, I had some friends who got into handwriting analysis. They asked me for some samples, so the next day I took along some things I'd recently written and gave a page to each. Then I somehow managed to get them together to tell me all about myself.

      The fun part was how different they all were. After a while, they got really confused, and tried to figure out how each other had gone so wrong. This led to comparing the handwriting samples. And that led to mass confusion.

      It took them a while to get past the accusations ("You didn't write all of those, did you?"), and finally the truth came out. I'd been studying handwriting myself, but I'd been doing it in the sense of learning scripts (fonts for you recent techie types who don't understand the difference ;-). By that time, I was quite comfortable using at least a half dozen different scripts, and I routinely varied the script that I was using to keep myself in practice with all of them.

      A lot of the things they were picking up as psychological were in fact features of the particular script that I was using when I wrote the page. Thus Italic defaults to more of a slant and more oval loops than American cursive. Each script uses different kinds of connectors. Risers and descenders vary between scripts. And, rather than realizing that these were features of the script, they were interpreted as having some phychological meaning.

      The real fun was wtching them try hard not to understand this. They "knew" that these things were all psychological and controlled by tthe subconscious. They couldn't accept the idea that such things could be conscious, artistic choices that could be changed in an instant.

      Not that I would accuse Blair or Gates of making conscious, artistic choices ...

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  35. Wake me... by revision1_1 · · Score: 1

    ...when someone has read the bumps on his head.

    1. Re:Wake me... by the_2nd_coming · · Score: 1

      dude... this is a real science.

      --



      I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
  36. But how did they... by tod_miller · · Score: 4, Funny

    How did they crack the DRM on the doodles so they they could be analysed outside of Media Player?

    And why didn't the paper contain a little ticker that showed the time and date and author of the doodle?

    Anyone have a link the torrent? Oh man, I feel strange... it must be the /. effect.

    Did the doodles point to any new ideas in windows? Or was one of the doodles a strange on-flying bird like creature being beaten to death by office stationary (paperclips)

    Who knows? :-) Or was it a monkey screaming 'oooh ooh develoopers! developers developers! aaaargh!'

    --
    #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
  37. mostly bunk by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Handwriting analysis is probably mostly bunk. There are some personality characteristics that may show up in some cases, but anybody claiming detailed personality analysis from handwriting alone is full of crap.

  38. BFS by MerryGoByeBye · · Score: 1

    This should come as no suprise to anyone who is familiar with broadcast interviews and recorded seminars given by this man. The barely contained rage and insecurity evident in his body english as well as his face and eyes during moments like those infamous Windows crashes in the middle of presentations is telling. I'd bet my left tootsie some serious headrolling occured after those little booboos. He is certainly a vain and troubled man.

    Wouldn't you be, though, if you were smart enough to know that your codehouse creates the most derided, the most reviled, the most attacked products in the world; to be have amassed the world's biggest fortune selling stuff to people that seem to garner nothing but resentment and to feel (perhaps rightly) the paranoia that everyone is out to get you?

    The surprise here isn't that he's unstable but rather that we haven't yet found the bodies.

  39. The real scoop by paranode · · Score: 5, Insightful
    For those of you who didn't bother to look at TFA:

    A spokesman said: "Following the press conference given by the prime minister, Bill Gates and Bono in Davos on Thursday, a number of newspapers printed stories claiming that a page of notes and doodles left behind on the platform belonged to Tony Blair, and provided an insight into the mind of the prime minister.

    "They were in fact doodles made by Bill Gates.

    "We look forward with amusement to explanations by a variety of psychologists and graphologists of how various characteristics ascribed to the prime minister on the basis of the doodles, such as 'struggling to concentrate', 'not a natural leader', 'struggling to keep control of a confusing world' and 'an unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure', equally apply to Mr Gates.

    "We are astonished that no-one who ran the story thought to ask No 10 if the doodles were in fact Mr Blair's, particularly as it was obvious to anyone the handwriting was totally different."

    In other words, graphology is BS and the people who analyzed it already had a preconceived notion about whose it was and made the appropriate BS analyses.

    1. Re:The real scoop by mrseigen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm leaning towards "Really fucking bored". That's where all of my doodles come from.

    2. Re:The real scoop by eugene+ts+wong · · Score: 5, Insightful

      These remind me of lie detector tests. It's unfortunate that these ideas are given any credibility.

    3. Re:The real scoop by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > These remind me of lie detector tests. It's
      > unfortunate that these ideas are given any
      > credibility.

      Agreed. Polygraphs are so pathetically unreliable, but unfortunately if you refuse to take one (which I would seriously consider if I was charged with a serious crime) then somehow that makes you guilty; the classic "If you're innocent, you've got nothing to fear." Even the cops know that lie detectors are crapola, but it's a useful tool to smoke out a true believer who thinks the freakin' things can read minds.

      People seem to give a lot of credence to this pseudoscience, though to my mind this sort of handwriting analysis is no better than phrenology and astrology.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:The real scoop by AviLazar · · Score: 1

      Actually I do not think the process is that flawed - it is actually pretty good. For example a person who writes on a plain sheet (non-lined) paper who tends to have the writing arc up is assumed to be more optomistic, while someone whose writing arcs down is assumed to be more pessimistic.


      Now the press assumed the writing belonged to Blair. So the researchers compared the writing to his psyche record. Since the writing did NOT belong to Blair, it obviously gave incorrect data. Now that they know who it belongs to, the data might change. It might go from "unstable" to "creative" or it might stay the same.

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    5. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Paraphrase of parent post's point: "Bob writes arc-up, but he's a bubbly nutjob, so we'll say arc-up means optimistic. But John writes arc-up too, and he's a depressed freak, so we'll say arc-up means pessimistic."

      That's the most retarded post I've seen on Slashdot in quite some time. You don't look at the person and make the handwriting justify the analysis. You look at the handwriting, make an analysis of the kind of person who probably wrote it, then compare it to the writer.

      In this case they fucked up majorly. They assumed the writing belonged to Blair, so they made shit up based on their existing bias to him. They were trying to use "experts" to pin negative personality traits on him, and it fucking backfired.

    6. Re:The real scoop by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I hope this isn't getting too offtopic, but I remember that one of the big problems with polygraphs was the need for baseline values to determine truth and lying. Apart from the fact that you would respond differently when deliberately telling a lie because it is part of the procedure and when telling a lie to deceive, the baseline questions usually show the prejudices of the interrogator. For example, an interrogator will often ask "have you ever smoked before?" or "have you ever tried marijuana?" assuming, of course, that everyone has tried these. Therefore, if you say no, they assume that your response is the baseline for lying since obviously anyone who says they haven't is lying. And it is an unfalsifiable position.

      The human race would be so funny if they weren't so dangerous.

    7. Re:The real scoop by kannibal_klown · · Score: 3, Informative

      Process is one thing, but the people interpretting are another.

      I was taking a law / ethics class back in college (simple class, not the advanced stuff) and we went over a case that kind of freaked some of us out. It was about a man falsely imprisoned in Texas.

      The guy was brought in on bad evidence and testimony. That was bad enough, particularly the "witness" who never actually saw anything.

      While waiting for trial, the police sent in a psychologist. They didn't even inform the guy what was going on, they said they had to "check" something. So, they had him draw a picture, sign his name, try to draw a perfect circle and that was it.

      The trial comes, and the psychologist said he examined the defendant and based on his handwriting and drawings he was one of the most vile killers he'd ever seen. The shrink went on and on, and went on to pat himself on the back for helping catch such a dangerous killer..

      Remember, this was just from a circle, his name, and a picture of a house (or something similar) all done within like 5 minutes. This had nothing to do with the evidence, because there was no note or anything, it was supposedly a crime of opportunity.

      Years later, the real killer came forward. After re-investigating, they found the witness was a screwball AND didn't see anything, and a lot of other stuff that had gone wrong. They eventually let him go with no pay or anything. Meanwhile, the guy had spent like a decade in jail.

      You have to wonder about these supposed shrinks that analyze handwiriting and what-not. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but in this case I think a bunch of them were quacks that just wanted their name in teh paper.

    8. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea, I am sure that 10 graphologists, if given no preconcieved notions about the subject, would give you 10 different answers. Graphology is too subjective to be taken seriously.

    9. Re:The real scoop by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My understanding is that the problems with polygraphs are sufficiently numerous that they should be regarded as little more than mysticism. Cops use the excuse that they can feel out potential suspects, and providing that the potential suspects believe the test to be accurate, then I guess it may be just another tool like BSing a suspect about evidence, witnesses, etc. In other words, it's just a parlor trick to make a suspect screw up. So far as I'm aware no court in the US, Canada or Europe even allows polygraph "evidence" to be admitted.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    10. Re:The real scoop by MirthScout · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You don't need to refuse to take a polygraph test.

      Always agree to take it. They will want you to sign a release form (they have no liability, blah, blah). Refuse to sign the release form. They will decide not to administer the polygraph test. Remind them that you are agreeing to take the polygraph test and it is they that are choosing not to administer it.

      I did this with an employer many years ago. It was very funny.

    11. Re:The real scoop by DenDave · · Score: 1

      perhaps.. but perhaps we should get a soundbite...

      --
      -if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
    12. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, I never have smoked before, or tried marijuana (or any other drug that my doctor did not prescribe for a medical condition). Really. So... what would happen if I were to take a lie detector test?

    13. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      In other words, graphology is BS and the people who analyzed it already had a preconceived notion about whose it was and made the appropriate BS analyses.

      Well, at least we can still count on phrenology. ;-)

    14. Re:The real scoop by Dan+Ost · · Score: 2

      What does the release form cover?

      --

      *sigh* back to work...
    15. Re: The real scoop by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1


      > Years later, the real killer came forward. After re-investigating, they found the witness was a screwball AND didn't see anything, and a lot of other stuff that had gone wrong. They eventually let him go with no pay or anything. Meanwhile, the guy had spent like a decade in jail.

      And that's why I'm against the death penalty. I do feel like certain crimes merit it, but I don't think our "justice" system bats very high at getting the correct culprit.

      > You have to wonder about these supposed shrinks that analyze handwiriting and what-not. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but in this case I think a bunch of them were quacks that just wanted their name in teh paper.

      I wouldn't trust any paid expert witness, due to the glaring risk of conflict of interest.

      If a case needs an expert, let the cour subpoena someone with the relevant expertise, just like they do ordinary witnesses.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    16. Re:The real scoop by fraggirl13 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      People seem to give a lot of credence to this pseudoscience, though to my mind this sort of handwriting analysis is no better than phrenology and astrology.

      I once met a guy that was a handwriting analyst. He said he could tell my personality by how I write. Everything he said was very vague and could be applied to anyone. Some of it wasn't even true. He also said that if I cross my t's higher I would be happier. Still waiting for that one to work.

      --
      But, this one goes to 11.
    17. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous+Coed · · Score: 2, Informative

      I can't speak for Canada, Europe, or anywhere else, but in the United States, polygraphs are (sadly) admissable in most jurisdictions at the discretion of the judge. Of course, the other side can challenge the admission of a polygraph for various causes.

    18. Re:The real scoop by MirthScout · · Score: 5, Informative

      It was a long time ago so I can't quote it. As I recall, he release form I saw said that they could use the information in any way they deemed apropriate. That they would not disclose information from the test to anyone unless they determined the other party should have the information (basically that they could give the info to anyone they wanted). That they were not laible for any harm to me or my reputation.

      It was a page and a half saying they could do anything they wanted and I couldn't hold them liable.

      No way I'd sign that.

      The emplayer was a retailer you'd find a majority of malls in the US.

      To be fair, the man that was there to administer the polygraph was the president of his own company contracted by the retailer. He said the retailer's liability waiver was more extreme than most and showed me the standard one he uses for other clients. It still wasn't something I'd sign given how unreliable and subjective polygraphs are.

      He then asked if he could do a security interview. He explained that to be asking all the same questions but without the polygraph machine. I agreed to whichever he wanted to do. :)

    19. Re:The real scoop by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      What a pity. Perhaps if they wish to invoke pseudo-science, I can simply say that a demon did the dirty work and made it look like me. I mean, it certainly isn't too much further into the realm of fantasy than claiming polygraphs can determine lying with anything approaching meaningful accuracy.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    20. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      You are correct that one of the requirements to establish a baseline is that the person being examined must respond with known lies and known truths. When I take my periodic polygraphs for my security clearance, the examiner asks me to pick a number between one and ten, then asks me "Is your number one?", "Is your number two?", etc. through 10, and I respond "No" each time. That establishes what my "lies" and "truths" look like on that particular exam.

      However, polygraphers admit that some people can lie convincingly on polygraphs, while others (especially those who get nervous) can't give reliable results on even truthful statements. At best, a polygraph examination is one of many possible indicators, and should never be relied on in isolation.

      For example, if classified material disappeared from my office just before I deposited a million dollars in my bank account, I would be a suspect, even if I passed my polygraph. Likewise, failing a polygraph would not land me in prison. Unfortunately, too many people place absolute faith in polygraphs, so my clearance would probably not be renewed if I failed the exam.

    21. Re:The real scoop by learn+fast · · Score: 1

      Graphology is not BS. There are still studies on it published regularly.

      The reason it is disdained by some scientists and psychologists is not that it is totally invalid, but that it isn't as valid as other kinds of personality tests that are just as easy to administer. Second, it is often easily distorted by those who don't know what they're talking about see it as a totally subjective interpretive test as you might "read the tea leaves", rather than looking for empirically verified correlates.

    22. Re:The real scoop by bokudesune · · Score: 1

      I've always thought that corrective phrenology would be useful.
      Nothing can't be solved by hitting someone on the head with a hammer.

      Jyaa, ne.

    23. Re:The real scoop by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Sounds a lot like horoscopes. Keep it vague and tell them a little of what they want to hear.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    24. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ummmm..no there not.

    25. Re:The real scoop by HankB · · Score: 1
      ... or "have you ever tried marijuana?" assuming, of course, that everyone has tried these. Therefore, if you say no, they assume that your response is the baseline for lying since obviously anyone who says they haven't is lying.
      And what if you say yes? Maybe they conclude you're not capable of lying. ;)
    26. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was an episode of the TV show Homicide where Munch and his partner convinced a particularly dumb teenager that a copy machine with the top left open was a next-generation polygraph.

    27. Re:The real scoop by binarybum · · Score: 1

      So... what would happen if I were to take a lie detector test?

      hair would grow on the palms of your hands, you would support the terrorists, you would become a hippie, you'd never amount to anything, you suck chubs for cash, and you'd turn to Satan.

      Polygraphs and drugs are bad, mmmmmkay.

      --
      ôó
    28. Re:The real scoop by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

      Maybe that explains a few things about the American legal system. Perhaps they should try divination by looking at tea-leaves or animals' entrails instead; it might be a bit more reliable.

    29. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      They don't do that actually, I've taken one before. You will spend a fair amount of time just talking with your examiner, this is an important step, it allows them to get a grasp on your as a person. The final report of the test will include the examiners opinion of the results, more weight is (supposedly) given to the examiners report than the machine's results. You and the examiner will then agree on a set of questions you will be asked beforehand, it will include 3-4 questions regarding what you're accused of, and general questions as well. You will agree on what your answers should be before the test is started. This way the examiner knows that when he sees a reaction from the baseline, you are reacting to the answer you give and (potentially) lying. Once a list is decided on, several runs are taken asking the questions in a different order each time. The results of the multiple runs are compared until a majority agree. In my case three runs were done, all with consistant results. I was shown the results of mine, and even I could tell that the detector had found I had a huge response to three particular questions, the ones most pertinent to what I'd been accused of.

      The real gotcha though is what they don't/won't tell you until afterwards. Even if you're 100% innocent, and know you're innocent, the sheer fact that you've been accused of something is enough to trigger a huge response when asked about it. So basically you can come across as lying even when you know you're innocent because you're traumatized simply from the accusations.

      In my case the person evaluating me agreed that the results were due to my reacting to the accusations, not any guilt, and this went into the report. However the fact remains that the damned machine said I was lying. From my experiences I can recommend 100% that no one ever take a polygraph. If you'll lose your job for refusing, so be it, you're just as likely to end up losing it because of false positives anyway. Might as well lose it on principle than end up losing it because a machine says you're guilty of something you're not.

      Posted as AC for fairly obvious reasons I would think. This isn't something I want linked back to me, it was a very traumatic experience all around and I still have nightmares about it years later. (Not just the polygraph, the whole ordeal.)

    30. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous+Coed · · Score: 1

      Polygraphs are generally by default assumed to be conducted under less than scientific conditions, and so typically polygraphs are not admissable in most cases. However, as I said, they can be at the discretion of the judge involved. Presumably if a judge did that erroneously or on a whim it would be grounds for an appeal.

    31. Re:The real scoop by mr100percent · · Score: 1

      In real life, a bunch of cops at some precinct used a metal colander with a wire to a photocopier to fool some crook into confessing. They told him it was a lie detector, and every time he denied the crime, they pushed "copy" where it printed out a page saying "He's lying." Eventually, he broke down and confessed.

    32. Re:The real scoop by will_die · · Score: 1
    33. Re:The real scoop by satans_advocate · · Score: 1

      Polygraphs are so pathetically unreliable,

      Not true. Polygraphs are extremely reliable, they're just not a very good indicator of whether or not someone is lying.

      However, one thing that Polygraph is extremely reliable at is measuring the body's relative degree of comfort. Some people feel uncomfortable lying, but most people are uncomfortable being interviewed by people with a vested interest in taking away their liberty.

      Which is why there is a known way of beating Polygraph tests. Just feel comfortable about everything you do (including lying).

    34. Re:The real scoop by AviLazar · · Score: 1

      It sounds, from your example, that the person was setup.

      That couldn't be it though...I think you guys are right - the psychology field is wrong.

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
    35. Re:The real scoop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All testimony gotten out of a lie detector is inadmisible in a courtroom. At least in the United States.

    36. Re:The real scoop by eugene+ts+wong · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the advice. As obvious as your idea is, I would have never thought of it.

  40. Bill's future. by adam31 · · Score: 4, Funny
    I saw Bill get a tarot card reading in Las Vegas a while back.

    I remember one card had a Skull...
    and the other had a Penguin.

    1. Re:Bill's future. by strikehosting · · Score: 1

      What? no devils?

    2. Re:Bill's future. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So the proper interpretation would then be Windows is going to kill Linux?

    3. Re:Bill's future. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ant the third card was the most scary: It was blue...

  41. The real story by Synn · · Score: 1

    Apparently it was a conference attended by Tony Blair(PM of Britain) and Bill Gates. The press picked up the doodle thinking it was Tony Blair and had psy guys analyze it and come up with the "not a leader", "mentally unfocused" and so on analysis.

    Then after publishing all that they found out it was Bill Gates' doodles. He may not be mentally focused or a leader, but he just happens to be the wealthiest man in the world.

  42. I wish they had more. by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    So Gates drew some doodles on a piece of paper. They though it was blares analysided it and figured that he was not a good leader then found out it was Gates. Ok so what do these doodles consist of. A picture of him ripping apart a penguin. Or just pritty flowers everywhere, or just abstract lines that may loosly resemble something. There isn't much insite in saying hey our sciencetist think that Gates is unstable because of his doodles, what about the doodles proove this?

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  43. Samples of doodles by Foofoobar · · Score: 0

    1. 'Linus is a big poopy head.'
    2. Drawings of cocks and balls spurting little Microsoft logos
    3. Bill's plan to patent the physics behind the time-space continuum.

    --
    This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
  44. 2 interpretations by 91degrees · · Score: 1

    Either Bill G suffers from all of the characteristics that are currently being attributed to Tony Blair in the press.

    Or handwriting analysis is a load of baloney.

    Even if none of them was able to recognise it was a fake, you would have thought that they might at least have mentioned an obsessive streak, or social awkwardness, or the other typical geek attributes that Bill certainly has .

  45. Who's handwriting? by CypherXero · · Score: 1

    Even after reading the article and another article provided by a slashdot member, I can't seem to understand WHO's handwriting we're talking about, Blair or Gates???

    1. Re:Who's handwriting? by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      Gates'. It was initially thought to be Blair's, because of the desk on which it was found. The summary does say "The Gates Foundation has confirmed the doodle was left there by Bill Gates."

  46. Does anyone dare... by travdaddy · · Score: 1

    Does anyone dare analyze RMS's handwriting?

    --
    Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
    1. Re:Does anyone dare... by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      RMS doesn't hand write anything... he types everything into emacs!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  47. Analysis was of Blair by BlueThunderArmy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The "unstable" and "unfit to lead" assessments were made when the doodle was assumed to have been made by Tony Blair. While you would think that the same conclusions would be drawn regardless of the identity of the scribbler, there is speculation that the original conclusions were politically motivated.

    1. Re:Analysis was of Blair by loraksus · · Score: 1

      Adding to your post, this is the British media, who aren't known for their journalistic integrity.

      --
      1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcfv gbhnjmk,l.;/
    2. Re:Analysis was of Blair by BlueThunderArmy · · Score: 1

      Right, because ours is so much better ;) Fair AND balanced, right?

    3. Re:Analysis was of Blair by loraksus · · Score: 1

      I forget who said it, but looking through a british newspaper is like a true / false test. "That's true, that's false"

      --
      1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcfv gbhnjmk,l.;/
  48. Is Nothing Sacred? by blueZhift · · Score: 1

    Geez, is nothing sacred? I suppose next we'll be reading about a psychochemical analysis of Mr. Gates based on stool residue he may have left behind in the public loo. Heh, I wish this were just a joke, but I've seem some nanotech that might just make that sort of thing feasible in the future...

  49. I wonder by totipotentsoul · · Score: 0

    I wonder how many handwriting analysis like this would find that the person was totally sane and untroubled despite the fact that I can't imagine that would provide much publicity or sell many papers?

    --
    The best posts are both flamebait and informative.
  50. Goalpost by dapyx · · Score: 1

    We can clearly see a goalpost in the doodle... Makes me think if it wasn't Blair after all.

    --
    I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
  51. Slashdot? by Gollum2001 · · Score: 1

    I mean, this is supposed to be "Stuff that matters"?

    --
    "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein.
    1. Re:Slashdot? by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      come on, you dont come to slashdot to find anything worth reading any more do you?

    2. Re:Slashdot? by Gollum2001 · · Score: 1

      ahhh... the good old times...

      --
      "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein.
  52. Or unstable country... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Considering they were actually operating under the assumption it was Tony Blair when they said all of these BS things about him being under stress, not being a natural leader, failure to keep control of a struggling world, etc.

  53. In my expert analysis... by Anita+Coney · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From reviewing the doodle, it's is my expert opinion that Bill Gates has the doodling skill of my five year old son!

    --
    If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
    1. Re:In my expert analysis... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no clearly your son has the doodeling skils of a multi bilioniar

  54. Next on Slashdot by the_skywise · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bill Gates' psychological analysis using the science of Numerology, his tea leaves from his last sushi dinner and a phrenologic reading of his cranium.

  55. Sorry /.ers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    he's still the richest man in the world and you sorry losers are still poor nerds.

  56. Struggling to concentrate by bitswapper · · Score: 1

    Sounds like that applies to handwriting analysts as well...

  57. What the note said.... by astebbin · · Score: 1

    "Note to self: no more photo shoots for Teen Beat magazine; must attempt to keep what shreds of dignity I've got left..."

  58. Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *Insert punch line here*

    1. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, that's 15 minutes of your life that you'll never get back.

    2. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      and it hurt

    3. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar by alien-alien · · Score: 1

      ... everyone else managed to duck.

    4. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and the bartender says "What is this, some kind of joke?"

    5. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That took you 15 minutes to read? No wonder you're bothered by the lost time.

      GrimRC

  59. This is juvenile by CaptainZapp · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Look, I like a good microsoft bashing, just as most of my fellow slashdooters, but don't you think that this is a very cheap shot?

    No doubt that Microsoft has some shady business tactics. There's no question that they provide shoddy products from a security perspective and then push responsibility for their goofs to on user community. There's the issue ,of corse, that they hound free software by the cheapest pr tricks in the book and the system Microsoft sucks shit! Well, hell! There's a lot of valid complaints when it comes to chastising Microsoft as a corporation

    I really don't want to ideolize Mr. Gates and he is often guilty of wrong speak; willingly or out of ignorance.

    But attempting a character analyses from a doodle he left at a conference (which potentially was boring) is just plain juvenile.

    Hold your ammunition for the real issues, slashdot, and retain your credibility in the bargain...

    --
    ich bin der musikant

    mit taschenrechner in der hand

    kraftwerk

    1. Re:This is juvenile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but don't you think that this is a very cheap shot?

      Add to that: it started out as a cheap shot at Tony Blair by the UK press. Apparently they were so rabid to get this story out they didn't think to ask whose doodles they were.

    2. Re:This is juvenile by Cyn · · Score: 1

      You'd think he would bust out a nice pocketpc and play bejeweled if he's bored. Maybe doodle in it, either in a paint program or one of the various notes programs.

      Maybe he didn't have spare batteries :)

      --
      cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
    3. Re:This is juvenile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Hold your ammunition for the real issues, slashdot, and retain your credibility in the bargain..."

      You can't retain until you obtain.

    4. Re:This is juvenile by pdabbadabba · · Score: 1

      Crediblity? Retain? :)

    5. Re:This is juvenile by Omnifarious · · Score: 1

      I rather agree. It would've been better had they used the 'Foot' icon. :-)

    6. Re:This is juvenile by caerwyn · · Score: 1

      Are you implying that Slashdot commentary had credibility to begin with?

      --
      The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
    7. Re:This is juvenile by spacefrog · · Score: 1

      Slashdot has a speck of credibility on anything regarding Mr. Gates?

      Wow, that's news to me, and I've been coming here for over five years.

      The 'borg' graphic was my first clue that 'credibility' was not one of their goals.

    8. Re:This is juvenile by TheDefenistrator · · Score: 1

      Heh, I think if you did not realise that he was unstable before this article, you have issues. Come on people, bashing is fun, but this is like calling calling the moon big. Everyone just ends up restating the obvious. -TheDefenistrator

    9. Re:This is juvenile by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      you are wrong.

      the doodles do not say anything to me.

      the fact they were on paper does.

      This is the man that said many times that technology was going foreward, and tablet pc's were the future.

      yet he does not carry one everywhere nor use one in important places like debates.

      this tells me that even the MAN himself finds the technology he publically says is the future to sucess is too cumbersome compared to a pencil/pen and paper.

      This one thing says a HUGE amount to me.

      Microsoft "one note" is supposedly the killer app for tablet's. Yet the uber micrsoftie himself does not use it.

      hell, I have never once seen the man hold or use a PocketPC device.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    10. Re:This is juvenile by spectecjr · · Score: 1

      you are wrong.

      the doodles do not say anything to me.

      the fact they were on paper does.

      This is the man that said many times that technology was going foreward, and tablet pc's were the future.

      yet he does not carry one everywhere nor use one in important places like debates.

      this tells me that even the MAN himself finds the technology he publically says is the future to sucess is too cumbersome compared to a pencil/pen and paper.

      This one thing says a HUGE amount to me.

      Microsoft "one note" is supposedly the killer app for tablet's. Yet the uber micrsoftie himself does not use it.

      hell, I have never once seen the man hold or use a PocketPC device.


      You ever think that for security reasons they might just want everyone to use the notepads + pencils provided, and not use a laptop which can record conversations, has network communications capabilities, etc?

      --
      Coming soon - pyrogyra
    11. Re:This is juvenile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you expect the Slashdot crowd has any credibility? ;)

    12. Re:This is juvenile by TristanGrimaux · · Score: 1

      The fact is that the British press is juvenile when they have to be nasty with the members of their stablishment. This is a kind of internal stupid joke that went international when they hit the wrong guy.
      They wanted to say to Mr Blair how incompetent he is (again) and they end up telling the truth about Mr Gates.

    13. Re: This is juvenile by Black+Parrot · · Score: 1


      > Look, I like a good microsoft bashing, just as most of my fellow slashdooters, but don't you think that this is a very cheap shot?

      It's not Microsoft bashing, it's Blair bashing gone awry!

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    14. Re:This is juvenile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They do not pull that "security" crap on people like gates.

      and come on, what important secret info is discussed with Bono?

      "mister bono, you and mister Gates are here so we can decide if we would like to kill the leader of pakastan. what are your ideas on this? being a world leader and Genius such as you we rely on rock stars to help guide us in the world decisions...

      NOT.

      it's a wanking fluf "debate".. A security excuse is not a part of this by any stretch of the imagination.

      I too also want to know why Gates does not use his "technology" he so lovingly shovels at everyone....

    15. Re:This is juvenile by bushidocoder · · Score: 1

      Personally I just want to know why he wasn't using a Microsoft TabletPC with OneNote. I thought the whole idea of that was so that people wouldn't have to do paper doodles anymore.

  60. Tastes Nutty by AtariAmarok · · Score: 1
    Tea?

    "Any idea where I misplaced Steve Ballmer's stool sample?"

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
    1. Re:Tastes Nutty by the_skywise · · Score: 1

      Oops... shoulda been "reading tea leaves". Like the others (and Tarot cards) it can be used to get a reading of the drinker's current personality state.
      I just googled for it and turned up an actual name for it: Tasseography.

      Wow... learn something new every day...

  61. Is it really a surprise? by KSobby · · Score: 0

    Is this really a surprise? None of us could ever possilby imagine what pressures the man is under. Love him or hate him he has alot more on his mind then most, you know, what with controlling the free world through an information hegemony. The idea of him not being a "natural leader" or the inability to focus his mind are character traits of most nerd-like beings. When those brief moments of clarity do visit us we're able to focus with laser like precision and accomplish some amazing things. It could also be a case of him suffering what mathematicians have long endured, your window of genius and relevance closes faster the older you get. The idea that mere "doodles" defines one's being is about as reliable as "rumpology" (look up sly stallone's mom for an explanation) or frenology (sp?). I am by no means a Gates apologist but to use this as justification for a "Gates-Bash-A-Thon"(tm) when there are so many other great examples (bad OS, bad prices, bad hair) would be rather juevenile ... sorry, forgot where I was :) I would love to see a comparative analysis of Jobs, the Woz, Linus and just for shits and giggles Joh Stewart. Any psych folks out there that can shed light on the reliability of these types of analysese?

    --
    "It's difficult to meditate on amphetamines." - Joe Walsh
  62. WeirdAss British Press by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Freaks!

  63. handwriting analysis? by Cyn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My analysis? He was practicing writing with his alternate hand - because he was bored. I tried this over the weekend, and my scrawl looked similar to this.

    I dunno - I don't consider myself all that anal, but my notes are generally a lot less flamboyant than that - a little more organized, legible, useful, etc.

    --
    cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
  64. rule world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does it say "rule world" by "taxes"?

  65. From the ... by NinjaFarmer · · Score: 0

    god-we-must-be-desperate-for-news dept

  66. i had to fill in a form today by Dr.Knackerator · · Score: 1

    it was kind of an annoying form anyway, something somebody has knocked up on word and never tried to use so you get:

    First Name: ....... [whole page width]
    Address of Mortgage Provider (1st Applicant) .. [2 inches]

    but i got the same thing, my handwriting was appalling even when i was at school. i looked at this form after i had completed it and just wanted to cross my name out and write "MUNGO" in large letters across the page. and i had to print in capitals. even i cant read my own joined up writing any more.

    1. Re:i had to fill in a form today by Lusa · · Score: 1

      Serves em right if the form didn't have "Black ink, block capitals only".

    2. Re:i had to fill in a form today by TheSwirlingMaelstrom · · Score: 1
      Heh - I'm in the same boat: my four-year old's handwriting is (or soon will be) better than mine. Any forms I fill in look like crap, so I get my wife to do any writing on joint applications and such.

      BTW, handwriting analyis, IMNSHO, is about as useful as phrenology....

      --
      #include "cunning_plan.h"
    3. Re:i had to fill in a form today by UWC · · Score: 1
      I wrote a check this morning, and had to really think to remember how to write a cursive lower-case 'f.' It was bizarre. Thinking about it now, the formation of the letter and the associated hand motions seem pretty natural, but at the time it felt totally alien. Maybe it's like when you think about a common word and its spelling or pronunciation begins to seem wholly unnatural, despite firm knowledge of its correctness.

      My handwriting was never great. "Legible" would probably be the most you could say of it. In the 8 months or so since I finished school, though, I find it getting even worse without all the note-taking and such. Filling out a form at the doctor's office the other day, I felt so uncoordinated, watching in shame as each terribly misformed letter was committed to posterity on the page.

    4. Re:i had to fill in a form today by Dr.Knackerator · · Score: 1

      thinking about it my old dear (mother) has impossibly neat handwriting. But it's tiny as well, i wonder if to save money in the 50s they put more lines on a page at school?

      whats more hilarious is that she buys me these ridiculus overside cards for xmas/bday and still writes inside "merry xmas love mum" in her tiny and impossibly neat handwriting. not making it big and flamboyant to fill up the massive space in the card, still totally anal.

      i blame not enough lashing for my band handwriting :-)

  67. Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar. by SharpFang · · Score: 1

    Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar.
    "So, Bill", says Tony, "What about that 80% discount on MS software?"
    "No way" says Bill.
    "Bill. Software patents. Just for you. A word to the jury in patent cases."
    Bill stares at Tony, takes out a pen and starts nervously doodling on a coaster.
    "No. I can't. Not 80%".
    "Must be 80%. Just the government. Schools... We'll make it obligatory in schools. No discounts either."
    "60%, please, Tony, I can't." - Bill bites his lip and staring blankly at the coaster, continues to doodle.
    "But, Bill. The antitrust. The EU. The monopoly. The fines."
    "Tony! Don't force me..." Bill gasps, his hand with the pen running in circles over the coaster.
    "Removal of Media Player."
    The pen snaps under the pressure. Bill breaks in tears.
    Tony grabs Bill and supporting him on his shoulder whispers "75" and leads Bill out.
    Bono quietly hides the coaster in his pocket...

    Bill Gates.
    An unstable man.
    Indeed.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  68. Bono?!? by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    So now being a singer in a rock band makes you an expert on international economics?!? WTF?!?

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Bono?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course it does.

      It also makes you a political expert as evidenced by the amount of airtime devoted to getting the opinions of The Dixie Chicks, Green Day, etc... out to the masses. :)

  69. Gates 6.0 by TechnologyX · · Score: 1

    Clippy "It looks like you're trying to understand my masters doodles, would you like some help?"
    Researcher "No"

    *Five Minutes Later*

    Clippy "It looks like you're going to write degrading things about my masters doodles, a Redmond Brute has been notified."

    --
    Slashdot sucks
    1. Re:Gates 6.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you're giving Clippy too much credit.

  70. Why don't they start... by rbarreira · · Score: 1

    analyzing Steve Ballmer's monkey style dance? I bet the conclusions are a lot easier in that case :)

    --

    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
    1. Re:Why don't they start... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I bet the conclusions are a lot easier in that case

      Conclusion: Ecstacy is bad.

  71. That's actually not a doodle... by aendeuryu · · Score: 1

    That's an early flowchart from the MFC design team.

  72. Wow, this post has some truth in it: by i41Overlord · · Score: 1

    http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137854&c id=11529372

  73. Typo? by Ironsides · · Score: 4, Funny

    Excuse me while I go consult the "I Ching" to find out whether Microsoft intends to embed Internet Explorer in "Office 2007".

    Since this is Microsoft and Bill Gates we are talking about, shouldn't you consult "Ka Ching" instead?

    --
    Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
  74. Being married to Cher counts for something by AtariAmarok · · Score: 1

    see subject.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
    1. Re:Being married to Cher counts for something by atomm1024 · · Score: 1

      You're thinking of Sonny Bono. He's dead. This is U2's Bono.

      --
      Signature.
    2. Re:Being married to Cher counts for something by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

      Somebody that would divorce Cher is exactly the type of loser I would expect to... uh, run into a tree while skiing! But that's not the "Bono" we were talking about! I don't expect advice from Milton Friedman on 3 part harmony, why the hell would I want advice from Bono on economics? (Bill Gates, on the other hand, actually does appear to have a very good grasp of economics. Too bad he doesn't have an equally good understanding of computer security and reliability!)

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  75. This is Press v. Blair not Press v. Gates by Big_Al_B · · Score: 1

    RTFA. The British press clearly used prejudiced analysts, who believed they were criticizing Blair. Blair is unpopular, this was just a "pig-pile on the PM" attempt.

    OTOH, had the analysts been told it was Bill's note, they'd probably have claimed a whole different list of negative traits.

    1. Re:This is Press v. Blair not Press v. Gates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This means the people who work in the media are idiots and arent to be trusted. Clearly they're stupid and not worthy of 'informing' us with this sort of filth.

    2. Re:This is Press v. Blair not Press v. Gates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just a hint:
      We, the posters of /. are part of "the media."
      We are subject to the same very human tendencies.

  76. Decoding by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Blah Blah Blah i''m bono look at me, cuz I care

    Blah Blah Blah i'm bill gates, i'm too rich, so here is a refund

    Blah Blah Blah i'm tony blair Blah Blah Blah Blah

    Blah Blah Blah what a crappy reply Blah

  77. And in a related story... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...a palm reading performed on Richard Stallman this past week supports the theory that the Free Software advocate and anti-capitalist is indeed clinically insane.

  78. Pseudo-science by Savant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is this newsworthy? Graphology is completely unsound from a scientific point of view, though it might interest students of the Forer effect. What next? Steve Ballmer's horoscope? What the tarot has to say about Larry Ellison's future? Crop circles resembling Linus' face? (All right, I reckon the last one could possibly be newsworthy. But, still, do we really want to go further in this direction?)

    1. Re:Pseudo-science by mrjb · · Score: 1

      Sure. Bring on the crop circles!

      --
      Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
    2. Re:Pseudo-science by Anonymous+Writer · · Score: 1

      Sure. Bring on the crop circles!

      Here you go. One of the guys that makes some of them is basically an artist, kind of like Christo, into environmental art or land art. He likes to include ostention (urban-legend type myths) as part of the art. Besides making crop circles, they also believe part of the art is the carnival atmosphere social phenomena that follows it, so they actually don't overtly publicise that they're behind them.

    3. Re:Pseudo-science by Allegro · · Score: 1

      If this story is so uninteresting to you, then why did you click the link?

      Honestly, I loathe seeing these posts in every other story. The revolting part is that people tend to get modded up for this.

      --
      Don't let the lusers get you down.
  79. Um by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    but don't you think that this is a very cheap shot?

    You do realize what site you're on right now right? Where the editors post inflammatory non sequitors at the end of article submissions, and posters aren't much better... where the trolls flourish in abundance, and everyone has their prejudices without having to actually think about how they may be looking at the world slightly wrong, because they're never going to see any of the rest of is in Real Life?

    I've given up on being indignant at everything... Just take it as it comes. You come to this site for a reason, whatever that is for you. Mainly I come here because there are so many other people here, and it's a place where lots of stuff across the net is collected together in one place...

    It may not be the best, and I'm not sure complaining about it is going to do much about it. Maybe if we let them go on without us becoming indignant, they will drown in their own drivel...

  80. i thought he came out of that quite well by Dr.Knackerator · · Score: 1

    if it was me it would say "homicidal tendencies due to stress wanting to wipe the smug look off of Bumo's face with a cheesegrater"

    did you see the clip where TB gave his speech the day before and Bumo was in the audience with a cap on back to front? oh yeah you da man bono! keep it real for da kids!

    all this attacking of Gates should stop. Join forces now to stop Bumo's master plan to become the 1st president of the united earth. I mean at least BG didn't release a song that got to number one that sounds just like 'keep me hanging on' by Kim Wilde. And what does KW have to do now? adverts for health food shops! /me physically restrained and dragged away from ranting

  81. Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono go into a bar... by eugene+ts+wong · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...and the bar tender says, "We don't serve big wigs here like you.".

    Tony Blair says, "But can we at least vote on it?".

    The bartender says, "No!".

    Bill Gates says, "But we just need a place to crash.".

    The bartender felt betrayed because he expected support from Bill, and thus said, "You too??".

    Bono says, "Yes...".

  82. Handwriting analysis?!?!?!? for Jebus sakes by gwjc · · Score: 3, Funny

    I dislike micro$oft as much as the next slashdotter, BUT handwriting analysis! Why not check his bio-rhythmn and astrological correspondences while you're at it. I bet even Bill still has enough geek in his soul to laugh at the morons who think his handwriting revealed anything other than the colour of ink he was using.

    1. Re:Handwriting analysis?!?!?!? for Jebus sakes by legirons · · Score: 1

      "I dislike micro$oft as much as the next slashdotter, BUT"

      See, you can even do handwriting analysis on slashdot comments...

  83. GIGO by Dixie+Flatliner · · Score: 1

    This just further reinforces the lousy reputation /. has as a news post.

  84. wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and... ?

  85. Re:That's actually not a doodle... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    not likely.

    the were no flowcharts, and very likely wasn't a design team.

    there was, however, a bunch of several monkeys on LSD.

  86. Take a pill by shallow+monkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Of course, if he'd used a Tablet PC to doodle on, this whole hullabaloo would never have happened.... But then, that too is telling, that it's easier to doodle on paper than on a tablet pc.

  87. Mark Twain and the Phrenologist by Snarfangel · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of the story about Mark Twain and the phrenologist Lorenzo Fowler:

    "However, he found a cavity, in one place; a cavity where a bump would have been in anyone else's skull. That cavity, he said was all alone, all by itself, occupying a solitude, and had no opposing bump, however slight in elevation, to modify and ameliorate its perfect completeness and isolation. He startled me by saying that that cavity represented the total absence of the sense of humor!"

    Three months later, he returned and identified himself first, and then

    "Once more he made a striking discovery-the cavity was gone, and in its place was a Mount Everest-figuratively speaking-31,000 feet high, the loftiest bump of humor he had ever encountered in his life-long experience!"

    Note to graphologists, palm-readers, astrologers, and other pseudo-scientists: if your "prediction" depends on your audience, you are at best a fraud and a charlatan.

    --
    This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
  88. Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a lift by mobby_6kl · · Score: 2, Funny

    You have a gun but only two bullets, who do you shoot?

  89. Hijacking! by claes · · Score: 1

    I am hijacking this thread because a sudden to ask the Slashdot readership the following:

    What really interesting framework / infrastructure projects are currently going on in the Linux world? I don't think there is much interesting progress anymore.

    HAL and DBUS are two interesting projects - they are building something new to solve integration of hardware management in a non-hackish way. But what is KDE doing? Refining the framework, adding small, specialized features, but I can't see any real inventions coming along. A small feature here, a small feature there About Gnome, I can't say, don't know it enough. Beagle seems interesting but will it be a standalone, nonintegrated application, or will it blend in to the GNU/Linux infrastructure, making its indexes useful at the commandline as well as on the desktop? Will it be infrastructure, or will it be just another application on Freshmeat?

    The configuration nightmare - there seems to be no progress. X.org - what is really happening over there, the future seems very far away. The linux kernel - what new developments are _really_ interesting, from a pure user perspective? Native Java - is it reasonable to believe it will make real inroads in major distributions soon - can we expect it to be fully accepted, and part of the core? Mono - could be promising, but seems still not mature.

    Sorry for the hijacking, but I think a discussion about this is far more interesting than grafology about with Bill Gates.

  90. LOL Bill Gates is dumb and crazy 9_9 by Trespass · · Score: 1

    Who writes this shit?

    1. Re:LOL Bill Gates is dumb and crazy 9_9 by Anonymous+Writer · · Score: 1

      Who writes this shit?

      Someone who doesn't have billions of dollars.

  91. The handwriting analysis results are in! by boingyzain · · Score: 0

    The conclusion: Bill Gates masturbates three times a day.

  92. That is an outstanding link by CyberLord+Seven · · Score: 1
    By the way; graphology is a legitimate science. I have studied it briefly in the past. My High School Journalism teacher was one of the few people qualified to testify in court based on her knowledge of graphology.

    Graphologists typically want at least a full page of writing and/or doodles. They also want the writer to use a non-felt tip pen. This is so that they can judge the pressure applied. For instance someone under stress would apply greater pressure and indent the paper more than a calm person.

    Graphologists are also very careful NOT to use just one trait to form an opinion of the writer. For instance someone who crosses their "T"'s with a long bar at the top are generally considered to be protective, but if the prevailing signs in the sample are agressive, the long bar might be taken as hostility.

    I see a lot of posts ridiculing graphology. This is probably because it is in the realm of psychology; a science that probably does not get much respect among Engineers and programmers.

    --
    We have always been at war with Eurasia!
    1. Re:That is an outstanding link by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 1
      IRC tests of graphology have failed to show it works.

      The fact that it is used in court, doesn't really mean that it does work, only that some lawyers managed to allow it to be used.

      I'm not aware of any firm reproducible, scientific evidence that it actually works.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
    2. Re:That is an outstanding link by Herbmaster · · Score: 1

      My High School Journalism teacher was one of the few people qualified to testify in court based on her knowledge of graphology.

      In the United States, pretty much ANYONE is "qualified" to testify in court (pending the permission of the judge). Credibility is up to the jury to decide. Usefulness is another matter entirely.

      --
      I'm not a smorgasbord.
    3. Re:That is an outstanding link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Well, according to my wife who is a Ph.D. psychology student, it may be legitimate, but it's not an exact science. You can't tell with 100% certainty whether the writer was male or female. The fact that the graphologists quoted in the article say a lot of absolute things about Tony Blair make me think that it's not very scientific. I would expect to hear something along the lines of:

      The indentations on the sample paper were measured under a microscope to be from 35 to 50 thousands of an inch when measured at 25 different points on the document. That means the writer was applying from 8 to 18 pounds of force on the pen, which is higher than the typical 4 to 10 pound range. Bailey's [1] work on the matter shows that subjects with a mean pressure measurement higher than 12 pounds are 38% more likely to have abnormally agressive thoughts (when measured using the MMPI standardized personality test) than subjects whose pen pressure fell in the normal range.

      That would be scientific.

    4. Re:That is an outstanding link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, actually it's a grobbing terrible link. Do you know why?

      They lied about whose paper it was.

    5. Re:That is an outstanding link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > the realm of psychology; a science that probably does not get much respect among Engineers and programmers.

      Intrestingly enough, I started out studying psychology (and ended up with a BSEE and have done extensive programming tasks). Why didn't I continue, you may ask. Quite simple, the further I was involved with this, the more apparent it became that everyone I encountered were waaaaaaay more fucked up than any of those they were analyzing. It is also when I started saying you can't spell analysis without anal.

    6. Re:That is an outstanding link by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      My High School Journalism teacher was one of the few people qualified to testify in court based on her knowledge of graphology.

      So you're saying psychic powers are legitimate because some police forces use them to "solve" crimes? Don't laugh, phrenology used to be considered legitimate in courts as well.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    7. Re:That is an outstanding link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The fact that it is used in court, doesn't really mean that it does work, only that some lawyers managed to allow it to be used.

      Graphology (determining someone's personality by their handwriting) is about as reliable as a horoscope. But handwriting analysis (determining whether someone wrote a particular document) is fairly reliable. The later is what is allowed in court.

      I can imagine it now. The lawyer says to the court: "The defendent is obviously guilty because he uses a loopy 'd' and his letters slant to the left. This means he has a violent personality. You couldn't ask for stronger evidence!"

    8. Re:That is an outstanding link by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Seems you gave it up too early - before you learned the difference between psychology and psychiatry.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    9. Re:That is an outstanding link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lots of accurate measurements don't make something scientific.

      whatever Bailey's[1] work shows, it's not scientific without a model of the mechanism, a *theory*. it's just lots of data which may enable decision-making to a degree of rationality, but isn't scientific.

    10. Re:That is an outstanding link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what happens when a graphologist writes a letter? Do they actually write exactly what their psychological state dictates, or do they subconciously modify their writing to conform to the appearance they wish to convey? Doesn't this mean graphology is very easy to spoof?

  93. BAH! what's next, phrenological analysis?!? by Geek_3.3 · · Score: 1

    'nuff said.

    (there's a simpsons quote somewhere there, but too lazy to look it up.)

  94. The Drawing in Question by Sophrosyne · · Score: 1

    Here is a copy of the image in question.
    Doodle
    ...Bill Gates unstable and a poor leader? I don't see it.

  95. Handwriting experts = psychics? by ehiris · · Score: 2, Informative

    Psychologists and handwriting experts were drafted in by the press in the hope of getting a glimpse into the inner workings of the prime ministerial mind.

    Newspaper stories contained phrases such as "struggling to concentrate" and "not a natural leader".


    That's why the pshychologists and handwriting experts spend a lot of time analyzing a doodle while Bill Gates is very rich and leads a multi-billion dollar industry.

    It reminds me of someone who was explaining to me that there's no money in the cumputer business. He said that he was a business owner in an excellent industry. I later found out that he was the bathroom dude in a bar.

    1. Re:Handwriting experts = psychics? by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      the bathroom dude in a bar.... cumputer business

      Isn't that illegal in most states?

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  96. Is this the Bill obesssion? by Stunning+Tard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As the parent notes the story isn't really about doodles by Bill Gates, but about doodles that aren't by Tony Blair. And the ensuing BS because people assumed they were. The only thing remarkable about Gate's involvement is that he's such a clear proof that the graphology is crap. Him being a genius and all.

    It's like when 2 students pass in the exact same assignment and get 2 vastly different marks.

    It's interesting but why does slashdot care about some doodles? I'm sure most of us don't. It has nothing to do with tech or tech-related news. If, however, there was an improved version of quick sort hidden in the doodles we should all sit up. Is there a way to mod the original articles down?

    1. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looks like this probably ought to have been put in the Politics section.

    2. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Insightful
      No, it isn't proof that graphology is crap. It is just a reminder that ANY qualitative analysis will be influenced by your own preconceived notions.

      But you're right. It is like when two students hand in the same assignment and get two different marks. The professor reads the paper and assigns a grade based in part upon the quality of the paper, but in part on preconceived notions of that student's performance. It's human nature.

      Now if none of these people had the slightest idea that it was believed to be Mr. Blair's, then that would prove that either graphology is crap, those people din't know what they were doing, or Mr. Gates is unstable and not a natural leader. There's not enough evidence here to say more than that.

      From everything I've read, Mr. Gates got lucky by buying MS-DOS from someone who didn't know its value, then used that as a springboard to buy other technologies and hire other people. That's not leadership. It's business. There's a big difference. Only the people directly under him can truly speak for his leadership skills or his stability. I don't see any volunteers coming forward, though.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    3. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1

      Him being a genius and all.

      How in hell do you back that up?

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    4. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by nadadogg · · Score: 3, Funny

      With about 10 zeros.

      --
      i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
    5. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by dbialac · · Score: 1

      > The only thing remarkable about Gate's involvement
      > is that he's such a clear proof that the graphology
      > is crap. Him being a genius and all.

      Uhm, actually it seems to more than prove it's validity. Being a Genius does not necessarily represent good psychological well being. In fact, quite often in can be an indicator of quite the opposite. Many Schizophrenics (think John Nash) are Geniuses, yet I seriously doubt anybody would refer to somebody who hears voices as "stable". Further, many pschologists believe that there is a corelation between intelligence and mental disorders. That is the smarter you are, the less you tend to understand emotions. This is why there's the common joke about the chess champion who will never get laid.

      So take a look at how Bill handles himself around others. Compare him to people who are "normal". Look at the way that Bill manages his social interactions. Take a look at how he and his company manage things such as competition, fair play, etc. What you will find is a person who, while smart, has the emotional maturity of a 3 year old. Further, you will find that what you come up with a person who matches the description given by the newspapers -- it just so happens to not be Tony Blair.

    6. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Brandybuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's not leadership. It's business.

      Dislike him all you want, but the lack of technical skills does not equate to a lack of leadership. As a businessman, he is one of the world's top leaders. Yes, he got a few lucky breaks and happened to be in a few right places at the right time. As the old saying goes, "when opportunity knocks, answer the door". Bill Gates is a leader because he answered the door, walked through it, and kept on going. How many of us would have bet our fledgling business in 1981 by buying a CPM/86 clone?

      Or to put it another way, you don't take a two man firm financed off your mother's credit cards and shape it into a monopoly with 90%+ marketshare by being a follower.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    7. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by BigDogCH · · Score: 1

      "why does slashdot care about some doodles"

      For the same reason Microsoft does what it does.....for money silly. Slashdot posts information that it believes we want to read. And, since you and I have both spent considerable time commenting on the article, it worked. Slashdot 1, Us 0.

    8. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1
      He didn't bet the business. Get got the IBM contract before buying QDOS, and he paid a pittance for QDOS. And as the gradnparent points out and you miss, being a businessman is not the same as being a leader [i.e. of men].

      Or to put it another way, you don't take a two man firm financed off your mother's credit cards and shape it into a monopoly with 90%+ marketshare by being a follower.

      There have been studies on this, and you are wrong. Most self made millionare entrepreneurs are not good leaders. They often don't have good interpersonal skills. They usually get someone else to do the boring management stuff. As Gates did eventually by making Ballmer CEO.

    9. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by ricotest · · Score: 1

      The professor reads the paper and assigns a grade based in part upon the quality of the paper, but in part on preconceived notions of that student's performance. It's human nature.

      It's a good thing our University's exams and courseworks are marked anonymously, then.

    10. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the businessman/leader argument is interesting. I don't consider a good businessman a good leader despite the current rush to do so. Business men are currently put on a pedistal by much of the society although it makes sad role models since legalities aren't followed (enron), and loyalties are lost (jobs exported). Mainly because a true leader is supposed to look at overall goals and goods for those beyond themselves and beyond their lifetime. This I feel is currently confused since MANY of the current leaders are really only good businesmen... but that doesn't mean they are GOOD at it!!!!

      They are good at getting things done and moving a company forward... but they are far too short sighted. A leader should look beyond the current time, beyond the buck, beyond mesuring it's people by profit, unprofitable ventutres can still be good for a group of people but when accountants rule not always for a company. An example is caring for people who can not care for themselves. Companies don't have to think about them other than to get rid of dead weight when they can. A country can't easily push the problem under the rug or kick it out to find a new country.

    11. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Then you need to read more.

      Not to mention evaluate your own statements. Using the tech to springboard other technologies is smart. Hiring other people around you to support a moving product is smart. Mobilizing at the right time is smart. Amassing resources is smart. The middle two have factors indicating good leadership.

      Frankly, organizing people well despite your flaws indicates quite a deal of leadership.

      Heck, knowing a business opportunity and moving on it...yes, it includes luck, but also mobility in decision making. Yes, he has a rich father, yes, he was gifted with above average technical intelligence, but you still have to DO quite a number of things to amass the fortune and company he has. /. readers bash the rich for not doing anything with money; he did. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and still did something with his life. People bash the rich for not giving back; he did and does significantly through his foundation. /.ers frequently claim smarts is being underappreciated in the US; then why are you attacking him almost on those very lines?

      Yes, business tactics do not indicate leadership by themselves. However, forming a multi-billion dollar company needs luck, intelligence, and leadership. Frankly, he's been on the front lines with Microsoft and was more so in the past, and despite all the MS bashing, he did make it into a monopoly, which surprisingly was his true miscalculation and the success was used against him.

      iow, despite the millions of naysayers, the talk, the ability to mobilize as he did, the only way that he was was taken down was because he was too successful and manipulative of the power he had already amassed.

      Further, why is it any surprise that Gates has his flaws? Maybe you are lucky and fortunate to have surrounded yourself with good people. But looking at the average person, and a comparison of the extremes to that average, Gates has fewer mental flaws than the norm. You just know about them because you and others like to nitpick at every damn thing.

      Frankly, it's the /. bully tactics similar to those used against nerds in school--find someone you don't like, group together, and bash them for being successful, being smart, etc. You talk about leadership versus the business success as being different things.

      The /. editors have gone on a recent run of anti-Gates the person run; you dislike MS? Then target the operating system. Don't target the man for being a human being and, *gasp*, having flaws. If you allow this to continue, you have little reason to be pissed if someone says you shouldn't use GPL software because Stallman is a dick.

    12. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't see any volunteers coming forward, though.

      I'll come forward (and you thought your straw man was safe). I only worked for Microsoft for a year, but I was in a high-profile group, and had the opportunity to interact with Bill a few times. What I can gather from a few short interactions is that he has a prodigious ability to understand the heart of very diverse problems. At our first meeting with him, we demonstrated an extremely complicated system. After only 15 minutes, he had incredibly insightful, out-of-the-box commentary, and had picked up on a known weakness that we thought we'd hidden well.

      Hate him if you want to, but the Slashdot community does a disservice to itself by pretending that he's just business smart.

      As for his stability, I can't comment. Maybe you could ask his friends :-P

    13. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      being a businessman is not the same as being a leader

      But being a successful businessman is.

      They usually get someone else to do the boring management stuff.

      That's what leadership is! It's not about doing everything yourself, it's about getting other people to help you achieve your goals. That someone is not motivating other people the way you yourself would want them motived is completely beside the point.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    14. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by DeepHurtn! · · Score: 1

      The two students may also get different marks because the TA who marked the papers marked the first while sober, and the second while hung over.

    15. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not leadership. It's business.

      Uh huh. So the guy running the local auto garage could of done as good a job as Gates did?

      What is your point anyway?

    16. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't target the man for being a human being and, *gasp*, having flaws.

      Then, for the love of god, all you fanboys stop parading him as the greatest human being every. He's just a fucking businessman! He's vulernable to everything we're vulnerable to, he's absolutely nothing special, and I don't give a fuck if any of you disagree.

    17. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1
      But being a successful businessman is.

      No. It's not.

      That's what leadership is!

      Only if they are actually leading the managers that they hire, and leading them well.

      That someone is not motivating other people the way you yourself would want them motived is completely beside the point.

      Huh? It's nothing to do with a difference of opinion on details. It's that that business skills and leadership skills are orthogonal. Self made millionaires (i.e. successful business men) are more often than not, not good leaders.

    18. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is that insightful?

      The parent never associated leadership with technical skills (or the lack of).

      And how on earth does taking opportunities make you are good leader? Good businessman, yes, successful businessman, yes, top leader? hardly

      jesus christ!

    19. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Maestro4k · · Score: 1
      • Frankly, he's been on the front lines with Microsoft and was more so in the past, and despite all the MS bashing, he did make it into a monopoly, which surprisingly was his true miscalculation and the success was used against him.
      Let's be fair here, if you want to bash anti-Gates bashers, you have to be objective as well. Gates' main problem was not that he made Microsoft into a monopoly. It was that he abused that monopoly position to leverage into other markets, in violation of anti-trust laws. Agreements with OEMs demanding a copy of Windows had to be sold with every machine, even if it shipped without one for example. Illegally tying IE into the OS (upheld by the appeals court, only the recommended remedy was overturned) is another. In Europe it's illegally tying Media Player into the OS, and now Microsoft, despite claiming it was impossible is going to sell a version of Windows in the EU that doesn't have Media Player in it. Wow, imagine that.

      Gates is guilty of having his company break laws, whether he personally was the one having it done or not is debatable, but it is his company that he built up (as you so kindly reminded us) so by association the company's crimes are his. This is how people work, we blame the person in charge of the company.

      And let's not forget Gates' personal response, and MS's company response to the Antitrust suit. It was basically "ahh fuck off, we can do whatever we damn well please". That attitude cost them, the whole case may have ended a lot sooner otherwise. Apparently MS hasn't learned either, witness them being called on missing E-mails in another case (is that the Burst one?). It doesn't take a lawyer to realize that 20+ people don't spontaneously, without consulting each other, delete the exact same time span of E-mail from their old mail.

      So why does /. bash Gates and MS? Because they've earned it the old fashioned way. You treat people, and the courts like you think you're better than them and people are going to hate you and bash you at every opportunity. Gates should be smart enough to realize this, that he hasn't speaks volumes about his ego. He's getting exactly what he deserves.

    20. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Moonpie+Madness · · Score: 1

      er uh... yeah it is genius. Business genius. He's only the richest man in the world, or at least nearly so. Pretty obviously a genius at business, a far more difficult mastery than a black and white world of programming, with which he also has great skill.

    21. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Feanturi · · Score: 1

      Only the people directly under him can truly speak for his leadership skills or his stability

      There is some tasty video footage of Gates being questioned by the DoJ a few years ago, and in places he really looks like his head is going to explode or something. He slowly rocks himself back and forth, back and forth, staring at the table like a traumatized child.

      But anyway, I think their interpretation of the doodle had a lot to do with whose they thought it was. Kind of like a tarot reading really. I'm betting that if they had thought it was Gates, there would be different things showing like, "Strong business sense, poor attention to small details, and for some reason our entire library got copies of the doodle all over every page of every book."

    22. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      I'm curious, since we seem to be speaking separate languages, just what is your definition of "leader"?

      There are too many definitions in my dictionary to list, but my personal definition is "a person who guides, directs or motivates a group of people towards a common goal." As such this includes military leaders, community leaders, music conductors, scoutmasters, statesmen (but not necessarily politicians), and ... successful businessmen.

      If you cannot direct your employees towards a common goal, there is no way in heck you can be successful in business! Some businesses, of course, muddle along without any leadership. But they will not be successful. At best they will stagnate.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    23. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by BasilBrush · · Score: 1
      Yes, I'll go with your definition. But it doesn't necessarily describe the successful entrepreneur businessman. A businessman needs competitiveness, to have a sense for promising markets, to have a nose for the right price for a deal, to be a good deal maker, to be willing to break the rules. He doesn't need to be a good leader, that task can be delegated. And it doesn't need a good leader to delegate man management to someone who's self-motivated and a good leader themselves.

      There was a documentary of BBC TV about the character traits of sucessful self made multi-millionaires. Entrepreneurs. It was called "The Mind of a Millionaire". And the fact that most of them aren't good leaders (or followers for that matter) was one of the surprising facts. A lot of them are rather lacking in interpersonal skills in fact.

      And Bill Gates is a good example - although not one used on the program, they were all British.

    24. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      I agree, love him or hate him, do not underestimate him. He is an excellent leader, including his ability to know when to let someone else lead (i.e. Ballmer). Similarly Blair did not get to be PM by confusion and uncertainty, he too knows how to lead and develop a following.

      The only thing we've proved is that graphology is complete crap.

    25. Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      A lot of them are rather lacking in interpersonal skills in fact.... they were all British.

      Does this surprise anyone? :-)

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  97. Graphology is an ass. by ChuckleBug · · Score: 1

    I had a bad experience with graphology woo-woo-heads about 20 years ago. I wrote about it to Bob Carroll of The Skeptic's DIsctionary, and it was posted in the reader's comments section. I'll just copy that here rather than retype the story:

    Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your remarks about graphology. I've found that a distressing number of people assume there must be "something to it" without thinking about it at all. Let me share an anecdote regarding my brush with graphology:

    When I graduated from college in 1986 with a degree in chemistry, I went to an employment agency, which got me an interview with a local paint company I'll call FooBar Paint. The unusual thing was, they asked me to submit a handwritten essay about my hobbies before they would schedule the interview. I complied with this request, and a few days later was told they would not interview me since they had determined some unspecified character flaw through graphological analysis.

    I was livid, of course -- Both because they had dismissed me without even talking to me, and they had been dishonest in failing to tell me what they planned to do with my essay. I wanted to do something, but I was an impoverished and unemployed 21-year-old. Unable to hire an attorney, I contacted the Seattle Human Rights department, who was very interested in my story. SHR filed suit against FooBar, and subpoenaed all of their documents regarding hiring policy. We were suing for a job and back pay. It was quite a heady feeling.

    Two days later, I got a phone call from the president, Mr. FooBar himself, asking me to come in for a personal interview. Mr. FooBar wanted to "set things straight" as it was costing him time and money to comply with SHR's document subpoena. When I got to his office, he explained that graphology was their preferred method of determining who fits into the "FooBar mosaic," as he put it. I explained that this was a totally unsubstantiated method, and asked him why he didn't employ witch doctors or use a magic 8-ball to determine a candidate's fitness. He had no answer for that, instead offering me a job if I'd drop the suit and take another handwriting test. Apparently, one of the qualities FooBar likes in its "mosaic" is unmitigated gall.

    I ended up dropping the suit after FooBar twisted in the wind for a while. I had to get on with my life, and the best I could get was a job working for those clowns. Still, I felt I had made my point.

    I sincerely hope that people refuse to take workplace pseudoscience lying down. If this type of "new age" employer is given free reign to evaluate people on graphology, I Ching, auras, or whatever, they'll just keep doing it.

    There wasn't that much at stake in my case, but there could have been much more if my circumstances were different. People need to educate themselves about pseudosciences like graphology, so they might have the conviction to stand up against it as well as the facts to win the fight.

    --end quote--

    I'd like to add that when I went to SHR, I wasn't looking to sue them. I just wanted to know if what they did was legal and if not, ask them to call them and tell them so. But they just went forward and did it, and I was fine with it.

    I'll never forget sitting in that idiot's (Mr. FooBar's) office. I swear, he looked just like Lumbergh, but lacked his intellect and personality.

    1. Re:Graphology is an ass. by bmalia · · Score: 1

      I don't think I would have taken the job.

      --
      There's no place like ~/
  98. This is a surprise? by eno2001 · · Score: 1

    I've always said that you need to be nearly insane to become a successful business man. That's why I'm into music and computers.

    --
    -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
  99. Credibility by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hold your ammunition for the real issues, slashdot, and retain your credibility in the bargain...

    ________________________________________________ __ _

    When did /. have credibility?

  100. Congrats, Einstein by gosand · · Score: 2, Funny
    In other words, graphology is BS and the people who analyzed it already had a preconceived notion about whose it was and made the appropriate BS analyses.


    And up until this point I thought it was all hard science. Next you are going to tell me that psychics and spoon-benders don't really have extraordinary powers.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

    1. Re:Congrats, Einstein by Bachus9000 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Next you are going to tell me that psychics and spoon-benders don't really have extraordinary powers.

      But there is no spoon!

      Couldn't resist. :)

    2. Re:Congrats, Einstein by JustOK · · Score: 2, Funny

      I can't decide whether to say "Get bent" or suggest this as a plot for Futurama...

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    3. Re:Congrats, Einstein by drfireman · · Score: 4, Funny

      I can bend spoons. It's hard to explain to a lay-person, but it just takes a bit of ... I don't know how to describe it, call it "leverage." I would be the last to call my powers extraordinary, this is really a power that is latent in all of us, but usually suppressed due to a mental block I will call, in shorthand, "respect for silverware."

      Handwriting analysis is also not complete crap. The other day, my wife went shopping, and correctly bought an item that I had written down on our shopping list, even though I myself couldn't read my own handwriting.

    4. Re:Congrats, Einstein by tonyr60 · · Score: 1

      "The other day, my wife went shopping, and correctly bought an item that I had written down on our shopping list, even though I myself couldn't read my own handwriting."

      Probably she knows that you need beer and pizza every day!

    5. Re:Congrats, Einstein by BillX · · Score: 1

      She also found that if she stopped buying him hard pack ice cream, a lot less spoons got bent.

      --
      Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
  101. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a l by JPDeckers · · Score: 4, Funny
    Tony Blair, twice.

    Oh, wait, this is slashdot, wrong answer:)

  102. Wierd arse american technology website! by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Freaks!

    (just because it was in the newspaper as an attempted dig as blair that went wrong doesn't mean /. has to publish it too)

    1. Re:Wierd arse american technology website! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It got posted because Bill was involved, while it may not be "stuff that matters". I guess it is Tech-Related.

  103. Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Move on folks, nothing to see here

  104. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono go into a bar.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now, THAT's funny!

  105. a good spoof by justins · · Score: 1

    There's some humor about handwriting analysis, and other silly spycraft, in the film The Man With One Red Shoe.

    --
    Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
  106. what's next? by flint · · Score: 1

    An analysis of Bill's stool on ratemypoo.com?

    1. Re:what's next? by ebrandsberg · · Score: 1

      We will know it's his when it's a solid gold toilet bowl.

    2. Re:what's next? by Anonymous+Writer · · Score: 1

      what's next? An analysis of Bill's stool on ratemypoo.com?

      People do analyse it. I believe it's called "Windows".

  107. IOP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're my Hero!

  108. This is just silly. by HardwareLust · · Score: 1

    Tantamount to reading palms, tea leaves, or casting horoscopes.

    It is completely ridiculous.

    --
    ...not that I'm a pirate.. Hell I've never even fired a cannon. - oldwolf13
  109. Link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Link text should be "The BBC is reporting," not some random text from deeper in the submission.

  110. typing this from linux. by xutopia · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I find this distasteful. Bill Gates probably has horrible hand writing but guess what? So do most people who type instead of handwrite. Heck I'm so used to my palm pilot as the only thing remotely ressembling hand writing that when I need to write using a real pen I laugh at myself making plenty of horrors.

    This is really of bad taste guys. As much as I think Bill G. is Napoleonic and demented I don't put that basis on his handwriting.

  111. Actually... it can be accurate. by oneiros27 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    They're not by any means 100% accurate, but my grandfather used to do contracting analysing handwriting of potential executive hires for a few companies.

    Now, he'll be the first to tell you that it's not a perfect science -- but if you see five different indicators that suggest the person is dishonest, there's a better chance that there's a correlation.

    Here are a few points that I remember from reading the manual that he had written --
    • Pressure of the writing is an indicator of the person's stress level. [how hard are they pushing the writing implement into the paper?].
    • A person who tends to come back and write back over the top of their words (not to make a correction -- writing over it twice or more) is a sign of dishonesty.
    • Your normal handwriting tells your personality; Your signature tells how you want people to think you are. (so a person whose signature is like their handwriting is more likely to be comfortable with themselves)
    • A person whose lines slope downwards as they write tend to be pessimists (if upward, optimists)
    There are things that can be infered from the angle the writing, the general shape of letters, how the person dots their i's, the width of the margins, how they place the addresses on the letters.

    I would relate handwriting analysis to be more like reading someone's mannerisms and how they dress -- it can be a good indicator, but isn't a perfect correlation. Whereas, astrology and the like are basically just cold reading (normally, based on the person's reactions, mannerisms, and how they dress), and not really on the stars.

    Now, that's not to say that someone can read something wrong -- I'm sure it happens all the time -- my grandfather has one indicator (the size of decenders) that he attributes to 'passion' -- someone may attribute it to sexuality, sports, or even as agression and a tendancy towards violance. You have to read it in combination with other indicators.
    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
    1. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But how large are their knuckles and what proportion are their fingers? That's what really tells you all about a person. Do their palms sweat? if so they tend to lie. Is their knuckle hair white? Too much stress as a result of covering up lies.

    2. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by AJWM · · Score: 1

      Pressure of the writing is an indicator of the person's stress level.

      Nah, it's just because they're making six copies. The pink copy goes to accounting, the canary copy to HR, the green copy to the manager, the ... you get the idea.

      OTOH, that can be stressful.

      A person who tends to come back and write back over the top of their words (not to make a correction -- writing over it twice or more) is a sign of dishonesty.

      More likely a sign that their pen was skipping, and that it's probably time they got a new one.

      Your signature tells how you want people to think you are.

      My signature looks like an EKG trace. Does that mean I want people to think I have heart?

      --
      -- Alastair
    3. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not a science at all. It's rubbish.

    4. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      Your normal handwriting tells your personality; Your signature tells how you want people to think you are. (so a person whose signature is like their handwriting is more likely to be comfortable with themselves)

      Do tell. My handwriting is awful and my signature reflects that. Are you saying that, if I worked to improve my handwriting, I would come off as dishonest? I suppose my tendency to write small would indicate a low sense of self worth, too.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    5. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      jsut admit that he is right,that it works!! His grandpa told him so it MUST BE TRUE!

      BTW, would you like to Kiss hank's Ass with me??

      (and yes that is a link to text,not anything nasty....)

    6. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I call BS.

      Going over your handwriting can also be a sign of attention to detail. At times when I am writing for other people I will inspect what I have written and if I can detect any flaws which impact readability go back and tweek the letter shapes.

      You may claim I'm having to 'reaffirm' what I wrote, indicating that I lacked confidence in what I originally wrote, and so may have had subconscious doubts about its authenticity. I call double BS. Such thinking is simplistic to the point of stupidity. (Same goes for the stereotype of 'up' is happy'.)

      No, I'm not doubting that your grandfather is a decent person. But he can be your grandfather, love you lots, and still be wrong.

    7. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "Can be accurate" is an oxymoron.

      Either it is accurate or it isn't. "Can be accurate" is without meaning.

    8. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You see, the mistake you're making here is: you're confusing 'science' with 'complete bollocks'.

    9. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Has there been studies done with double blind tests?
      It sounds like your granddad liked to personify the persons handwritting. The size of the descenders? Come-on! You must be kidding, the size of my j's or g's indicates my penis size????

    10. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      (so a person whose signature is like their handwriting is more likely to be comfortable with themselves)
      I call bullshit on that.

      When I was a kid, my signature looked exactly like my normal writing (cursive). I didn't exactly feel comfortable with myself back then. During the course of my growing up, my cursive has degenerated into printing and my signature is just an artistic wobbly line. And I'm much more comfortable with myself and especially confident in myself than I was back then.

    11. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Combuchan · · Score: 1

      Whereas, astrology and the like are basically just cold reading (normally, based on the person's reactions, mannerisms, and how they dress), and not really on the stars.

      Bzzt. Astrology is based off the mathematical angles of planets in orbit. Stars have nothing to do with it. My birth chart explains it a lot better than I can. Scroll down to the bottom for a good visual explanation.

      --
      "[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
    12. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by RdsArts · · Score: 1

      No, he's saying if you changed that one trait, you'd have less of them pointing towards you being possibly dishonest, and that you would need to take a number of such traits into consideration to get a idea of the person's personality. So it would point less prominently to you being dishonest, not to you being 100% honest.

    13. Re:Actually... it can be accurate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Pressure of the writing is an indicator of the person's stress level."

      Total nonsense. I always press hard, hard enough that my hand gets cramped from gripping the pen hard to avoid slipping. Bad habit picked up at an early age. It takes conscious effort for me to not press hard with a pen or pencil, no matter what my stress level.

      The basis of graphology is an ancient superstition, sympathetic magic. I.e., if a thing is superficially like another thing, posit a link between them. Size of descenders as an indicator of 'passion' or 'sexuality' or 'aggression'? Gee, couldn't get more obvious than that.

      Your grandfather's business was total crap and he probably screwed up people's lives by practicing it.

  112. Links in /. articles by Andy_R · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one who finds that peole are throwing tags around at random in slashdot articles? This one has a link to the BBC's report, and no link to the Gates Foundation's confirmation. Why is the link in the part about the Gates foundation and not round at least the words 'BBC' and 'reporting'? As for the other link, it's hardly useful to be told that the submitter's email address is nobody@127.0.0.1

    --
    A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  113. They weren't describing Gates by badfish99 · · Score: 2, Informative
    The handwriting "experts" were told that the doodle was by Blair (the British prime minister). They thought they were describing him, not Gates.

    Moreover, they were employed by an anti-Blair newspaper, so their comments are likely to reflect what their employers wanted to hear, rather than the results of any genuine analysis.

  114. Wow by Reapman · · Score: 1

    You know your famous when people care enough to take the time to analyze random doodles you do... I'd feel pretty wierd if people started analyzing my handwriting and doodles... they'd probably lock me up.

    Good thing I'm just a lowly techie in the big scheme of things.

  115. Not The Right One by blackmonday · · Score: 0, Redundant

    That doodle belongs to Tony Blair. Do people check the link before they mod informative?

    1. Re:Not The Right One by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you RTFA before you post?

      That is the doodle in question, it was initially attributed to Blair, but has since been found to have been done by Gates. This was all explained very nicely in the BBC article linked in this story.

    2. Re:Not The Right One by SYFer · · Score: 1

      You are wrong sir. Actually, if you read the article, you'll see that it was initially thought to be Blair's, but was later found to be left by Bill Gates. Do you actually read articles or research your assertions before posting?

      --
      "...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
    3. Re:Not The Right One by KillerDeathRobot · · Score: 1

      RTFA. It was originally thought to belong to Blair before people realized it actually belongs to Gates.

      --
      Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
  116. WHAT? by WinterpegCanuck · · Score: 1
    You mean I can get away with just an X? And all this time my hand is cramping writing my full name.

    The toughest part about college was filling in the application form.

  117. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a l by Ender+Ryan · · Score: 1
    Personally, I'd shoot myself. Twice even, for good measure.

    --
    Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
  118. ... So, Bill seems to like ... by ninjagin · · Score: 2, Funny
    ... triangles and squares. It seems pretty harmless enjoyment of 2-D geometry to me. I didn't see any icky-faces or similarly juvenile imagery, just a bunch of triangles and squares and a bunch of bullet points.

    When I doodle, I end up with spheres and cubes and conic sections, not because I'm a great three-dimensional thinker, but because I like to practice light/shadows and foreshortening.

    Maybe Bill was practicing his triangles? Even if they were Tony's doodles, what's so wrong with Tony practicing triangles?

    What I get from it is this: Some of the most powerful people in the world have fun with triangles, so they must be okay to play with.

    --
    .. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
    1. Re:... So, Bill seems to like ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      He's hashing out the user interface for Longhorn.

      ba-dum-tshh

  119. psychologists are always right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i'm sure it's not the psychologists that are unstable. i mean, it's pretty clear mr. gates isn't a good leader. well, other than his multi-billion dollar enterprise.

  120. Legit science up there with phrenology. by glrotate · · Score: 1

    Quackery.

  121. An unstable man under tremendous pressure... by constantnormal · · Score: 1

    Why certainly!

    I imagine Bill was struggling mightily to keep from bursting out with a lusty Bwoohahaha!!! just thinking about the windfall he'd just paid himself.

    (Bill owns a bit more than a billion shares of Microsoft stock, and due to W's "tax reformation", is only going to pay at most 15% in taxes on the $3B of dividend income he paid himself in early December)

    Wouldn't you have a bit of trouble maintaining composure in this situation?

  122. Sounds 'bout right! by Ogman · · Score: 1

    "'struggling to concentrate', 'not a natural leader', 'struggling to keep control of a confusing world' and 'an unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure'," And the reason this doesn't sound exactly like Bill Gates is....???

    --
    But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
  123. Got a cure for you... by cnelzie · · Score: 1

    ...take a introduction to drafting course with a hardcore lettering Nazi instructor. By the end of the class, if you actually care about the resulting grade, you will be able to scratch out quality letters at a rather decent rate of speed.

    People remark about my hand lettering quite often, my handwriting (which is cursive for the uninitiated) on the other hand is so terrible that at times even I am unable to decipher my scratches.

    --
    If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
  124. Already enough evidence... by aclidiere · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There is already enough evidence that Bill Gates doesn't have the qualities of a leader, and that he has few social abilities.

    For example, look at Microsoft's keynote at CES. (Click on 100K or 300K to watch the video.)
    • If you jump at 26'30 into the video, you will see Gates failing making a demo of Windows Media Center.
    • At 27'13, he shows no concern whatsoever of what is happening. As Conan O'Brien makes a joke about the situation, Gates is showing total weakness.
    • At 27'25, Gates finally understands it is his turn to speak. He makes a remark that shows a huge lack of social sophistication: "How to you like this camera?" (Pointing to a Nikon D70 on the table)


    There is no need for more evidence than watching any of Gates's public appearances to understand what kind of person he is.

    I don't see what we could learn more from a handwriting analysis. There already is enough information available that is more relevant than what is mentioned in the article.
    1. Re:Already enough evidence... by ifwm · · Score: 1

      "There is no need for more evidence than watching any of Gates's public appearances to understand what kind of person he is."

      Because a minutes worth of video is plenty to make such comments.

  125. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a l by mangu · · Score: 1
    You have a gun but only two bullets, who do you shoot?


    What kind of gun? If it's powerful enough, line two of them up and shoot both with one bullet.

  126. Purity of Essence. by Chyeburashka · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    POE, OPE, ... Linux users never drink water.

    1. Re:Purity of Essence. by Chyeburashka · · Score: 1

      For the moderator who rated the parent "Offtopic", you should watch "Dr. Strangelove", wherein a deranged USAF General doodled about Purity of Essence, and ranted that Communists never take a drink of water, since water has been tainted by flouridation. Bill Gates has ranted that Linux is equivalent to Communism. I guess the reference was too subtle for someone.

  127. i always knew :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    since i saw the tractors scene in pirates of the silicon valley... :)
    well at least he has a lot of money so he can do cool unstable stuff and get away with it.

    www.quotez.org

  128. This reminds me of something I saw on art critics by i41Overlord · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I saw a show on the Discovery Channel a few years back that sort of discussed the same sort of thing- handwriting analysis, art critiquing, phychics, etc.

    They showed art critics discussing the art they were looking at and describing, in detail, the emotions and message that the artist was trying to convey.

    The show's host didn't believe any of that so he showed some "respected" art critics a piece of art, which looked like scribble to me- it was just random strokes of the brush in different colors. The critics all agreed with each other and explained what exactly the artist was thinking, and the raw emotion that went into the painting.

    Very impressive, I thought- and maybe I would have believed them had the artist not been AN ELEPHANT.

    Yes, an elephant painted the picture with its trunk. The "respected" art critics were really just good at winning popularity contests- in reality they had no clue what they were talking about. It's the same thing between a "good" phychic and a "bad" psychic- neither one knows what they're talking about, but one just seems "more believable" than the other.

  129. OK, so next you'll publish his astrology analysis, by Rams�s+Morales · · Score: 1

    his phrenology results, and his tarot card readings?

    Please, I don't like pseudoscience crap on /.'s front page.

  130. Who in IT doesn't have poor handwriting?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm too busy typing letters to notice my handwriting stinks.

  131. In later news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Santa Claus was found to be giving.

  132. So what? by litewoheat · · Score: 1

    Bill Gates is an ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) case. Most (if not all) good programmers are. And don't tell me he's not a good programmer. Anyone who can read assembly code on paper in an airplane to debug it and tweak it is a good programmer. I'm sure he is struggling to concentrate. He's probably not a natural leader but that doesn't mean he's not a good leader. Good leaders always have good people supporting them (Balmer, Shelley, Allen). For ADD leaders, those are the people who provide the follow-through lacking in their leader. So even though he can be thinking of 10 different things in any second and probably has no real follow through and shows other signs of ADD that does not mean that he's a moron who can't lead flies to shit.

    Unless you can be part of creating a company that has been a sucessfull as Microsoft the only reason you riducle the man is to make yourself feel better about only having one comma in your net worth.

  133. Have you even read some of the comment???? by mollog · · Score: 1

    Come on, have you even read some of the comments. NOBODY IS BASHING BILL EXCEPT THE BBC. Get a grip. Everybody here seems to be completely dismissive of the report.

    --
    Best regards.
    1. Re:Have you even read some of the comment???? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Come on, have you even read some of the comments. NOBODY IS BASHING BILL EXCEPT THE BBC. Get a grip.
      The thing is, stories don't post themselves. The fact that it appeared here at all does come across as Bill-bashing, at least on the part of the submitter and CmdrTaco. I think this is what the grandparent criticizing, rather than the comments from readers.
  134. High Res Scan by saddino · · Score: 1

    See for yourself: this scan shows some definite signs of instabilty.

  135. I might point out... by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 1

    ... that most of his notes are in relation to aid to poor countries. I know as much as the linux community would love the martyrdom that would come with Bill Gates hating you... he's just worried about poor little unvaccinated children. Better luck next time.

  136. What a non story by olivercromwell · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Damn, must be a very slow news day. Come on, I know taking jabs at Bill is fun, but this one is downright stupid. Even if they are Bill's doodles and chicken scratches, anyone with half a brain knows that handwriting analysis is NOT considered a valid diagnostic tool. So called "graphologists" who say they can detect personality traits from handwriting are no more capable of doing so than someone with a crystal ball can tell me anything about me. This type of graphology has basically been discredited in legitimate diagnostic psychology, but obviously reporters could not care less.

  137. heh by hugo_pt · · Score: 1

    Bill Gates unstable? You call this news ?

  138. Exactly. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Half of the handwriting analyses are bullshit, the other half are vague astrological "you will come into good fortune sometime in the future" nonsense. I had my handwriting analyzed and quite frankly the result was utter bullshit.

  139. And What Happens When... by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1
    And what happens when you enter this doodle into the handwriting recognition system of a Tablet PC?

    I'm guessing BSOD.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  140. cruelty free method for reading goat entrails by mmmuttly · · Score: 1

    Right up there with reading tea leaves and goat entrails.

    I've heard that sometimes you can read goat entrails cruelty free simply by looking directly into the goatse

    1. Re:cruelty free method for reading goat entrails by Moderatbastard · · Score: 0

      When you gaze into the goatse, the goatse gazes into you.

      --
      1/3 of jokes get modded OT. If you get the joke, mod 1 in 3 insightful/interesting/underrated to restore karma balance.
  141. Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Would you say Bill Gates was a strong and charismatic leader? That he's NOT struggling to keep control of the world? That he's NOT an unstable man who is feeling enormous pressure?

  142. Re:Bono?!? ---- wanker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He's trying to live up to Manu Chao's status in europe, africa and south america, so he's a social activist sipping champagne and caviar with the elites so he can the system from the inside.
    Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

    This is the same guy who was pushing the bosnian muslims cause even though his idol, their so called president had written a book Islamic Declaration which made mein kampf seem like a Martha Stewart ripoff.
    When he was asked by a german reporter about how he felt now that the world knows that Osama and thousands of his finest were active (gee, I wonder what those chaps were up to?) while he was promoting 'tolerance', he barked that it was all rumors. Never mind that the reporter took his sources from the 9-11 sham report where it was clearly indicated in details how the 911 planners were based and working out of Bosnia.
    No, now he is warning about how africa could turn into another afghanistan. The fact that the same radical nutbags in Afghanistan were financed by the same people who supported his nice muslims is past his comprehension.

    In europe, he gives lectures about the music business and how indie bands should work but they are part of the ClearChannel group which is to the music industry what Microsoft is to the computer world *to the power of 10*.
    Pearl Jam at least tried to fight Ticketbastard until it was starting to put them in the red. Bono cant wait to sell out quickly enough.

    Bono is many things: walking ego, shallow opportunist, corporate shill and so on but here he is known as simply as a wanker.

    ted

  143. Hmmm... by Procrastin8er · · Score: 0

    While the analysis method may be different, I wonder what conclusions could be drawn from the analysis of an average /. post?

    --
    Slashdot - Where the slash is most definitely to the left.
  144. Agreed... by rumblin'rabbit · · Score: 1

    It's all a bunch of flap-doodle.

    1. Re:Agreed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I disagree. It's more like horsefeathers.

    2. Re:Agreed... by soloport · · Score: 1

      But using symbols can be such a powerful form of communication.

      No, really.

  145. Handwriting analysis bug by flibuste · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Handwriting analysis is well known to be a non-science with non-facts based on non-events that produce non-results.

    It's also a non-brainer way for slashdotters to do some M$ bashing.

    Maybe it's time for /. to move on or for me to stop wasting my time. The quality of information on this site is degrading every day.

    1. Re:Handwriting analysis bug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except for the fact that the overwhelming consensus on this topic is that it proves nothing except that graphology is crap psuedo-science... or maybe you missed the point that this became a story because some supposed graphology "experts" had analysed it thinking it was Tony Blair's?

      The slashdotters were all in agreement with you - nobody was really using it to bash MS. Perhaps you should go. People like you are really nothing but trolls in disguise.

  146. bill gates mind maps by che.kai-jei · · Score: 1

    i think the qualities they saw as negative in tony blair, world leader/ politician who had made unpopular decisions and done questionable things come across as extremely positive in an extrenely wealthy midde aged man.

    the doodles are probably mind maps of some kind ot help him concentrate and stay focussed when it his turn to speak, by the looks of it. alos they oook concerned and nervous, as man who is concerned baout the world

    ever since i read the open letter to hobyists i have hated this mean. ever since i used his software i have despised this man.

    i think it is very plausible that the new [ last 10-6 years] mellow rich bill is different from the old borg evil bill!
    #we should focus on what he hopes to do in the future . software, socially and politically -- if inly keep an eye on him. i do belive i saw 'world domination' as one of the items. seriously

  147. Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We really are fucking sad if this interests us. For gods sake people!

  148. Another doodle has just shown up! by oiper · · Score: 1

    This doodle had apparently fallen behind the desk. gates doodle

    --
    What do I have to do to get a sig around here?! www.bearscanfly.org
  149. analyzing bil's handwriting by wuice · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I hate to say it, but nerds have finally gone too far. Do you guys have ANYTHING better to do than player hate all over Bill's doodles?!

  150. Rely On? by soloport · · Score: 1

    This was the only Tablet PC that Gates could rely on.

    Ah, what fine powers of perception you have.

  151. Don't knock goat entrails! by crovira · · Score: 1

    With augury you at least get a meal out of it. (ven though it may be your last.)

    --
    MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
  152. Yes, he's quite unstable. But he pwns slashdot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Funny - if this man is so unstable with his billions, mansions, software empire and seemingly omnipotent exposure, its interesting that there is nothing else to attack this man with other than possibly saying his handwriting is "unstable" and thus that's why the software his company puts out isn't perfect.

    I submit this: Please reply with one peice of operation system software that is flawless 100% of the time, that can run multiple operations utilizing real multitasking and not distributed operations across multiple instructions and has an install base in the United States in excess of 85% of all computing households?

    Brooklyn.

  153. He's not unstable, he is bored by mark99 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    He has created one of the biggest companies of all time, and made it almost unassailable.

    There is nothing technical he can do that one (or a dozen) of his employees can't do 10 times better and faster.

    He has (probably) saved millions of lives through his malaria research.

    He has a nice wife and three kids. He has a really cool house.

    What else is there left to do?

    Maybe he could try being a Linux Kernel Hacker...

  154. Right up until you try a handicapped person's by crovira · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My handwriting is non-existant. My verticals go off in every direction and my line is uneven.

    Am I disorganized? An idiot?

    No. I have MS. To me the pen is an instrument of torture; my own.

    --
    MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
  155. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a l by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

    You have a gun but only two bullets, who do you shoot?

    Bill, twice. Bono's already dead and Tony'll be savaged by the electorate anyway.

    --
    "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  156. JREF Commentary by valkoinen · · Score: 0

    The James Randi Educational Foundation just had a mention of graphology in it's latest newsletter.
    http://www.randi.org/jr/012805opinions.html#5

    The whole "art" of graphology is no different from palmistry, reading of tea leaves or pulling out the entrails of small animals for mysterious insights. Basically telling lies and lucky guesses.

    Of course telling something of a famous person is easier, because most people already have some kind of preconception of him/her. All the "reader" has to do is strengthen those preconceptions and he/she can't say anything wrong.

    As Penn & Teller would say - Bullshit!

  157. re: Back that up by Stunning+Tard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seems like flamebait but I'll bite. How many BASIC compilers have you written in 2 months without touching the target hardware before you were 20? some bio page

  158. WOW OMG by coyotecult · · Score: 1

    My daddy is a lawyer and once I worked for his law office as office monkey and I served some papers! HOW DID YOU GUESS --

    Oh wait. I haven't killed anyone. Yet. I guess this must be a prophecy. Oh no! What do I do now! I feel like I'm in some Greek tragic play here, sniff.

  159. Bill Gates' star chart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Evidently, they already have.

  160. If they called him unstable... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    are probably nothing more than variations of the $ sign... =)

    That would be greedy. They said unstable. I'm guessing it's goatse ascii art. We've located the AC goatse slashdot troll people! ;-)

  161. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono go into a bar.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what?

  162. Graphology works just fine... (feeding the troll) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Graphology worked just fine in that all the descriptions are equally applicable to Mr. Gates as to Mr. Blair. Genius doesn't enter into not being a natural leader (leadership can be learned). Genius doesn't enter into "struggling" (even geniuses struggle; doesn't mean they don't win). Finally, genius doesn't remove pressure from oneself: if anything; genius increases pressure because geniuses are all too aware every challenge what surrounds them.

    What we don't know is that if Mr. Blair had been doodling whether some of the same features (quality of curves, degree of spikiness, fraction of repetition all being primary indicators) would have shown up in his doodles. That Mr Blair and Mr Gates would share some common psychological features that are expressed in their handwriting or doodling surprises me not at all: same test, same marks, same causation, same correlation.

  163. Re: those that don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Main Entry: barbiturate
    Pronunciation: bär-'bi-ch&-r&t, -"rAt; "bär-b&-'tyur-&t, -'tur-, -"At
    Function: noun
    1 : a salt or ester of barbituric acid
    2 : any of various derivatives of barbituric acid used especially as sedatives, hypnotics, and antispasmodics

    Nevertheless, let's keep this one at 'Score:4, Funny'.

  164. Re: those that don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PS. I had more problems with the word Bono :]

  165. It's a liger by cangeceiro · · Score: 1

    bread for its skills in magic. Bill's favorite

    1. Re:It's a liger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pedro offers you his protection. Vote for Pedro!

    2. Re:It's a liger by bobsil1 · · Score: 1

      This one gang kept wanting me to join because I'm pretty good with a bowstaff.

  166. Mark of genius by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think what most people fail to realise is that geniuses tend to have many erratic and bizarre thoughts at times that make them seem "mentally unstable" to "normal people" in society. The graphologists could be correct, in that the doodles appear to signify mental instability in Gates. Bill could be completely mentally stable. Just because his doodling denotes a different informational organization and processing structure within his mind than most people, doesn't mean he's crazy.

    I think most people can agree that Bill Gates is a genius. Either on the side of computer science, the side of business, or both. What this doodle potentially does, is one of two things: a) reinforce the fact that Bill is a one-of-a-kind genius, or b) tell us that Bill has been really really really really really ... lucky all these years, and he's actually a nutcase.

  167. A Haiku by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    An unstable man
    struggling to concentrate.
    George Bush? No. Bill Gates.

    1. Re:A Haiku by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Struggling is read Strug-ling in this case.

  168. Re: Back that up by BasilBrush · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wrote a forth compiler for the 6502 processor at the age of 17. A BASIC interpreter of the standard we're talking about back then was not as complex as you imagine. If I remember rightly, his was about 4K of object code. A couple of thousand lines of assembler. Big fucking deal. Impressive because he was the first to implement on a microprocessor, although there were minicomputer implementations for him to copy. But not a genius level accomplishment.

  169. I'd be more worried about this... by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1

    The other BG news out of Davos is that he's short the dollar. He thinks that the trade imbalance is getting too big to sustain with the current (already low) dollar valuation. Of course, you cannot graphologically analyze his spoken words, so it must not be important.

    --
    That is all.
  170. thats the key, zero risk by cheekyboy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    He had free money from his mommy, therefore he had no risk, it didnt matter if it all failed. Where as everyone else has to have great caution and risk because if they screw up , their lifes will be in the crapper, Bills parents were uber rich, either way he would have made anything somewhere, im sure if any of us had parents with 10's of millions that we could easily make a cool start up for under 500k with 3-4people.

    Though now unfortunately, lots of wannabee business pricks take Bills efforts, and 'lie' to get the next business deal, thus putting enormous presure on the real workers to deliver where the businesman/ceo just writes up a few more nice looking foward projections on makeing millions. Duhh... any idiot can do a rough upward 20% graph with googled statements saying how market size is increasing etc... crap.

    1. lie
    2. get the deal
    3. its all on the engineers heads to deliver
    4. if your lucky you profit, workers get SFA.
    5. find a bigger deal and lie again
    6. rince repeat.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
    1. Re:thats the key, zero risk by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      He had free money from his mommy, therefore he had no risk, it didnt matter if it all failed.

      So you're saying everyone who has rich parents is able to create a monopoly to completely dominate an industry? Sure, any of us could create a start up if we had the capital. But how many of us could take $50k and turn it into multiple billions?

      Duhh... any idiot can do a rough upward 20% graph with googled statements saying how market size is increasing etc... crap.

      But no one can keep it up for decades. I'm sorry, but it's simply not possible. Stop being delusional and face the fact that Bill Gates did not get to where he is by lying to his shareholders for thirty years.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    2. Re:thats the key, zero risk by mOdQuArK! · · Score: 1
      So you're saying everyone who has rich parents is able to create a monopoly to completely dominate an industry?

      Nah, just that rich people can afford to screw up over and over without having to worry about struggling for survival for the rest of their lives. So they're more likely to "take risks" that might payoff big 'cause they're not really taking as big a risk as someone who is investing their whole life savings.

  171. Re:This reminds me of something I saw on art criti by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The "respected" art critics were really just good at winning popularity contests- in reality they had no clue what they were talking about.

    Unfortunately artists tend to be trained in the same nonsense language of meaning as critics. If you're not trained in the appreciation of art then you simply can't understand the language of the artist expressed in a work.

    You may see "an O written in shit on a flag", the critic will see "profound angst at the continuing war and the orwellian dystopia of american politics", and the artist will agree that it was a bold political statement about the war in Iraq and Orwell.

    The meaning of symbols is negotiated. The fact that random letters may sometimes form words and sentences doesn't mean that written words are meaningless and shoul be ignored.

    At the same time though, artistic symbolism does not exist outside of human interpretation. Squiggly lines are "expressive" simply because people agree that they are expressive. There is no science in art...simply language.

  172. Doo Doo Analysis... by big-giant-head · · Score: 1

    That could be useful, you should write a book

    --

    So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
  173. Re:This reminds me of something I saw on art criti by BoneFlower · · Score: 1

    Perhaps that shows that an elephant is capable of deeper thought and emotion than previously believed?

  174. I am sick of the Daily Mail by cjrichard · · Score: 1

    It was the Daily Mail who picked up on these notes, and like usual they get it completely wrong. The quality of the UK tabloids is frankly shocking; basically the Mail's only function is to anger up the blood of xenophobic middle-class idiots. They will run front page stories on how some immigrant gets a nice house from the govt, or how a white, God-fearing kid didn't get an ice cream because a family of asylum seekers cut in line etc. etc. And they are self-righteous beyond belief, with their campaigns to ban computer games, or chat rooms, or whatever. At least with other tabloids like the Sun or the Mirror, no-one takes their stories seriously. Grr.

    1. Re:I am sick of the Daily Mail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, and at least the others like the Sun gives you a pair of tits to look at every day, I belive they are also available on their website. (watch it get /.ed now)

  175. I probably should have mentioned -- by oneiros27 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My grandfather is Carl Pacifico, and after being a chemical engineer, moved to management, and then, after selling his company, became a business consultant. (which is when he was doing handwriting analysis).

    He started studying human behavior, and from that, thinking in general, and now spends his time trying to further research into cognative neuropsychology.

    He's not some Miss Clio wanna-be trying to hawk his wares. I don't even know if he's done much with his handwriting analysis work in years, if not decades.

    From the times that I've tried analysing other people's (and my own) handwriting, it seems to compare well with what I knew of the people, but I haven't tried doing double blind studies or anything else that would provide statistical proof as to the accuracy of the studies.

    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  176. Re:Bono?!? ---- wanker by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    Here in the states, he is known simply as a wanker with a good singing voice... Hey, here's an idea: maybe if everybody simply stopped paying attention to them, then entertainers would stop spouting off their political ideas every chance they get? Think we could simply convince people to stop buying the crap they're selling? Nah... not a chance!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  177. Re:Yes, he's quite unstable. But he pwns slashdot. by catdevnull · · Score: 1

    Howard Hughes was a very rich man, too. He died with Kleenex boxes on his feet surrounded by jars of his own urine.

    --

    I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
  178. EULA ??? by codeconfused · · Score: 0

    Did they agree to the EULA before they analzyed the doodle ????

    --
    Danger Will Robinson! You are now entering a condescending Unix user zone!
  179. Graphology on Slashdot? What the fuck? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Enough with the New Age bullshit. What next - ley lines?

  180. Amusing by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In other words, graphology is BS and the people who analyzed it already had a preconceived notion about whose it was and made the appropriate BS analyses.

    Graphology is just as laughable as astrology, acupuncture or homeopathy. Here's a nice experiment for your amusement: when you meet a "graphologist" who'd like to demonstrate her amazing "skills" to you, be sure to make an experiment using text copied from some newspaper, the same text written by all of the tested people who had no contact with the graphologist before and during the handwriting examination at all. Observing the graphologist's face when she doesn't have "side channels data" and no interaction with people to play with "cold reading" is a trully hilarious experience.

    "This shape might sometimes mean that maybe some kind of a impatience... am I right?"
    "Just keep going, I don't want to disturb you!"

    And the most funny thing is that unlike psychics they can't just make up some dumb excuses that they feel some disturbance of Force or that the Angels are scared by the camera, because they are supposed to be scientists. Looking at someone's writing you can usually tell the gender and age--the same I can guess reading someone's palm... Or foot... Or arse! Does it make me an arsologist?

    For more interesting informations read: Wikipedia article on graphology, James Randi's comments on graphology (by The Amazing Randi of JREF who offers "a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event"), graphology in the Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert T. Carroll, PhD, and of course the excellent Quackwatch paper How Graphology Fools People by Barry L. Beyerstein, PhD. This is not the first time we can laugh at psedoscientific morons on Slashdot thanks to The Amazing Randi.

    And a comment to CmdrTaco: please add the Monty Python foot to the article because without it we look like a bunch of imbeciles. What next? Bill Gates tested by the lie detector and a story posted on science.slashdot.org? Please just add the foot. Thanks.

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
  181. Those sound right by glenebob · · Score: 1

    BillG strikes me as unstable, and as not a natural leader. He's also an insufferable asshole, which I find more interesting. What happened during his childhood that made him so utterly unable to be a peer or a friend to the people around him? He seems to have an uncontrollable urge to kick everybody in the balls and steal their lunch, just because he can. What makes a person behave like that?

  182. Pity it didn't teach you to spell too. by GrahamCox · · Score: 1

    sight -> site
    sentance -> sentence
    puposeful -> purposeful
    spitiual->spiritual

  183. Graphology != questioned document examination by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 1

    Handwriting Analysis.... Right up there with reading tea leaves and goat entrails.

    Indeed.

    Now analysis to verify for a court that this is the defendants handwriting yes or no,for example is a science.

    This is known in forensics as questioned document examination, forensic document examination, document examination, or handwriting examination. This has nothing to to with graphology, the pseudoscience. See: Questioned document examination and Graphology articles on Wikipedia, and also see this post for more links.

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
    1. Re:Graphology != questioned document examination by big-giant-head · · Score: 1

      No Kidd'n doc, that was the point.....

      --

      So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
  184. from the god-we-must-be-desperate-for-news dept. by SenorChuck · · Score: 1

    I think the subject says it all. This is news?

    --
    A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion. -- Chinese proverb
  185. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a l by bbtom · · Score: 1

    Honest? You really think he will be. All the disenfranchised lefties are going to vote for Charles Kennedy? Or are we going to all swing to swing to Howard? As much as I would like to see Tony Blair booted, it just isn't going to happen. Blair will plod along in the same way that Bush got re-elected. The alternatives are so appalling - I mean, Kerry, honestly - how can you lose against one of the most hated presidents of all time?

    No, I think we're stuck with Blair, or at least until Brown takes over.

    --
    catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
  186. Tune in to Slashdot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bill Gates took a crap!
    Film at 11!

  187. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a l by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

    Blair will plod along in the same way that Bush got re-elected. The alternatives are so appalling - I mean, Kerry, honestly - how can you lose against one of the most hated presidents of all time?

    Funny, it almost sounds like Kerry was running against Blair.

    --
    "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  188. Dudes! by Spackler · · Score: 2, Funny

    If I ever become rich and famous, I am going to leave doodles of boobies all over the place. They will think I am a sex obsessed pig.... Oh.

  189. Hey Douchebags, look at the pic by UlfGabe · · Score: 1

    All of you were busy looking at how graphology is crapola.

    Newsflash, it is.

    Now onto important issues. We can deduce IMPORTANT things that Mr. Moneybags (B.G.) has on his mind!

    Looking at the pic tells me:
    Debt Cancellation
    Vaccines
    Malaria
    Money
    Internatio nal Taxes
    MGA
    Prep.(prepare?) for aids.
    MSP-AD up

    Now for the part where I get Flamed into non-existence. I have to defend Gates.... :(

    From the doodle, we can see that gates is using his cash for vaccines. He is working on the how/what/why 's about his vaccines. At the same time i surmise that tha G8 were talking about cancelling the debt of 3rd world nations.

    Gates is doing good with his money, I AM GLAD. EVEN if he STOLE it from the consumer he has turned around and given it(some of the money) to people who need it. (to be fair, he only gave like ~1.5 % of his wealth away, but thats ok)

    it looks like he is trying to figure out how to get the money the fastest with the least stupid government problems to the people who need it the most.

    --
    Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
  190. Repeat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not sure, but wasn't this from a LONG time ago? I swear I've heard this before. Someone back me up please.

  191. Stalin.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    And when Stalin demanded steel production be at a certain point, every did anything they could to make sure steel production met his demands.

    1. Re:Stalin.... by gutterandthestars · · Score: 0

      Please mention Hitler so someone can invoke Godwin's law!

    2. Re:Stalin.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You fucking dimwit.

  192. As we say on fark.com by SmokeSerpent · · Score: 1

    This thread useless without pictures

    What's the point in talking about Bill Gates' doodles if we don't get to see them?

    --
    All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  193. -1 Flamebait by concept14 · · Score: 1

    Just mod the original article down.

    --
    Quis metamoderunt ipses metamoderatores?
  194. The doodles by Ostie · · Score: 1

    After a futher analysis, the doodles say : "Linux ownz!".

  195. Bill Gates , Davros ? by Evil+Pete · · Score: 2, Funny

    I read this automatically as being about Bill Gates at a Davros press conference. Immediate thought: Davros, inventor of the Daleks, and Bill Gates together. You just know it makes sense.

    Hmmm. Must . get . out . more.

    --
    Bitter and proud of it.
  196. Re:This is juvenile [winhat] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As i think, i'm using up the time left to think.

    A red dwarf is a mixture of chalk and clay used for hearing, and it converts sound into electrical impulses that are fed to the muzzle of a client for business. Yes, it's parsing words, but so's quibbling over meaning of life, the universe, and everything is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. The book and the pioneer of the solar system. Tell me something i don't know what the hell comes into my head! You are a stupid bloody moron with no right to exist as a corporation.

    A poor man once told me that he can't afford to speak.

    A sword is an automatic response to a tortured earth that's been left to think.

    Socrates was a great hail out of my arm was left here by the sword, by treaties that were lies. Millions perished in the bargain...

  197. getting a life of your own by xamomike · · Score: 1

    I think anyone who actually gets caught up in, or gives a damn what Bill was doodling on paper is seriously in need of something real to do. Besides, we all know Bill really uses MS Paint to do his doodling.

    --
    There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
  198. MTV isn't a large enough playground? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bono, go home.

  199. Oh sure... by mtec · · Score: 1

    this version of the doodle is hard to comprehend, is badly organized and doesn't seem to make much sense - but just wait till the 2.0 release!

    --
    Cake or Death? Cake Please!
  200. Handwriting practice by bjb · · Score: 1

    Actually, I remember from the book "Hard Drive" (Bill Gates autobiography) that he actually practices his hand writing several times a day. He does this to maintain the muscular control in his hands, so that it isn't completely lost by the use of a keyboard. Sounds like a good idea.

    --
    Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
    1. Re:Handwriting practice by chawly · · Score: 1

      And a hammer ?

      --
      How many beans make five, anyhow ? ... Charles Walmsley
  201. BASIC: $ = string by stoborrobots · · Score: 1
    It's from BASIC
    10 MYVARIABLE = 10
    20 YOURVARIABLE$ = "This is a string"
    30 PRINT MYVARIABLE, YOURVARIABLE$
    HTH. HAND.
    1. Re:BASIC: $ = string by ArsonSmith · · Score: 1

      Wow, last time I used basic was on the trs80 and it's rom basic interpreter. I don't remember the habit being that old.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  202. as to be expected by ChornBoy · · Score: 1

    this just epitomizes the media circus and the clowns who run it...not that I have anything against clowns...its just so very, very sad and f*ucked up!

  203. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono go into a bar.. by Spunk · · Score: 1

    Well done.

  204. Re: Back that up by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 1

    Exactly. I would have done it myself, but when Bill was lying to people and pitching his vaporware back in 74, I was busy growing fingers and toes.

    Microsoft is definately his baby all right.

    That was a choice bio to post, btw... sure you're not a troll in sheeps clothing? ;)

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  205. Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono go into a bar.. by eugene+ts+wong · · Score: 1

    Thanks! :^)

    If you're interested in trying it, then the basic formula, is:

    ____ go(es) into a bar. The bartender says, "We don't serve _____ here.".

    ____ says, "[insert punchline]".

    If you force yourself to really stick to a topic, you'd be surprised at what you could come up with. In the case above, I broke protocol and added a couple of extra lines, but in general, it's more fun if you can try to stick to a formula.