Slashdot Mirror
Opera's CEO to Swim From Norway to the USA
Viggeh! writes "An overly excited Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software, today proclaimed at an internal company meeting that if the download numbers of the new Opera 8 Web browser reach 1 million within the first four days of the launch, he will swim from Norway to the USA with only one stop-over for a cup of hot chocolate at his mother's house in his home country, Iceland.
The new browser was released Tuesday and was downloaded 600.000 times in the first 48 hours since release. The challenge will end on Saturday at 0900 a.m. CET, so if you want to try out some new software and make the CEO stick to his big words, download it at Opera's webpage(direct link)."
I guess he doesn't have much faith in his own product eh?
slashdot should be able to crank up that number, so long as the web server doesn't go down
By reading this, you have given me brief control of your mind.
talk about overusing significant digits
A piece of slashvertising I can get behind.
Opera rocks and this sort of daft challenge whilst obviously ridiculous is just the sort of fun way of marketing the browser I like.
Posted by Zonk on 08:51 AM -- Friday April 29 2005
from the friday-morning-swim dept.
Viggeh! writes "An overly excited Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software, today drowned off the coast of Norway after promising to swim to America if Opera managed a million downloads in its first four days. Everyone at Opera is quite sad, but they promise Opera 8.1 will have even more features because that's what he would've wanted. He leaves behind 7 computers, a wife, and 2 children."
I've seen the slashdot effect kill many a server over the years, but at last we take it to the next level. Hit that link enough, and a man will die!
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
So I guess this means a CEO position will soon be opening in the near future? Where do I send my resume?
Will it improve the user experience somehow?
Will it distrupt Microsoft's monopoly on the browser market?
Will it create world peace?
No it will not. Since it achieve none of these things, I proclaim the whole excercise pointless and should not be attempted.
Can anyone really swim across the northern Atlantic? I would have thought he would freeze.
Perhaps he'll get on a cruise ship and spend the whole time in the pool?
He must have had some aquavit during that interview...
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
...my internet connection at home is down, and I don't have administrative priveleges on this box (I'm at work). Oh well, maybe I can download it a few times anyway, if they don't have the site blocked...
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
... he'll summon his lawyers to sue the guy who violated his NDA and made this internal trade secret public.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
For such a geek heavy site as /. you'd think a download link would be to a platform select page and not the windows installer.
Here is a better download link: http://www.opera.com/download/ Unfortunately not all platforms have an Opera 8 download yet.
...when he gets turned away my US immigration and has t oswim back home.
It's a bad day when on slashdot the "direct link" is an .exe file.
One would assume, if noone else, atleast Slashdot is aware that there *are* other OSes out here. (and Opera supports quite a few of them)
In other words:
"I don't think there is a chance in hell of our getting a million downloads in four days, so I will make this grandiose gesture knowing full well I will never have to put up on it - much like the Taco Bell/MIR offer.
However, I will use this PR stunt to get lots of free advertising from lazy reporters who are too stupid to figure out how I am using them."
www.eFax.com are spammers
This is an interesting, and likely successful, publicity stunt. But aren't the waters of the North Atlantic, you know, balls cold? And doesn't the gulfstream tend to flow, you know, the opposite direction?
This is most definitely not happening.
-
Wetsuit.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Being the suspicious slashdotter that I am, I suspected that a) there was a town in Norway called USA (unlikely), or b) there was a town in America called Norway (almost certain).
Sure enough, there's Norway, Maine.
Shouldn't take him that long.
I don't see a point... I bet a lot of people will just download it just to see him swim. Then later uninstall it. I'll do that tonight. I wanna see if he holds his words.
Ooo wait... maybe Bill Gates will do something better so that people will keep IE. I could see it now. "Bill Gates jumps pit of acid and a large tub of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads (and it was on fire)."
You have been warned.
96.24% of Slashdot users are runnings Windows. Roughly 3 more percent are using Macs, and the other less than 1% are so dedicated to free software that they'd never touch Opera while it's closed source and bundled with ads.
Those 500.000 were from my download bot.
It's MARKETING!
...
I hadn't heard about Opera 8, and if it wasn't for the slashvertisement, I'd've been in the dark.
This is well timed - just today I installed iTunes, was completely bowled over, and was wondering - if a non-free music player can be this cool, what about a non-free web browser?
nice to see them CEOs get out of the comfy office once in a while
OK, I downloaded Opera...wait, I have Mozilla Firefox...
;)
*Drags ow32enen800.exe to the trash...
Opps, I hope the download number didn't go up
"You thought I said that I would swim?... [chuckles] No, no, I'm the CEO ... you're swimmin'. I do still get the hot chocolate though...."
Note: for those who do not work in the corporate world, the CEO did actually say that he would swim, but such truths as remembering oaths and word meaning do not apply in the corporate cosmos....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
by not downloading Opera
I don't want to overload their servers! :)
While the rest of the world continue downloading furiously, Bill keeps his GPS_enabled, Laser_attached pet sharks ready off the coast of norway.
Muwaaahhaahaha
Rapid Nirvana
For some reason 950,000 copies of Opera have suddenly been downloaded by an IP block owned by a company in Redmond, Washington.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
He's installed a swimming pool in his private jet. He'll swim around it while his jet flies from Norway to the US.
Would that be a Distributed Murder Attack?
Aside from the obvious attempt to get attention, this CEO will no doubt back down even if the number of downloads meets or exceeds the goal. That is, unless he's some sort of boat that's powered by only a few cups of hot chocolate.
Shot of shark underwater with a face like Bill Gates:
Swimming..
Music: taaa-tum ...
Bill notices food and makes a turn:
Music: taa-tum taa -tum ta-tum ta-tum
Ocean churning:
Water turns red:
Profit!
Din't you read this?: with only one stop-over for a cup of hot chocolate at his mother's house in his home country, Iceland.
:D
He's an Icelander. He's one of the guys who grew up reading things like Njal's Saga, playing with his friends at being Gunnar or Kári and beting each other with wooden swords, playing with snow outside at some -10C and under blizzards and getting his head messed up with the perma-summer-light/almost no light seasonal cycle.
If one of these guys says he's swimming accross the Atlantic, I'd advise to my good american friends to lock themselves in their houses and get ready for a raid.
I lived 2 years in Iceland; let me tell you, it was fun there
---- Take the Space Quiz!
All he has to do is get on a cruise ship with a swimming pool that is going from Norway to the USA. And he can swim in it 24x7. So technically he is swimming from there to here. That way he doesn't have to worry about things like hypothermia, sharks, giant squid, icebergs, polar bears, or being attacked by a creche of killer penguins.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
In case anybody is wondering - of course that cannot be done. While the atlantic ocean has been swum, it was done by swimming six hours a day in two hour intervals (and took almost 80 days). And the person who did it was a highly trained swimmer, not a corporate CEO.
Also, going via Iceland might be a bad idea - since in the north atlantic he will freeze to death without a dry suit. And try surface swimming six hours with a dry suit some time...
"today proclaimed at an internal company meeting that if the servers aren't slashdotted and the download numbers of the new Opera 8 Web browser reach 1 million within the first four days of the launch"
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Why not something realistic, like shaving his head or swimming say, the English Channel? That's only a tens of miles and yet swimming in the ocean (away from the shore) is SO hard that people die trying to swim just that far. No one can or will ever swim the Atlantic without major help from medicine or technology.
stuff |
Of the Slashdot Direct Link Effect !!!
Swim Jon, Swim !
I find it hard to believe there is any way in hell you *could* swim from Norway to the USA.
Even if you already held a large number of distance swimming records, that just sounds impossible given the distances involved.
What is that man talking about?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Good luck with that swim :)
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Heh. Yeah, I did the same thing. But I followed up with downloading 2 different Linux versions, and the Mac version. ;)
This was purposely leaked in hopes the /. effect would stop people from getting to the opera site to download the new release. It's not working though.
Sample this!
Dave Hyatt has today vowed to swim in his bathtub if his latest Mozilla Firefox extension "BehaveLessStupidlyPleaseFirefox" reaches 20 downloads.
Critics slammed him for setting unrealistic targets to avoid bathing.
Drysuit.
Shrinkage.
all to see him eat his words =)
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
I just downloaded my 30 copies.
Distance from New York to Bergen (Norway) = 3365 Nautical Miles (www.distances.com)
Longest ocean swim = 197 km (122 miles) from Mexico to Cuba by Australian Susie Maroney (38 hours) (http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com)
Note: 1 Nautical Mile = 1.1508 miles
If I were them I would crash the download servers before it's too late...
That's odd -- I saw this on the Opera website yesterday. Sounds like a marketing campaign to me!
...just to make the guy swim, but I probably won't even install it. I'm happy with firefox and it's free.
I can only assume that the parent post means closed-source when he says "non-free", because iTunes IS a free download.
The iTunes Music Store is where one can purchase music, but you do not need to use the iTMS to use iTunes.
while : ; do wget -O /dev/null 'http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?id=26712' ; done
:-)
Happy swimming
See my blog for my free opinions.
Well, good luck to him.
His admittedly childish behavior is causing the words "Opera browser" to pass through the brains of geeks like me, however fleetingly. This is a powerful thing, no matter how it's done.
If I was one of his minions, and had just spent a year busting my ass working on this thing, I'd be mighty proud of him.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
...misteriously once it reacher 999.999 downloads!
Think of the man's health. Please do not download Opera for the next two days.
do GET 'http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?id=26712 ' >
done
C'mon in, the water's fine.
Software Wars
Bill Gates also announced he is about to take a month off at Microsoft, to complete his training for the Captain's License on a nuclear submarine.
"Alright, hold it right there! I have a mouse, and I know how to use it!"a ds.jpg
http://www.collegechixors.com/images/opera_downlo
I think from those 600K at least 25% are directed from slashdot. This is the best free advertazing ever. Anyway that, I know, was besides the point. Is he really going to swim across? I don't think a cup of mommy's chocolate will do him any good. In the contraty he can have a massive chronic diarrhoea. For that single reason I won't download Opera. I feel pitty on the poor man
"Eyewitnesses have reported a Microsoft corporate jet in the area where von Tetzcher was last seen. According to one witness, the jet descended to just above sea level, and dropped a largem ferocious-looking fish with some sort of optical device attached to its head, into the water".
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Ok well I just added two to the down load count! Since the poster's direct link down loaded the windows version! Then I had to go and get my Mac version.
-S
It is said that a child learns wisdom from the parent,
but the truly wise parent learns joy from the child
A million new opera users means a lot of people who can't empty their hotmail trash or get directions on google maps correctly. Of course, if enough people had opera, google and microsoft would make their sites more compatible.
I checked the box which says author mode and all you know, and disabled the fonts settings in the Fonts tab. Any help here?
R.
I can do it.
;*)
:->
Just order a cruiser and swim around in a pool all day. It's possible to swim to USA that way
Won't give as much PR though, to fool all those slashbots..
He'll choose a 'Norway' other than the country if they hit the download mark.
Burma-shave had a contest in 1955 to send someone to Mars (whoever was first to send in 900 empty jars of Burma-shave). An enterprising grocery store owner in Wisconsin took up the challenge and called the company's bluff.
Burma-shave ended up sending him to Moers, Germany for a nice vacation.
http://www.snopes.com/business/market/mars.asp has a writeup, for anyone feeling nostalgic.
Opera's CEO drowns 5 miles off English coast
Where's the link to the counter - then we can all know when to stop downloading and let them return to their normal server load?
He didn't say he was going to swim in the Atlantic, but across it.
I wonder if the Queen Mary stops in Iceland?
Does anyone know if they have Internet poolside?
For example, I have to boot Windows (on a Virtual PC) just to open up my company's MS Access Databases and to test Web sites natively under IE6.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Their server will no doubt be unfortuneately 'slashdotted' at 999,999 downloads....only to come back up on the fifth day.
If i see it right, number will be soon 5millions just here: http://www.download.com/Opera/3000-2356_4-10383457 .html?tag=lst-0-1.
Interface is a mess and doesn't render as nicely as KHTML or Gecko. Good first releases, though. Oh, wait...
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
You should really read the press release that is on their main site.
It's so much tongue-in-cheek that it stops just short of saying outright "yes, it's a joke".
Then again, it's very refreshing to see that a corporate PR department can still get away with cheap shots at the CEO. Choice quote: "However, having seen Jon in his red beach attire before, I am not sure if swimming to the USA is scarier than exposing people to this sight."
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Don't you know that we all use Windows? We just act like we use Linux because it's the cool thing to do. Other geeks really think you are a totally bas a$$ hacker if you say that you use Linux.
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Lets all kill the CEO of Opera.
You're welcome for great software!
Now swim.
I tried it once. I actually made it half-way across before I got too tired and had to turn around and go back.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Doesn't Virgin Atlantic have planes with pools on board?
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I can't recall any time Opera has had this sluggish servers on release day, so it must've got downloaded quite a bit. And I'm back to Opera too, from Firefox. Why? It's simple really -- configurable RAM cache where your settings are actually respected, 5 MB large software in total, and no XUL stuff slowing things down or eating memory, and a highly standards compliant and secure browser (judging by e.g. Secunia).
It's also rich in basic features Firefox tend to need extensions for without becoming a sluggish piece of bloatware from it.
In this release, it's no longer cluttered either. Something Opera have become a bit infamous for. No cluttered menus, no cluttered toolbars, nada.
The only thing I keep complaining about is its lack of extension (no, not plugin) support. Grrr! Also, while it blocks ads well and is configurable both via filter.ini and any third party filtering proxy, it would be nice to have built-in blocking of Adblock's power and flexibility.
Oh, and that it costs money, or otherwise ad supported. Something that definitely sticks out negatively in the browser market of today.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
... a largem ferocious-looking fish with some sort of optical device attached to its head ...
Shark with laser-beams? Cool!
(Prepares CV for sending to Microsoft. I've always wanted to be a henchman...)
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
25 million in 100 days is a quarter million a day, right?
Or charter one of those luxury airliners with a pool on board, and the challenge will take hours instead of days to complete.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
What I've been wondering is do they track that the download has COMPLETED? Although possible, I doubt it. So just start/stop it a few hundred times to do your part.
h tml
It appears by disecting their download page code, that this image is the counter for their downloads...
{img src=http://counts.tucows.com/count.cgi?id=122640}
This can be found on
http://tucows.swko.net/adnload/193751_117609.
So, ab -c 5 -n 10000000 http://counts.tucows.com/count.cgi?id=122640
If we all did this, the guy should have to swim to the moon.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Well, I wouldn't predict 1 million downloads either.
I don't keep a lid on my coffee so when I walk around I look busy -me
In a world that already has a Linux of web browsers
tone
tone
every where I look, another number beginning with 6.
<aol>Me too!</aol> All I see is six, six, six. Six-hundred sixty-six. Beastly, isn't it?
For c't Magazine readers:
http://www.opera.com/ct-magazin/
The code you got in the magazine was OJD000MN.
first day then month and then year (like numbers smallest first then bigger)..
You've thrown the fish in reverse, and now it's bass-ackwards. The International Organization for Standardization maintains that the year comes first, then the month, then the day.
Still sucks at advanced JavaScript and CSS. I wish they'd get it right...
6.54371653 x 10^5
is
6.54371653e5
because it is easier to type in a program than 6.54371653e5 * 10^5
Anyhow in the engineering convention we only use the powers divisible by 3 i.e.
12.3456 mV
12.3456e-3
654.371653 KV
654.371653e3
1.23456 nV
1.23456e-9
Make that 600.001 times, I started the download, but I quit after 1/1000 of the files were downloaded.
Looks like you're trying to replace the CEO of opera with a small shell script! :-D
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
What makes Opera better than Firefox? Why would I PAY for a browser? These are serious questions...Any serious answers are appreciated.
Finally! Someone understands that what the net loving community needs is $39 web browser! No longer will I have use one of those crappy free browsers.
Ie?! Come on, it's free!
Moz/Fox? They are even worse because you get the source code if you want. I don't know where you are from, but where I'm from, that's a glaring sign of BULLSHIT!
Thanks Opera Man (Ahh. When SNL sucked LESS). I hope you hit a million. Maybe you and your unimportant contribution to the long ago won browser war will sink into the icy waters. Like Netcrap did..
Go ahead. Mod me down..
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
recirc. lap tank inside a jet.... You swim, it flies. :)
How intelligent. People will start downloading to make him swim and the marketing department will get very nice figures to use in Ads. "1 million downloads in 4 days! Better than firefox (ed: I think). Don't YOU want to download it too?" "1 million think it's great. What do YOU think?". Heck, even a large number of people who downloaded themselves are going to try out Opera and many of them will even switch to and maybe even buy the commercial version. Shit loads of cash for Opera. And everything will be even more better for Opera if the figures reach 9,80,000 in four days. Or if they have an "internal" memo which says something along this lines of this will only apply for the Windows version of Opera. (Wait, isn't the Windows version the only version available for download now?) Personally, I try not to use anything from companies which do publicity stunts like this. I didn't download it. I ask you not to do so too.
Downloaded it, read the license, erased it.
:)
Perhaps I should have wasted his bandwidth another week.
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
With a few quick calculations base on the information in the article we can see whether or not Jon is totally out of his tree. Of course I have done some rounding, and had to guess at one number, but the rest of thsi should be fairly accurate.
9:00 am CET = 8:00 am GMT
current time = 15:40 GMT
time remaining = 16:20:00
worst case
-
opera servers meltdown -> 120 downloads/sec = 432,000/hour
16.3 * 432000 = 7,041,600
current total = 600,000
potential worst case total = 7,641,600
projected from current download rate
-
time of launch = sometime tuesday? (lets estimate noon local) tuesday 11:00 GMT
elapsed time since launch = 76:40
average download rate since launch = 7823 downloads/hour
remaining time 16:20
7823 * 16.3 = 127,510
current total 600,000
potential expected total 727,510
-
So it definitely within the realm of physics that he could be swimming, but not too likely.
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
To keep with the story I actually don't care whether Opera's CEO sinks while trying to swim across the ocean. This is just a piece of mind-virus advertising. Although, for the sake of his life he might consider using a raft, this could be feasible especially if it would be equipped with a small sail.
Fun way curl ftp://ftp.130th.net/pub/mirror/opera/win/800/en/ow 32enen800.exe > /dev/null
What happened to my robot, I was promised a robot.
Guess I should've been more clear, I told all my friends to DOWNLOAD Opera. Not sure how that would be Offtopic...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
That was NOT a good thing to post on Slashdot for him....
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Is that him looking all heroic in the cape on Opera's front page?
If so, he's obviously a superhero, so the swim should be pretty easy for him, but shouldn't be be rescuing kittens out of trees or something?
And what exactly would his superpowers be?
It says on the site "Speed, simplicity, security". I'm not entirely convinced that "simplicity" is a really good superpower. I think I'd prefer invisibility...
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
just today I installed iTunes, was completely bowled over
Yeah, it is cool how it is sooo memory hungry, is as responsive to input as a slug, the audio skips at times, the GUI is designed to be shinny and not much else, and can't sort stuff based on file path.
Plus it comes a visualization setting that has to let everyone know that it is made by Apple! It is the best part and they need to get it to display the Apple logo 99% of the time, not 89%!
I have to admit that this is the first time I've tried using Opera... When you install it, it asks if you want to be force-fed ads based on your browsing or force-fed ads anonymously.
So, by downloading and using Opera you're supporting adware. Imagine the outrage that would occur if Internet Explorer included ads built into the browser and Microsoft offered to remove them if you paid for it. I do believe there would be lawsuits galore. I searched through the comments to this post, and I saw nothing mentioning these forced ads.
Where is the outrage? Why is Opera treated any differently than IE?
Already maxed out the number of user::downloads
That *is* the problem. You try actually surface swimming in that dry suit? You can't get anywhere because you float far too well. Can't get traction in the water.
Maybe a drysuit and an outboard motor?
Yes
why is this funny? it doesnt have anything to do with anything.. ooo his penis might become a bit smaller untill he dries off - wtf does that have to do with the parent or the grand parent post?
seriously sometimes i think most of slashdot is made up of 13 year old gigiling schoolgirls
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
I planned to give these guys some time to breathe and I would d/l Opera in some days, maybe next month.
But now I have a reason to help them set a d/l record.
>:-D
but I've only got 233 MHz and 96MB of RAM, so I guess I'll stick with Opera 7.
Seriously, why bother upgrading? It works fine on my machine there, and Firefox works ok on my 450 MHz 512MB RAM Linux servers.
And it won't run on my iMac 96MB RRAM machine either.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Hey Kids,
Greenland can be considering part of norway. go wiki it. or look at many maps
moreover the US has a big military base in iceland which is almost certainly considered US territory!!
Greenland to Iceland with a stop in Iceland!
It's pretty lame. They can just under-report the downloads (since no one can call them on it) and label it as "998,426" or something, and it's "almost" 1 million, but not quite, so please, move along, nothing to see here, just some PR.
DEEP-SEA FANGLY FISH!
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
they couldnt get sharks. they had to go with mutated killer sea bass
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
With all this global warming stuff, maybe he'll wait a while before swimming.
CIA Factbook entry on Greenland
"The world's largest island, Greenland is about 81% ice-capped. Vikings reached the island in the 10th century from Iceland; Danish colonization began in the 18th century and Greenland was made an integral part of Denmark in 1953. It joined the European Community (now the European Union) with Denmark in 1973 but withdrew in 1985 over a dispute over stringent fishing quotas. Greenland was granted self-government in 1979 by the Danish parliament. The law went into effect the following year. Denmark continues to exercise control of Greenland's foreign affairs."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The internet. Where men are men, women are men, and 13 year old schoolgirls are FBI agents.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
But it's been MORE than 25 million in LESS than 100 days, which means the average is greater than 1 million per 4 days, which means the OP is right and this is below Firefox's average.
are they ill-tempered?
This is such crap. I didn't know Slashdot was providing free PR to companies that aren't Microsoft.
This post is a troll , the parent is obviously not a troll .
You retarded morons.
now can you see the difrence , can you , can you .
...knowing I just downloaded a piece of software with no intention of using it just to see someone perform a task during which they will surely die.
What support group do I go to for this?
SCO's CEO Darl McBride promised He will get a breast job if 1.000.000 linux licenses are sold.
I went through the site, saw the screen shots...What is the difference between this and Firefox? I'm not too familiar with this thing called Opera, I've only watched it here and there. What makes it worth the $40?
Anybody notice the odd download link? http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?id=26666&loca tion=93¬hanks=yes&sub=marine
The Red Steckled Elbermung
Now my only concern is... does he plan to swim in the ocean or will he choose to swim a nice heated pool on a big boat?
And do I have to install it or just download it a bunch?
Cruise ship.
Swimming pool.
"Swim from Norway to the US....or die trying" Sorry there is no way. It would take him months to do it - assuming he had the stamina. People barely do the English channel, no way he is doing this little pond.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Slashdot effect reaches into meatspace, heh.
Longest swim: 197 km from Mexico to Cuba.5 4452
Source: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/index.asp?ID=
I guess the trans-Atlantic swim mentioned earlier didn't count because that was done at intervals.
I guess this is as good a time as any to test Opera with my company eLearning software... that or be considered aiding pre-meditated murder/suicide ;)
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
This may not have anything to do with the parent post, and it may not be very funny, but it may be a reference to TFA. Quote from said article...
Opera 8 is launched under the campaign heading "Speed, Security, Simplicity" to firmly position Opera as the fast, secure and easy-to-use browser. However, Opera's communications department clearly sees the potential for two parallel campaigns with their CEO's daring act of oceanic bravery:
* Opera 8: Speed, Security, Simplicity
* Opera's CEO: Speedos, Shrinkage, Spoke-too-soon-icit
Guess you never heard of proxies.
In other news, the CEO of Intel declared that he is looking for a copy of the April 19, 1965 issue of Electronics containing Moore's original article predicting 'Moore's Law.' "If I can find one", he declared, "I will personally swim from Santa Clara, California to Phoenix, Arizona!" After aides pointed out to him that there is technically no waterway connecting the two cities, he announced that his decision was not yet final and "some details still had to be worked out". Speaking on condition of anonymity, several top PR flacks worldwide expressed concern that this whole thing was getting out of hand.
Clearly, you'd rather bitch than do something about it.
1) Get rid of redundant toolbar at top (the one with "panels"). For the really clueless, right-click over the bar, select "Customize" and select "Off" from the drop-down.
2) Select text ads in options.
3) Window at top goes across entire screen, is 1/20th of vertical height (the height of a small toolbar), shows only text and never flashes. Big freakin' deal.
4) Opera gets tiny bit of revenue and one day might profit from creating superior browser.
There now, that was difficult.
Can an article written about the antics of a computer software CEO garner a post of Led Zeppelin lyrics.
And then have that post marked "Informative". :-)
Not quite. Drag was added by a round piece of wood, i.e. a "log". That's where "log book" comes from, it was the book where the knot counts from the string attached to the log were written down.
sklfjm ,
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
downloading opera is a waste of time other than to see how badly it still buggers up displaying my webpages.
REPORT ALL OBSCENE MESSAGES TO YOUR POTSMASTER
Read the original story. The ./ version left out one key word, "not". To make him swim, wait till Sunday to download. He wants to beat Firefox getting 1 mil in 5 days...
6 ,3 9189215,00.htm
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/0,3902316
...dropped a largem ferocious-looking fish with some sort of optical device attached to its head...
What would a shark do with an intellimouse(tm)?
Like my comments? Try my podcast: http://www.baldmove.com
Moron.
Still, he's Icelandic. He should have no trouble with a shark. (1)
The only thing to worry about is the lasers, and a reflective bodysuit would handle that pretty well. (Of course, then he looks like the Silver Surfer, and then we've got Galactus to worry about.)
Distributed Denial of Survival.
~Idarubicin
As one poster pointed out, it is a reference to Sienfeld, crabby.
... can help accomplish this feat!
I'm no browser expert but I'm happy with FF. Is there a compelling reason to try Opera? If there is, cool. I'll try it...
Well, i'm downloading it and trying it.
Let's see him swim!
From this site:
Lecomte, born 1967, immigrated from France to Austin, Texas, at age 23. When his father died of colon cancer in 1992, it spurred him to do something extraordinary to raise awareness of and money for cancer research. With the help of Edward Coyle, director of UT Austin's Human Performance Lab, and dieticians, Lecomte trained to build his endurance, swimming and cycling 3 to 5 hours a day, six days a week for two years. On 16 July 1998 he set out from Cape Cod with 8 wet suits, a snorkel and some flippers into turning weather. Navigated through the 40th and 50th latitude by two French sailors on a 12m (40 foot) sailboat and protected by an electronic force field, Lecomte swam 6 to 8 hours a day at two-hour intervals. He mainly used the crawl stroke, switching occasionally to a mono fin and using an undulating dolphin kick to carry him over the 5 600km (3 736 nautical miles) of relentless waves. 72 days later, on 28 September, he swam ashore exhausted but heroic at Quiberon, France.
Use its ergonomic point-and-chomp interface, of course.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Is the guy in tights on the homepage opera man?
swimming from Norway, Maine, USA to USA? Oh yeah, Iceland isnt quite on the way, but nevermind that. :)
The 'who's got the most downloads' game is silly, but apparently the Firefox promotors think it's terribly significant (see SpreadFirefox.com).
:)
So it's really ironic that so many people tell on slashdot that they are downloading like crazy to see Jon swim, all the while helping Opera beat Firefox in this silly game
If you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own. - Neal Stephenson
Who gives a damn?
What a shameless plug! Seems like Slashdot goes a little more commercial every day. Product introductions, book advertisements, movie advertisements. Are you guys now accepting kickbacks from these posters? Jeez.
If I said I would stand on my head if 1000 slashdotters bought some inane product I manufactured, would slashdot publish it? These manipulative, self-serving posts are becoming ever more common, and ever more irritating.
To paraphrse what he is saying... "Opera sucks so bad there is no way we will hit 1 million downloads in 4 days. Our product just isn't worth downloading. Seriously, I'm so sure our product sucks that if I am wrong and people are actually interested in it I will go jump in the ocean and drown myself."
Distributed Murder CEO Attack
Practically every element in the UI is user- customizable.
You don't like toolbar locations? Or what's in them? Right-click to open the "customize toolbars" and have a good time dragging and dropping. (if it isn't in there, try Preferences in the Tools menu.) Perhaps sticking the Progress Bar somewhere else would help.
I've been using it since V4 in Windows, I'm using v7.54 in Linux and if I weren't going out the door in a few, I'd be downloading V8 right now.
BTW, it's got an RSS reader built in as well.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Thinking of a private jet with a pool...
It's too bad Concordes don't fly anymore.
Would that be decadence worthy of the dot.com boom?
You claim that "nobody is happy" under ISO 8601. Well, haven't China and Japan used the ISO 8601 date format for as long as they've been using the Gregorian calendar?
Also, I was trying to find how far he would have to swim and found this site where I found theres a town called Oslo in the USA and also found that he would have to swim 683 miles (5927 km) (3200 nautical miles) from Oslo to New York (they didn`t have any norwegian coastal towns available for search).
watch the greased up ceo guy
that's not very fair. what with the taking advantage of slashdot effect to make the poor guy stick to his words, we'll all download it and never even look at it, hell I downloaded to /tmp
-Tim Louden
...that he would be swimming in the heated pool of his personal yatch
that and the fact that his distribution servers' internet connnection could not possibly support 1 million download in 4 days.
Just another CEO following JhOdeham's law: never bet on anything unless you already know the outcome.
Who wouldnt want to watch an idiot swimming in the cold seas? This is just to attract attention so that many people will download Opera.
After paying a relatively high price to register the bug riddled and somewhat incomplete Opera 3.62 browser - because I wanted to support a non M$, non-Netscape choice in the marketplace - when Opera proudly offered a short while later to give me a *discount* (something like -only- $25 for the upgrade) on the opportunity to buy a more bloated and perhaps more bug-free upgrade, that's when I decided that paying for a browser was a bad investment and spending money on "causes" was ill-advised.
Note to software CEOs: if you're trying to sell something that is availble free, don't screw over the people who do buy your product. They have long memories.
Okay, the gauntlet has been thrown. If the download count hits a million within the time limit, then I will personally have sex with every member of the Swedish Bikini Team. And I won't even stop for hot chocolate.
One of his staffers just blogged about how the CEO's going to do it ;) You didn't hear it from me, did you?
http://my.opera.com/nicomen/journal/2
First the version *FOR* FC3:
# rpm -Uvh opera-8.0-20050415.6-shared-qt.i386-en.rpm
>rehash
>opera Segmentation fault opera (core dumped)
This crashed before it even opened a window...
OK, how about the version for other Fedora systems
#rpm -Uvh opera-8.0-20050415.5-shared-qt.i386-en.rpm
>opera
Segmentation fault opera (core dumped)
(this time after opening 4 tabs - google,
Thank you opera, and good bye!
very
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"