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?
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?
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.
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.
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
by not downloading Opera
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.
Does your breathing improve my web browser's performance somehow?
Do you, through breathing, disrupt Microsoft's monopoly or create world peace?
No, it does not. Your continued living is therefore pointless. Please die.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Would that be a Distributed Murder Attack?
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...
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 |
>Will it create world peace?
Ah, here you need to think, "out-side-the-box," as my dear managing friends with their minds stuck in dreams of the '90s would say.
You see, during his trip, he is surely to begin to drown. At this point, a beautiful mermaid will rescue him, and take him to a wonderous city under the sea. Here, not only will he learn true love and the meaning of Christmas, but he will also learn the secret to world peace.
Having also learned the secret ways of the merfolk mystics, he will emerge from the depths and proceed to bring a wave of peace and prosperity to the entire world. The fact that he brings this about through a massive invading merfolk army is a minor detail, one that will surely be forgotten in the history books, where children of the future shall learn how wonderous it is to be alive in a world of peace.
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.
do GET 'http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?id=26712 ' >
done
C'mon in, the water's fine.
Software Wars
"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...
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
About the Hotmail issue: there are limits to the webcoding stupidity that a browser can fix.
http://my.opera.com/hallvors/journal/37
If you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own. - Neal Stephenson
Download.com didn't start counting this last Tuesday... The screenshot they have is from 7.5x.
If you don't like having choices made for you, you should start making your own. - Neal Stephenson
...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?
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?
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.
...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
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.)
Opera's generally faster than Firefox, and handles tabbed windows in a much more intelligent way. Though you can get most of the same functionality from FF with plugins Opera works properly from the get go.
If you use POP mail the M2 mail client is also great, though it takes some getting used to. Works on filters rather than folders, much like Gmail.
The Opera/FF war is always flamebait, so I won't say Opera's best for everyone, but if you haven't looked at it already it's worth trying.
I don't understand how "USA! USA! USA!" can possibly top "geeky correct". It's so obvious the right way is YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS it hurts.
How TF can a date format that automatically sorts correctly be wrong?
Opera has to fund development somehow, and basically your comment is nothing but FUD.
Clever signature text goes here.