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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?
talk about overusing significant digits
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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...
Because this gives a lot of posters getting positive moderation by pointing out this fact, giving a link to the general download page (the latter is almost guaranteed to get +5 Informative) or maybe even by making fun of it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Shrinkage.
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...
This is most definitely not happening.
REALLY?????
First, the Gulf Stream doesn't extend that far north. Take a look at the wiki for it.
However, if he were swimming against it (instead of north it and perpendicular (roughly) to the current of the North Atlantic Drift), he'd be lucky to make any headway at all. The average speed of the Gulf Current is around 5 knots (or is that nauts? I've never been sure which is correct). Now, I've done a mile swim numerous times-- I was on swim/dive as a kid-- and I KNOW it takes me about 18-20 minutes to swim an imperial mile. Considering a nautical mile is even longer, I really doubt I'd make any progress swimming against that current! Take that & multiply by however many miles it is from Norway to Maine... I don't even want to imagine trying.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
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.
On Slashdot, the webservers are the ONLY things that ever "go down".
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
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.
Not to mention the modding-up for the people who explain it.
Add in the modding up of the person who points out that the person who explained the modding up procedure is being modded up and it's a full blown mod orgy.
Do you Gentoo!?
A tiny script runs on the Opera web server...waiting...watching...
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
YES! I KNOW IT'S A JOKE, HOWEVER ....
Dude! That is a crappy bit of code. The likelihood
of it ever working is vanishingly small.
Several problems:
Because your test is not synchronized with the
download counter your chances of stopping
at 999999 are, well, like winning the lottery.
Having determined that there have been 999999
downloads there is a nasty race condition before
the interface is brought down.
Believe it or not, once the counter reaches 999999
the number of downloads may be higher because
the process updating the counter hasn't committed
its changes yet.
For extra credit I advise that you go away and
rethink your solution otherwise your boss will
be pissed at having to swim through shark
infested water. I also see a pink slip on
your horizon.
- Moomin