Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Gates to join Simonyi in Space?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gain-some-perspective dept.

gadgetopia writes "On Russian state television, cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin tells journalists in a live video interview from the ISS that "Charles said that Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space"." Gotta wonder what that insurance premium is going to look like.

22 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Where to donate... by nschubach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Where can we donate to the "Leave Bill on the Moon" cause?

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    1. Re:Where to donate... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Funny

      Send $20 via PayPal to morgan_greywolf (at) yahoo (dot) com

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:Where to donate... by nschubach · · Score: 5, Funny

      Putting more thought into it....

      I think it would be even better to put all that money into a new paint job for the shuttle. Cover the shuttle till right before launch. Get Bill strapped in and ready. Setup a monitor inside so he can see the revealing and right before launch, unveil a shuttle painted like a huge Tux.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  2. Missing something by ThePolkapunk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Looks like you're missing an anchor tag there. I highly recommend it. They're great for linking!
     
    Oh wait, this is a story about Bill Gates. Is this a joke about how IE doesn't follow w3 standards for HTML? If so, it's not that funny.

    --
    Dear diary: Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender.
  3. Weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Charles said that a href="http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/11258/ 1066/ A really odd thing for Charles to say. How do you pronounce "href", anyway? :)

    On a more serious note, however, the Slashdot editting have reached a new low.
  4. Watch Bill sweat... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...as he sits there in his spacesuit in his capsule next to the Russian cosmonaut commander as "Soyuz 12 - Powered by Windows Vista" flashes up on the main control screen just before the primary engine ignition sequence...

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    1. Re:Watch Bill sweat... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yep, "Bill Shits On Departure".

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  5. Yeah, quadruple indirection! by qazsedcft · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slashdot provides a link to what Fyodor Yurchikhin said about what Charles Simonyi said about what Bill Gates supposedly intends to do.

    1. Re:Yeah, quadruple indirection! by mikelieman · · Score: 4, Funny

      AND it's all about a trip less than 250 miles away, to a toy-space station that doesn't even have any hookers.

      I suggest we put the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce in charge of developing a REAL moonbase.

      --
      Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
  6. That sorts him out but one major fault remains - by unity100 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Anyone heard whether Steve Ballmer is thinking of taking the trip too ?

    --
    Read radical news here
  7. Re:That sorts him out but one major fault remains by pandrijeczko · · Score: 4, Funny

    No. Apparently the mission objectives are a dozen orbits around Ballmer's ego while safely retrieving items of loose furniture in unstable orbits around him.

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  8. Insurance by Antibore · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would Gates even have insurance, it's not like he needs one with that wealth.

  9. Great, let's hope he stays there. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Reminds me of an old Ukrainian joke how when Gagarin went into space some guy announced that Russians have gone into space to which the auditory hopefuly asked if all of them and was greatly disapointed to learn that only one.

  10. Lots of jokes, but... by Aladrin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Joking aside, I wonder exactly what would change should Gates not make it back to the Earth?

    Would his empire fall, or would his second-in-command just jump into his chair and everything continues as usual?

    Would there be a slew of 'secret' things suddenly appear? Would these secrets hurt or help the business? I could see it going either way... Secret projects would probably boost the company as speculation about them flooded the news, but secrets about Gates' personal life would do the opposite, I think.

    I'm pretty sure MS stock would plunge, so not much speculation there.

    Personally, I think we'd be worse off as Gates is sort of held personally accountable for everything Microsoft does, and I think he has a conscience. But if someone else took his place, there would be less personal influence and it'd be the company rampaging out of control. Short term horror, at least... Long term, it'd tear the company apart and be a blessing. But then, everything dies in the long term.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    1. Re:Lots of jokes, but... by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's already fallen.

      Like Andrew Carnegie, Gates is like a bear who went over the mountain, saw another mountain, and being somewhat smarter than the average bear had a shrewd guess about what he'd find on the other side of that mountain.

      We're in the post-Gates era of Microsoft now. If he wanted to be back in charge, he could be, but he's onto phase II of his career, which is not about Microsoft. There'd be no ego gratification, no fun in maintaining the status quo. So he's on to changing the world. It's not an unheard of late career move for the evil genius who has no Sherlock Holmes against whom he can test his mettle. If Spassky hit his mid career, and found the only people left to challenge him played chess like me, he'd have taken up crochet instead.

      What would you do if you had to be Bill Gates, not for day, but every day for, say, the next forty or fifty years? You'd want to do something pretty damned amazing with your life, not only amazing, but amazing compared to what you did with the first half of your life.

      Now you have Microsoft, which is built around Bill Gates ego, except Bill Gates' ego is on to bigger and better things. They're a ghost of their former selves. Seriously, the old Microsoft would not have been humiliated by a startup whose motto was "do no evil". Google would have been crushed or coopted. Crushed and coopted more likely, in whatever order suited Bill Gates master plan best.

      I think we can expect better things from both Gates and Microsoft in the coming years than we've seen from them yet, but the transition is going to be painful for people who are overinvested in Microsoft. Overinvested in more ways than money.

      So, overall, I think people, even Microsoft haters, ought to be rooting for Gates to make it back to the Earth.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  11. No way. He wont do it. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Funny

    Gates would go to orbit only if Steve Jobs goes there first. He would not understand why Steve went, but just to be sure he has would not be blind sided like he was with iPod, he would go there.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  12. Re:That sorts him out but one major fault remains by pandrijeczko · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...kept in static geostationary orbit only by the sheer magical power created in chanting repeatedly the word "developers" while performing an ancient ritualistic dance.

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  13. Re:d'oh for you... by PFI_Optix · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh, you'll get there. The question is, will you be able to get back?

    "What do you mean 'a fatal error has occurred'?"

    --
    120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
  14. What happens if Bill's spacesuit leaks... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...and he has to wait three months for a patch to fix it?

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  15. Countdown by Moggyboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Houston to Bill, Houston to Bill, do you read Bill?"
    "Loud and clear Houston. Go ahead."
    "Bill, we're all go here. We just need you to push the big red button in front of you."
    "OK Houston, I'm pushing the button, and... huh?"
    "What is it Bill?"
    "This big window just popped up saying 'You do not have privileges to access applications Orbit and Space.' Oh, now the whole screen's gone blue. Is that normal Houston?"

    --
    Work smarter, not harder.
    1. Re:Countdown by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Funny

      When Bill Gates is on the ISS and wants to go back:
      "Huston, I have a problem."
      "What's your problem, Bill?"
      "I tried to get back to earth, but this damned space ship won't start."
      "You can't get back now."
      "Why not?"
      "You only bought the Space Basic license to get into space."
      "And that means?"
      "The Space Basic license doesn't include the license to return to earth."
      "Ehm ... but I want to return to earth!"
      "Well, no problem. You just have to upgrade your license to Space Premium. Or to Space Ultimate."
      "What's the difference?"
      "Space Ultimate also gives you the license to return to earth alive."
      "Ok, I'll take space ultimate."
      "Fine. The money will be drawn from your bank account. Of course you have to register."
      "Ok ... well, it says I cannot upgrade, because Space Genuine Advantage determined an invalid license."
      "Well, of course you have to have a valid Space Basic or Space Premium license to upgrade."
      "But I do have a valid license. Isn't there a way to circumvent SGA?"
      "Of course not. We certainly have to make sure that only people with valid licenses enter the ISS."
      "But I am already on the ISS."
      "So you must be a space pirate. Sorry, but we don't support space pirates."

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  16. Re:d'oh for you... by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 3, Funny

    I for one would like to see the look on his face when he climbs into the cockpit and sees the Vista boot splash...

    --Neth

    --
    Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.