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Meet the Guy Who Holds the Guinness World Record For Collecting Spreadsheets (fastcompany.com)
harrymcc writes: Ariel Fischman, a financial advisor in Mexico City, has been using spreadsheet software for 30 years. And in recent years he's been collecting it: VisiCalc, 1-2-3, Excel, Quattro, and lesser lights in their once-familiar boxes, in a dizzying array of variants stretching back to the 1970s. Last year, Guinness World Records certified that his collection is without peer. I recently spoke to him about it -- starting with the obvious question -- Why spreadsheets? -- for Fast Company.
Because its tech related. Because a Guinness Book record is interesting in a light-hearted way. Cause the guy could actually speak intelligently about his hobby and tie it to the history of the mundane yet important market of consumer software?
Exactly how much time does it take for one to ignore a slashdot article?
You think spreadsheet software is the geekiest thing you can collect? What about Star Wars memorabilia? Video games and video game consoles. Playboy.
Ok, the Guinness World Records have become a bit ridiculous, registering records for some very trivial things, but at least this guy is not collecting "spreadsheets", but boxed spreadsheet software. He has over 500 according to the "strict" record parameters, or 800 otherwise.
It's still rather trivial of course, when I was a kid (almost 3 decades ago), I had asked for the Guinness Book of records for christmas and enjoyed reading about the tallest man, the fastest animal etc, but the biggest spreadsheet software collection is nothing like that. I mean, you could have thousands of records under the category "biggest xx software collection", or things like "biggest kellogs cerial box collection" etc. Maybe I should also apply, I have the worlds biggest "software written by myself" software collection...
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