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Pirates of Silicon Valley
We've mentioned this once or twice in the past, but I figure
its probably worth mentioning it again.
Pirates of the Silicon
Valley is running this weekend on TNT (sunday at 8pm). Its the story of
Gates and Jobs, as played by Noah Wiley and Anthony Michael Hall.
I dunno if it'll be any good, but I'll probably watch it.
It'll be interesting to see how they take the story (which is
actually quite entertaining and interesting) and adapt it for
a mainstream audience.
Thanks to
jbut355 for reminding me.
Wow, I'm so glad that someone who knows Bill Gates so personally well is writting on slashdot!
... to play the RICHEST PERSON IN THE WORLD?
Just because you don't like him doesn't change
his net worth. He's a major character in
history. Have _you_ dominated an industry?
sheesh.
That is real nice. Whether or not you like Gates, he does not deserve death. I know you Linux whiners aren't the most mature bunch. Remember he is probably the most responsible for you having that PC in front of you. This is before he turned into the ruthless leader that he now is.
I don't think Anthony Michael Hall is GEEKY looking enough to play Gates...
A lot of computer hackers (used the correct way) like myself and most of /. are overly critical. I think however, if you were really into computers, any media coverage showing the early days of the OS and PC wars would be interesting.
-Just my 2 cents.
And Hitler was just a misguided art student before society sent him astray and forced him to bring down the wrath of the Third Reich on the world... Just like Gates is just a misunderstood supergenius billionaire. The similarities between the two are too scary.
heh, the only person who should be left unscathed is Woz. just look at what the guy is doing now, spending all his time (and a good chunk of change too) teaching kids how to use computers. i dont know Woz personally but i do know ppl who know him and supposedly he is just one of the nicest guys you can meet.
The truth about Silicon valley is ,some one thinks something cool up and someone else steals it and makes a bundle of money from it,and calls it inovation .I wont waste my time on TNT movie but maybe Cringley can kiss *ss to TNT so he can show his nerds of the vallley B/S on TNT
RES IPSA LOQUTUR
Be fair. The Gates' give quite a bit of money away, mostly for things like education and computers in schools, but occasionally for things like Kosovo refugee relief. It doesn't always get publicized, and it's not sexy news (the DOJ trial is much sexier). And yes, I do wish he'd give some my way. But you do have a valid point about how he could give more. Me, I'd like to see some of that money going to fund teaching jobs in elementary and secondary schools.
"Money is like manure. You have to spread it around for it to be any good. Otherwise it just sits there in a great big pile and stinks."
-- Dolly Gallagher Levi
ahhh, gregg tell us how you really feel and dont be afraid to throw in some more of that revisionist history of yours.
So as it stands now he could write everyone in the US a check for about $200. Anyone wanna pop a cap in this guy so I can finally get my rebate for the 5 copies of Win95 I paid for that I never used? ;-)
And it's great. Sure, there's some holes in it, especially toward the end, but Noah Wiley and Anthony Michael Hall were fan-freakin'-tastic! Hall totally had Gates down, and I can't think of another successful actor who looks as much like Jobs as Wiley. I only wish they would have made it into a mini-series, or at least added an hour to fill some things out.
-Roger Avary
TNT aired it a while back (like three weeks ago) and it was pretty good. It tells how gates introduced DOS as well as designed Win 3.x
I'm hiding behind AC because this post is going to sound like one of those "I was programming back when we only had 1's and 0's and sometimes we didn't even have 1's" stories.
I got my first computer in the late 70's. I got into it in a big way and I was just old enough to be interested in the industry itself. I remember when Microsoft was known for: the Applesoft interpreter, a Z80 emulator, and, IIRC, a kick-butt flight simulator. When the IBM PC came out, everyone wondered how this little company managed to get the contract for the operating system on the IBM PC.
But the thing I remember most about those days was the VIBE. Big Money Corporatism was around, of course, but nothing like it is today. There was a feeling that anyone with wits and patience could crank out the next Cool Thing (TM) from their extra bedroom and become a legend.
In today's homogenized big-money software world that feeling is gone. Software companies now get several million in venture capital before they write one line of code. Innovation is often the result of throwing money at problems rather than brains.
There is an exception to this, though. For me, at least, the Free Software community captures the spirit of those "early" days. It's still a place where a teenaged geek can create something that impacts people all over the world.
FWIW, I will not be at all surprised in 20 years if "The History of The Personal Computer" includes more than a few people in today's Free Software community.
Does anyone else remember Anthony Michael Hall as the "Geek" in the movie '16 Candles'? He was complaining about the high cost of floppy disks to Molly Ringwald.
Just thought I would through this in...
There are no "innocent civilians" in Redmond.
Try putting all of these people's names in your favorite search engine. Mr. Jeremy appears on some interesting sites. :)
Windows? What? The reason most of us die hards
got into this industry is because of CBM and the C64 and Amigas. We laughed at Windows 3.1, at its silly interface, its lack of real multitasking, its crappy graphics, and everything else.
Then DOOM came out and kinda screwed everything up. Every Amiga owner jumped ship (including myself) for this blasted game. Ugh. Not to mention a lot of Apple people.. *SIGH*..
Yeah I guess if you have that cash you can do whatever you want. Still how can you make things "better" if you giut like he has. Anyone think he is getting the most out of his brain? There is something in a person that shrinks away from challenges that you just have to _not_ like
Don't have too. Your take that continued existence requires justification rather than vice versa, is moronic at best. What a horrible and tyrannical society would this be?
Care to justify your life? By what standard? I think that you are probably an idiot (no matter your technical skills, which we will assume at above average cause you are here) but I will not call for your execution. Although, I will ask that you use care in reproduction.
Fight Gates on technical merit. You meet a**holes all the time, learn to ignore them and move on with your life
When he was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last week, he said he was playing the role of Steve Jobs (He pronounced it jawbs). Sheesh. If you're going to play someone in a movie, at least learn how to pronounce their name.
As incoherent as he was, he wasn't spouting revisionist history. IBM did build the ancestor of the pc you probably have before you, and they did try to get CP/M for it. I don't think the bit about face cream was meant seriously.
Haha
Yeah, back when "Software Documentation" wasn't as much as an oxymoron. I still have an MS-DOS 5.0 manual, and I remember monkeying around w/ CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT so that I could use EMS memory to play a game. I also remember old MS OSes came w/ BASIC of some variety (GW, or Q).
Also, in my old Packard bell (ugh!) 386SX-20 manual, it says "Runs: DOS, OS/2, Xenix (UNIX)". I had no idea what the latter to were util a few years later.
Hello!
I don't have real cable, so I'll miss the movie, but I always have found history somewhat interesting, especially the history of things I'm interested in that are big today. Anybody know of any books/websites that have well written histories of various players in computing? (Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Joy, Scott McNealy, Tim Berners-Lee, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Marshall Kirk McKusick, etc etc. Also the big co's and uni's: AT&T, MS, Apple, NeXT, Sun, UC Berkeley, NCSA, U of Illinois, Xerox, etc)
Ok, I can accept that Bill Gats has led a pretty charmed life. But could people please stop crediting him with things he did not do. Bill Gates is not responsible for the PC industry. If Bill Gates had never gotten into the software industry we'd still have GUIs and mice and all the cool stuff we have now, just in a slightly different form. This is accepting, of course, that removing any one person's actions from history is a big gamble. Perhaps if Gates hadn't gotten into the software industry, he'd have caught a cold instead, and it would have evolved into a deadly virus and killed everyone, or perhaps a bizarre set of circumstances would have unfolded and the already blossoming pc industry would have vanished overnight. Neither of these are very likely, however. This seems to be one of those situations where history is very much like a river; regardless of how all the little currents move, the river still flows dowhill and doesn't stray from its course.
Think about it. IBM would have just gone with CP/M. A lot of the details of who did what and when would be different, but the overall pattern would be the same. Would things like Linux exist? Almost certainly. Would Linux itself exist? Probably not, because of the butterfly effect, so it might be the HURD, or one of the *BSD's or something else entirely.
Now, repeat after me: "Bill Gates did not invent Basic. Bill Gates did not write Dos. Bill Gates did not invent the mouse. Bill Gates did not invent the gui. Bill Gates did not work his way up from the gutter. Bill Gates did not invent the internet. Bill Gates did not create the PC industry. Bill Gates was only one among millions who envisioned a PC on every desktop. Bill Gates has not done any coding in about fifteen years. Bill Gates dismissed the Internet as irrelevant. Bill Gates solution to a tv in his home that would not turn off at night was to throw a blanket over it when most real nerds would have found a way to pull the plug."
I mean, for crying out loud, get over the guy.
Don't you have to weigh the good he does with his money against the harm he does by hoarding it?
I think that you have just insulted a _lot_ of fifth grade teachers.
My first computer was a TRS-80, no MS Windows, thank you very much. I think you assume too much. Shame on you.
>>
Awww, it it sweet. Maybe you should go steal a lock of his hair.
Programmer groupies... I like it.
Wow. You musts be rilee smrt to duh sumthin luk that.
I saw it too. a damn strange thing, at 2am exactly one night, i just flipped on the tv and saw an overhead of 2 guys running through some riots and i said to myself - that looks like berkeley. sure enough i saw the whole damn thing that night, stayed up till 4am. i thought it was strange how they worked woz in, but it still was worth watching. i got a kick out of what an idiot ballmer seems to be.
I'm having a hard time correlating your rant with anything that stated in the post to which you responded. You seem to have focused on one throw-away phrase and missed the larger intent of the message.
That is, you have turned the comment: "Software companies now get several million in venture capital before they write one line of code. into a rant about " ignorant teens assume they are the knights of innovation".
Did you miss the part about "I got my first computer in the late 70's"?
Curiously, though, I can find myself partially agreeing with some elements of your post.
;) ).
However (while I'm here), I find a couple of points weak:
1) You deride Mosaic and Linux as 'clones' of prior implementations -- question: is there some concept in computing that has ever arrived fully-formed with no antecedents? (Case in point: Ethernet is a "clone" of Aloha -- true or false -- hint: consider it a rhetorical question if you don't know
2) Aren't some ideas just so good that re-inventing them is an exercise only considered worthy by the marketing droids? (Case(s) in point: Ethernet, Unix, HTTP + HTML + URL == WWW) -- hint: this one's not rhetorical.
Ya know, I have to respect someone who does that, even if, as a libertarian, I think that they don't "have to". One SHOULD express one's appreciacion for those that help one, even if one doesn't HAVE to.
On a smaller scale, I once refused a salary increase unless a fellow employee (a "lowly" lab tech) recieved a 50% raise (from "peanuts" to something at least respectable). Geez, this guy was fiercely loyal, and happily did a lot of the "shit work" that I really needed to have someone else do. I pointed out that I couldn't have "drained the swamp" if I didn't have someone to keep the "alligators off my ass", as it were.
Other employees thought I was nuts, but I found that I could sleep with a better conscience, and we retained a great tech who could very easily have found employment elsewhere without much warning.
Sure, I'd rather have more money than less money, but not when I think that someone deserves it more than I do. After all, how many boats can I water-ski behind at once (no, I don't water ski)?
In the end, being true to one's purported ethics is priceless.
- Rene S. Hollan (posting anonymously, at home)
The Telephone is a tool. I use it to speak to people. I book dentist's appointments and airline flights. But that's it.
The telephone is not the greatest invention mankind has every created. That's a tossup between the kaleidoscope and the ukelele.
Ten years from now, (I hope) we'll look back on this frenzy over talking to my grandma who lives in Peoria the way we look back on Viennese waltzes.
Have a nice decade ;-)
Well, I started out on a timeshared HP2000, coding in (horrors!) BASIC. That was in 1974. In those days,m we hacked together multi-terminal space war games (text based, with communications via files). Boy was it crude! Boy, was it exhilarating!
I quickly outgrew BASIC (duhh!), but C wasn't available to me, so I picked up assembler (8080, PDP-11, and then 68000). Worked on an Alpha Microsystems system that a friend had for his business (this in 1976, one year after the Altair came out -- hacked on that for a while, but it was a toy compared to the multi-user Alpha: a microprogrammed implementation of a PDP-11 on an "enhanced" S-100 bus (with a 16-bit data path, that later ended up close to the S-100 IEEE 696 standard"))
Of course, while in high school, the three years from early 1974 to late 1976, was an eternity (got a TI SR-52 calculator in there somewhere -- still have it). Man, hacking was life.
On to University, with a Cyber 7600 (later an 835) mainframe. Fortran, Cobol (ugh), PASCAL, and pretty damn quick, CDC assembler. Classes were a breeze (well, except for statistics, perhaps), and I hacked with the best of them. Involved in Fortran Adventure ports ("You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike"). Graduated with a Bachelors Degree in '82 and a Masters in '84 (Comp. Sci., of course).
Then I started working for a living. Writing IBM 360/370 assembler and COBOL (until I changed jobs and got closer to 'new' PC and embedded systems).
Something changed.
Instead of doing the "right" thing, management decided what would be implemented, and to some extent, how ("OUR standard is to indent TWO spaces, not THREE"). The elegant hack gave way to the the ugly kludge. Our hype had to be better than "their" hype. Code didn't matter any more. And it sucked. It still sucks -- "Oh, that's THEIR code -- their problem.", instead of "What's wrong? Let's find out -- they can't guarantee a fix, so we may as well see what we're up against and maybe fix it". "We'll kludge around it -- it's faster and cheaper."
"When I was a child, I had a fleeting glimpse, out of the corner of my eye. / The child is grown, the feeling's gone" [Pink Floyd]
I think that this reflects the "Computer" industry as much as my own personal angst.
- Rene S. Hollan (posting anonymously, at home)
Just reading thru this thread...it's amusing how many people declare enthusiastically, even furiously, that they don't care at all about Gates or MS.
I'm not absolutely sure but I've only ever heard it (in educated circles at least) pronounced as "jObes" as in rhymes with ear-lobes.
As watching anyone but Shakespeare will illustrate, it is very difficult to protray actual thoughts in a dramatic presentation.
Keep this in mind while viewing: "Bill Gates THINKS like Steve Ballmer LOOKS!"
I wonder how many of the folks on this board that bash M$ everyday own stock in that company
Hi.
I think you're looking for the Stock-R-Us.com 'rumors&gossip' site. That's out to the lobby, one floor up, and second door on the right.
Although, if you're really trying to make an Objectivist argument, please try to a better job next time. (However, I do give you full points for some of the 'false forms of argument' that you managed to inject into your spew).
The hype around this movie just serves to demonstrate once again that some people in this industry (Gates, Jobs, Ellison, Stallman) are just plain evil.
On another note, did the movie mention the old stories about Jobs ripping Woz off by claiming that their deal with Atari involved less money than it actually did (and keeping the difference, of course) and that Woz and Jobs both stole parts from Atari for the Apple I computers?
I just felt that it should be pointed out that the POSV trailer is in, you guessed it, quicktime 3...just like every other trailer on the WWW...Sure glad that this crummy browser can take advantage of Apple tech...
There are two possible scenerios. The large PR machine that has allowed MicroSloth to grow to it's current stature without once producing a product of it's own will either:
1) Roll over and play dead in the face of a bad movie by sub-par professionals and low standards actors on public access television in more than half of the continental US
OR
2) This will be yet one more leg of the growing hydra, meant to glorify in the light and shining omnipotece of the great and exalted Billy-God.
I have the funny feeling it will be the latter in the face of the "holdings" Billy has in satelites, communications equipment, and his stock in the network's parent company.
To proffer one more interesting point, isn't it interesting, in light of the real power Bill wields in the television market, together with his current PR problems, that scarcely a long enough time has passed from the turning point in the trial when what's his face was on the stand for this little venture to be filmed and produced, that it is out. If we accept that it will be a yellow report of these two personalities, and we will see soon enough, then filming had to have started when Microsloth failed to have the attorney general's charges dismissed. A little insurance perhaps in the aftermath of a potentially damaging blow to PR, or an added lift to the further bouyed Gates after winning the trial.
David M. Harris
harr326@ibm.net
Diversifying and taking risks are opposite
one another. With one, you're trying to win, with
the other, you're trying not to lose.
Social challenges can be just as difficult (and
more) difficult to deal with as technical and
economic ones.
Think about it: It takes maybe 5-10 people supporting and working with one drug addict over a
course of a few years to get them cleaned up and
self-sufficient again, when it only takes
some executive maybe a week to cut a multi-million
dollar deal, yet somehow we think that the latter
is the more valuable accomplishment.
In terms of social technology, this country is
pretty weak.
I'm not one of those ebullient, ultra-compassionate people who can help others that
naturally, but I respect those who can. I don't
think wozniak is like that naturally either, so
he must be really trying.
>All I can see is he donated about $400million to put Windows PCs in some libraries.
A local library around here was recieving a computer from that program, and had Linux installed on it instead of Windows. Apparently somebody had given them a copy of Linux and they liked it so much more than Windows that they asked that the computers come with Linux on them instead of Windows.
FWIW, and so long as we're talking fluff, my first impression of a publicity shot of Noah Wyle was he's more of a Linus than a Jobs. Maybe next year when we get "Attack of the Screaming Penguin Hoardes"....
This pic shows the resemblance pretty well....
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
As others have pointed out, it's idiotic to assume that anyone that doesn't like Bill Gates or his actions is just jealous. (Or, for that matter, that "everyone of us" is jealous.) While it would be nice to have a few billion in the bank, it has nothing to do with my dislike for him. I'm not even jealous of millionaires that I respect.
I do admit that I don't know the man personally (surprise, surprise), but you can surmise quite a bit from his and his company's actions and second-hand stories. It doesn't paint a pretty picture.
So... are you jealous of the crack dealer down the street driving the brand new Mercedes? He sure is a shrewd businessman! If you criticize him, you must just be jealous!
Posted by Bill, the Galactic Hero:
The Web is a tool. I use it to get journal publications. I send code back and forth over it. But that's it.
The web is not the greatest invention mankind has every created. That's a tossup between the harmonica and dynamite.
Ten years from now, (I hope) we'll look back on this frenzy over web pages full of kittens the way we look back on roller disco.
Posted by Swarth:
Actually I learned in DOS.. 2.1 I think, on my Tandy 1000EX.
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
The thing that I liked best was the way Jobs was portrayed. They showed Steve Jobs to be the asshole that he really is.
I'm extremely happy that someone decided to stop sucking Steve Jobs' ass for just long enough to show him to be the person that he really is.
I also liked the way Bill Gates was not portrayed as just plain evil, but simply greedy which is a much more plausable explaination for why he acts the way he does.
LK
Posted by Nina Simone:
There will be a lot more movies and books about Jobs, Woz and Gates. Gad, we've yet to see their ghost written autobiographies - although I'm hoping Woz will construct a superior minimalist bio.
I don't think the whole biz will fly until there are nerd sex revelations. When I see the Enquirer running a story about Melissa spanking Bill, I know we'll have hit the Variety moment.
There could be a movie about you. Keep coding, keep schmoozing and hang out at Buck's.
So? He hasn't actually given the money away... it's just earmarked for charity. What's he going to do with it? Buy Windows PCs for children in poor countries? When he starts using significant amounts of his money to benefit people in ways that do not also directly benefit him, then maybe I'll believe that he's being charitable. 'Til then, I don't buy it.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
In the publicity photos I've seen, he looks like the young Steve, especially in the bowtie get-up like the one Steve wore to the original Mac presentation. I'm wondering, however, if Wiley will be able to duplicate that 'I am the baddest motherfucker alive' expession Steve had on his face that day. If you haven't ever seen that, see if you can dig up a movie of it somewhere on the net.
It's the perfect picture of a 27-year old who was quite convinced that he was truly the shit.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
Does anyone know whether this is the same TNT which broadcasts in The Netherlands?
I dunno, maybe it's just me, but it seems like I was born to late or something. reading their (jobs and gates) bios and seeing all that they did, and all that they accomplished (and no matter what side of the fence you lie on, you _have_ to admit that they did accomplish a lot. how many of you would've gone into computers when you did if window$ weren't there to help you through the baby steps...) it just makes me think that I'm stepping into a field that's drying up. seems like all of the _huge_ discoveries have been made, and all the major players have already been chosen. ya know?
oh well, that's just my rant. thnks
-peter
Visit
at abcnews.go.com. Yes, I know he's had some questionable articles in the past, but as far as I can tell, he sticks to the facts here.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I'm an idiot.
Visit Moody's article here . And hopefully the anchor is CLOSED this time...
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Remember he is probably the most responsible for you having that PC in front of you.
Ha You freakish lazy-eyed bastard.
Only a suck up Microsofty would believe that crap. I guess Bill also is responsible for the internet and spell checking. Did IBM build a PC and try to get CP/M on it? Yes they did! Look at what Steve Jobs did with 128k of memory in 1984 and then talk to me about Billy.
Bill Gate deserves to be known as the person who sold crap as face-cream. He lost any redeeming quality day two of Microsoft.
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
...were published in yesterday's Salon. The review had this quote: "if you're looking for an amusing, Hollywood-filtered dramatization of the rise of the geek industry, there are worse ways to spend your Sunday evening." :)
The debunking of the story I found more interesting and informative. "Pirates" isn't ground-breaking by any means, and does little more than perpetuate the existing mythos of Silicon Valley (and make TNT some ad revenue). The real history (IMHO) is more interesting, but it'd shatter the popular worldview, so few subscribe to it. It's more fun to demonize people you only know through third- or fourth-hand accounts, apparently.
--
The Future: Some assembly required; batteries not included.
Yeah ... I still have my DOS 3.21 manuals ... ... when 640K really meant
Those were the days
something!
Share data. Share code. Share ideas. Share the wealth.
http://stockfilter.org
It says they have pioneered the technology landscape. I would have to disagree as many were involved in shaping and developing the technology market. They just were the best hijackers and exploiters. They put the "R" in Ruthless.
Sounds pretty damn crappy: http://www.ab cnews.go.com/go/sections/tech/FredMoody/moody99062 1.html
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Good Lord! Do all you people randomly watch TNT at 2 am? And I thought I stay up too late watching pointless TV...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
But remember in the ending what Gates (in the movie) said to Jobs? "You still don't get it do you??" It is not about whether the product is superior or not, it's about how one can manipulate the markets to use their product.... which is something that Gates does so well and that Jobs seemed to have lost his way before but are not getting better at it ....
... judging from their website.
:-)
In reality, Gates is extremely annoying, unctious, whiney and has a grating, irritating voice. He acts like a spoiled brat. The guy is a total ninny. They will definitely gloss this over completely; I'm sure he will be portrayed as a tough talking no-nonsense type of person.
Yet, it might be interesting to see him transform from a young whiney rich ninny-spoiled brat into a old, market-drone-speak ultra-rich billionaire ninny-spoiled brat.
He will not be portrayed this way. Once the motherfucker is safely (for us, I hope, with shub-niggurath slowly eating his soul for all eternity) in his grave, maybe someone will portray him realistically, adding in the linux story as well - hopefully the linux saga will have a happy ending
support gun control: take guns from cops
I never said he should be killed, I said ".. when this #$%#$ dies"
support gun control: take guns from cops
With all of the talk of this show, I want to see the Revenge of the Nerds mini-series on PBS again. It was very well done, interesting, and makes me want to buy it. Too bad it's not on DVD.
*All Hail DIVX is Dead!*
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
Thanks to the beauty of the PBS Bass'O'Matic you too can produce a three part series that hypes your own book and ego. You don't believe us? Well let us prove it with this side-by-side challenge:
The car on the right is fueled by galvaston XT267-23 (after 5pm DT283-73 ext.164) and the car on the left is powered by Cringely's ego. And...there off. Galvaston XT267-23 (after 5pm DT283-73 ext.164) begins to pull ahead, it looks like and early lead for galvaston XT267-23 (after 5pm DT283-73 ext.164). Wait, Cringely's ego is building up RPMs, yes, Cringely's ego is taking the lead. And at the finish is...a big hole. Cringely's ego falls into the hole and is never seen again. This is why we must all be on constant guard against the Red Menance.
Yes, the Red Menance, working title for The Phantom Menance, a rather silly story about a boy and his dog, his dog being a robot, a robot he built himself from scraps of other dogs, those dogs also being robots that were scrapped. The boy falls down a well, that well being a wormhole through which he travels to other planets, other planets that all look like parts of the english countryside. There he meets a mad hatter and march hare, played by Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor. They enjoy a nice spot of tea and exchange names, signs, and blaster fire with a few of the queen's (played by a man I know was in "Brazil") guards, played by some ones and zereos organized in video buffers......"NO NO NO, now stop this! This is much to silly. Return to disparaging Cringley or I'll have to stop this for good."
Cringely can bite my caunnish. canaush? tomAto? tOmato?
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
only for question #19 if for noothing else, if you don't get it you probably never will.
matguy
Net. Admin.
matguy(.com)
/* I've heard it both ways. Anyone know for sure how one pronouces "Jobs"? */
.snd clip of Jobs talking (overlaid on Handel's "Messiah" -- slightly funny).
:)
My uncle used to work for NeXT computer, and as a result I'd get a lot of discounted NeXT cubes and stations and parts.
One cube that I bought had a
He pronounced it "Jobs" -- that is to say as most North Americans would pronounce the word as seeing it.
If I'm not mistaken the NeXTmail voice attachment program, LipService, had a little intro ditty by Jobs. Again, pronounced "Jobs" as in the sentence "I got fired from three jobs"
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
Again, I'm not going to speak for anyone but myself and my personal experience ...
:)
[end disclaimer]
but Jobs himself pronounced it Jobs. NeXT employees pronounced it Jobs. (My uncle was pretty high up if I'm not mistaken, and his employees pronounced it Jobs as well.) I don't think that you would be apt to mispronounce the boss' name
Three Step Plan:
1. Take over the world.
2. Get a lot of cookies.
3. Eat the cookies.
"Honey, I stole some technology, and built a machine that shrunk the kids and dominated the industry!"
;)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
to compare the two - one produces a few very high quality, highly regarded, well reviewed, albeit expensive products like the Next box or WebObjects for a select, well heeled clientel, while the other produces a flood of cheap, buggy doggerel intended to prey upon the gullibilities of any moron who want's to appear to be computer savvy
:)
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I've heard it both ways. Anyone know for sure how one pronouces "Jobs"?
They got the title wrong - it should have been called "Prats of Silicon Valley"
I've seen it. It was on a while ago on TNT, I guess they just didn't tell anyone. It's awfull. Especially the corny ending with Bill Gates on a giant screen saying to Steve Jobs "looks like we will working together..." and how many years it skips at the end. A little before it ends you see Steve and Bill arguing about Xerox, where they both just whine... blah blah blah..... It's target audience is luddites, I just MiSTified the whole thing while it was going on.
--
Four years in jail
No Trial, No Bail
*** FREE KEVIN ***
New worlds are not born in the vacuum of abstract
ideas, but in the fight for daily bread --Rudolf Rocke
WOZ.ORG
There's some neat stuff in there. The interviews are interesting.
--
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
I don't know, but the story of these two guys has hardly begun. Why make a movie about it?
In 20 or 30 years, it will really be clear if this story is worth being told, but now?
A documentary would - in my opinion - be far more appropriate for this subject.
(I also found this comment by the actor playing Gates quite amusing: "I really fought for this part because I knew it would be the role of a lifetime". Come on. Bill Gates the role of a lifetime?)
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Yes, they did air it early once on a late night
in order to beat the deadline for Emmy contention.
The show had to air before a specific date -- I'm
guessing 01 June -- to be up for this year's
Emmys. Newer shows have better chances of winning
an Emmy than older shows. They're fresher in the
voters' memories. Plus, they wouldn't get stuck
in the "No, that show was nominated last year" trap. =)
-Augie
Actually, a good book to read on the subject is "Insanely Great" by Steven Levy. Levy, a longtime columnist for MacWorld may be a little too kind to the folks at One Infinite Loop, but it really details the process of the creation and acceptance of the GUI as the defacto standard for personal computers. I haven't had the chance to read "The History of Apple", but I am looking forward to the read sometime in the near future.
Judging from the "Pirates" web site, I expect them to get a number of facts wrong. On thier "Silicon Quiz" they incorrectly attribute the Apple Lisa as being named after Job's daughter. While her name is Lisa, the machine was actually named after another Apple engineer (whose name is unknown to me.)
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
They had a preview screening at the Seattle film festival a few weeks back. Here's my reaction.
Spoiler: Microsoft wins. Focus is on the early days, around the Altair. It then goes through to the Apple/Microsoft investment with the devil a few years back, with screen time decreasing exponentially with historical time. So the end of the story is Big Brother Bill smirking down on Steve from the big screen.
It's hard to know what a non-technical person would like and dislike. I already knew of almost every historical event portrayed, so there weren't many surprises (BillG used to get in trouble speeding? Woah!). But more interesting to me than the anecdotes, or even the performances (pretty good), was the eerie sense of watching this unfold on a big screen.
Your TV screen will be smaller, but it will still be eerie. If you were there in the early days, even as an AppleII owner rather than a bigwig, you know how small and unknown the PC world was. Seeing it onscreen is like seeing a movie about, say, yourself in elementary school. You felt at the time that someday Posterity would recognize the importance of your 4th-grade world, but you eventually gave up that belief. Now all of a sudden it's there and it's real. It's so freaky a sensation that you have to admit you could still be in 4th grade and having a long and convincing dream. An Ur-nerd won't learn much new from this flick, but it's definitely worth checking out for that sensation.
On the other hand, it's a bit disappointing that they made this movie, if it means that the subject is "done" and no one's likely to do another one soon. Because it would be nice to see a movie about the early days that's written better. There are several klunky transitions, and Jobs and Gates are forced to spew out semi-meaningless chunks of their philosophies in places that don't flow nicely. One fun surprise was the Steve Ballmer character, which captures his humor. It doesn't show off his intelligence, though (e.g., he beat Bill in a math competition at Harvard). Perhaps this is a reflection of the scope of the project; how can you really show what any one person is like when you try to show the lives of half a dozen people in events spanning ten years?
(p.s. - the director and A.M. Hall were there and answered some questions. A good time had by all. Steve and Bill have not asked to see it, we were told. A thick notebook of research exists to backup every scene, for legal reasons. Still, some scenes have been slightly massaged for dramatic purposes.)
Heh, thank you for confirming this. Watched it very early one morning a few weeks ago. I had heard about it, probably remembered some ad, so I thought I was watching a replay from earlier that evening. When the media blitz started a few days later, I was really confused.
My own take on it was that it might be interesting to someone who hasn't read (or at least skimmed the first chapter at the bookstore) one of the many books detailing Silicon Valley lore.
To anyone else, you should be able to quote the script as it's chapter and verse of just about anything you've heard regarding Gates and Jobs.
Does anyone know if it will air on any of the Canadian cable networks in the near future?
(We don't get TNT, only TBS)
Maybe TNT will make it into the next set of channels on the DSS/cable lineups. I hate having to wait for TNT shows (like Babylon 5's final season and movies... the extra wait and change of scheduling times caused me to miss the last 3 months completely)
All the reviews I've seen so far said it had big gaping holes, but that's it's still definitely worth seeing.
Just a dumb piece of trivia, but: this is actually the second time Pirates of Silicon Valley is playing! It already aired a couple weeks ago, and several people have confirmed seeing it on a lot of the Mac news sites. There was a lot of speculation about why it happened, because a National Geographic special was supposed to air during the time slot.
Steve Wozniak set up a plan to give stock options to early employees out of his own account, under a program that they called the WozPlan. I forgot the details and the numbers (it's in the Mac Bathroom Reader) but he said he did it because he felt the early employees weren't getting their fair share of stock options. Steve Jobs and Mike Markkula told Woz he was wasting his fortune, but several people wrote letters to Woz thanking him for helping them to put their kids through college or start businesses because of the WozPlan.
I was flippin channels and came across it on TNT at 3:am EST...
I could never understand the commercials for it after that...
"See it on it's network debut, June 20th, 8pm..."
Odd.
~fight the power >>-->kill your computer
The movie wasnt as fact filled as the Cringely PBS special/book but it was entertaining. Steve Jobs is still my hero. It was fun seeing a drunken Bill Gates ride around on a bulldozer or whatever that was he rode around on, especially when its played by someone who was in "The Breakfast Club"
That is not what this movie is about. This movie is about the early days. There is an excelent book called hacker that goes from the early 60's to the late 70's with the hacker revolution. This story is what is told somewhat. (based upon another book not haker) So they did not need any of the windows stuff aat all to make it interesting, but hey I just watch them I don't make them.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
I saw "Pirates of Silicon Valley" at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) last month. Don't worry. Bill Gates is depicted exactly how you want him. The film is actually pretty harsh. The only person lefted unscathed is Woz.
cpeterso
I have been waiting for this movie for many months and had it booked on my palm pilot. All geek comments aside, I grew up with a huge crush on Anthony Michael Hall and loved his geek/nerd look. He's gained wait, and changed a bit, but I still can't wait to see it, I think it's going to be a fun movie. I really hope that the songs I have heard on the trailer will be available on a soundtrack as it contains some great music from 60-80's
I'm pretty fly for a white guy
Your both wrong about why it aired earlier.
It aired on TNT, un-announced at 1am, so that
it would make the cut off date to be considered
for the upcoming Emmies.
I'm pretty fly for a white guy
kmj
kmj
The only reason I keep my ms-dos partition is so I can mount it like the b*tch it is.
I was wondering if anyone read the book The History of Apple: Blunders, mistakes, and (something else)? I am 16 and when I read it I thought "wow, those guys were idiots" but I don't know if I can lend a lot of credit to it sinice I sorta wasn't paying to computers when I was 4 LOL, maybe I should have been. Thanks to anyone who tells me how to take this book. On a side note, I think that the movie will be bias towards MSFT.
Beau C
It was called "the microsoft file" and it covered this shit pretty well.... i also found out that Stevie Jobs helped BillyG get out of a lawsuit with Apple while Gilly was still CEO
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
TNT showed this at 2AM back in May, without listing it. I accidentally stumbled across it about 30-45 minutes into the show. (Since DishTV shows the East Coast TNT feed, I saw it at 11.)
It wasn't listed on the DishTV program guide or TV Guide, and I don't know if this was the final edit of the show or not.
It is definitely worth seeing. They seemed to catch the feel of the era, though some details may be wrong. I'm especially interested in catching the first 30 minutes I missed, and seeing it when I am more fully conscious. I think the whole S100 Bus CP/M 4K Basic Homebrew Computer Club part of the history must have been in the first part which I missed.
The picture of one of those early Computer Fairs looked spot-on. (That was a bit of nostalgia -- I really miss the Computer Faires, back when they were hobbyist oriented.)
I have no idea how accurate they were in their depiction of Jobs, which struck me as a thorougly unpleasant people-user. In one scene, Wozniak confronts Jobs about one of Apple's earliest employees not being awarded any stock options. Jobs just brushes him off, and Woz says "Well, I'm giving him some of mine."
What the fack are YOU talking about?
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Now apply the same theory about pretending to be an intellectual to Columbine. No angry little jerk will ever spend a year planning before he blows someone away.
Pure rationalism, pure emotionalism, and pure sensualism...--- The Unholy Trinity.
Supergenious?
And so Hitler^H^H^H^H^H^HGates (hades?) begets us monitors you shake your head at when the dialog box is abolished and the computer asks you loudly,"G-e-n-e-r-a-l P-r-o-t-e-c-t-i-o-n f-a-u-l-t 0-x-0-1-3-7 a-t 0-0-0-0-s-e-m-i-c-o-l-o-n-0-0-f-9 i-n v-o-i-c-e-d-o-t-v-x-d c-o-m-m-a O-K q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n m-a-r-k"
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
How many people will be seventy on the same day in 2069? How many will have a couple more to live?
Yikes!
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
It's the ultimate existentialist solution. As much as I have respect for spiritual seekers, (not churchgoing posers) if those were my only choices, fuck nirvana, I'd rather go through the whole cycle again than be Gates.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
touch what a couple of hackers can build and that's hackers not crackers.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Minix vs Linux... and the winner is...
Seriously they're both cool.
Unless we have Gates kidnap Jobs and have it out with Linus.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Ha! When everyone with a clue has the ability tocreate a blockbuster (albeit more depth) on a spare change budget I'll give the Net credit. Other than that it's people like wall, Torvalds, and the rest of the crew who should get the credit. The media says web = sports, stocks, and porn because that's all they ever do all day.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
You lose!
We get TNT on cable in Australia, and it shows stuff from the US (wrestling,nitro and old movies), but this sounds like something decent for a change. I saw the Triumph Of The Nerds series (I still have it on tape) and I seriously hope the ppl at the stations here have enough brains to put it on.
My bet is that Jobs is depicted as a control freak, and Gates as a power hungry whiner. I'd like to see who plays Woz.
-----
Link to pbs is:
http://shop.pbs.org/Ed0ik0IkH1/products/A3392/
There is a review on AppleInsider:
http://www.appleinsider.com
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TNT, Channel 17 here in Hawaii, Kauai, showed it about a month ago. It wasn't bad, but it was not very accurate. I was just flipping through the channels, and there it was. I wrote into /. about it, but it didn't make the cut.
Sorry, I'm a diehard Breakfast Club fan, and whatever crappy films Anthony Michael Hall may have made since then, he has the capacity to be funny and believable at the same time. I think he'll make a perfect BG.
grep -ri 'should work'
Couldn't they have chosen better actors? I have yet to see either of them give a convincing performance. They should have chosen someone like Rick Moranis for Gates and anyone else but Wiley for jobs...
-Clump
The problem I see with this guy, is that all he did was take someone elses ideas and run with them. He's nothing more than a fast talking thief...but I guess if you can get away with it....He is now the richest man in the world, and everyone knows his name, but if he walked into a my backyard slept with my sister and then tried to take my bike, I'd string him up....then again, that is what this country is all about isn't it? Take full advantage of every one around you as long as the end justifies the means....
"Here's to the Question with no answer..."
I just finished watching and the only thing I can say is I'm glad I use Linux and the Be OS. Both Jobs and Gates both looked like a$$holes! I also feel sorry for the poor shmucks at Xerox who's bosses didn't have enough vision to see what they were doing. I'm left wondering what happend to those brillant people and would appreciate anybody who can give me insight as to what happend to them.
For an excellent story of Silicon Valley and how it evolved (dating back to MIT in the early sixties) pick up a copy of the book "Hackers; Heroes of the Computer Revolution" by Steven Levy.