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Second-richest man giving billions to the first-richest man.

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 00:29
by Tim Blokdijk
Second-richest man giving billions to the first-richest man, and it made me cry a little.
(as in "this world is a fine place to live in")
Might take some time before people realise how much impact this decision will have on the world.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazin ... /index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/25/magazin ... /index.htm

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 00:57
by SwiftSpear
Does anyone know anything about the gates foundation? Where are they working currently and where is this donation most likely to benifit people? Any chance of starvation in africa easing up from the flow of an extra few billion dollars?

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 01:09
by Caydr
Well, since most of those countries probably have an income of less than a billion mighty US dollars a year...

...it'll give them lots of extra AK47 cash!

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 07:08
by j5mello
to more appropriately answer ur question Swiftspear, the Gates Foundation, does work with AIDS, education and various other high priority issues in third world countries.

And i hope that many others follow his path (ie not giving all their money to their own or favorite charity and instead spreading it amongst many others)

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 07:36
by smoth
I have to give props to bill gates and this buffet fellow. Giving back to the world, few people with that much power and money make that choice.

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 10:26
by Quanto042
smoth wrote:I have to give props to bill gates and this buffet fellow. Giving back to the world, few people with that much power and money make that choice.
Especially when you take into consideration the Microsoft corporation has a higher Gross Corporate Product than the Gross National Product of Egypt, Portugal, AND Ireland.

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 15:54
by Zoombie
Combined or just one at a time?

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 21:31
by Drone_Fragger
Combined I think. Windows is like 500£ per copy :o

Posted: 26 Jun 2006, 22:54
by Comp1337
Drone_Fragger wrote:Combined I think. Windows is like 500£ per copy :o
:shock:

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 01:10
by esteroth12
they made 40 billion in 2005

egypt: 313.3 billion
ireland: 126.4 billion
portugal: 188.7 billion

what are you smoking? :P

(all number by google. dont kill me if they're wrong, they came from the CIA site...)

MS sucks.

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 04:27
by Pxtl
MS sucks, windows is crashy, and Gates is a monopolistic businessman way before a hacker.

But do not mock the Gates Foundation. Gates doesn't just do charity work - the Gates foundation fights many diseases nobody even cares about. And they focus on disease - not food, not supplies, but disease. It's harder for money to go to the wrong place that way.

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 04:40
by smoth
-1 respect for pixl.

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 05:28
by Zoombie
Hey I actually...well...like windows. But then again I have almost never had a problem with bugs. I once played a game that EVERYONE said was buggy and I never ran into a single bug. And this has happened consistently. So either I'm lucky or my computer is MAGIC!

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 21:57
by Pxtl
smoth wrote:-1 respect for pixl.
Why -1 respect? I was saying that I liked the gates foundation. They go beyond the normal "let's jump on the bandwagon of what diseases Hollywood cares about fighting" and fight old, forgotten problems that still need solving - like Malaria, for example.

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 22:28
by Forboding Angel
Smoth doesn't respect people that hate M$.
However unfortunately Windows is the best thing around seeings how open source OS projects seem to be incapable of creating a coherant product that anyone short of somputer smarts can use.

With that in mind, Windows will stay on top.

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 22:33
by Pxtl
Forboding Angel wrote:Smoth doesn't respect people that hate M$.
However unfortunately Windows is the best thing around seeings how open source OS projects seem to be incapable of creating a coherant product that anyone short of somputer smarts can use.

With that in mind, Windows will stay on top.
Umm, use a Mac, for example. A company a tiny fraction of the size of MS can produce software that is way, way more coherent and stable. Look around at your desktop and you'll see usability problems that should've been corrected 10 years ago.

And yes, I've got an Xubuntu box under my desk that I set up to tinker with it - and no, it's not as usable as Windows - but it's a lot more usable than you'd think, especially considering a comparison of how much more MS spent developing their product.

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 22:40
by unpossible
who knows, the Gates might become the real world Waynes and change society/the world - (or set up their own utopian country)

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 22:40
by Forboding Angel
ok well I need to b able to run phtoshop cs, cubase sx, spring, guild wars, other misc games on it, as well as the other little programs that are only distributed as windows binaries.

THat's the problem. Linux may be more usable, but I don't care to compile every new program I get, and I can do roughly 20% of what I need on linux due to the filesystem being different.

And don't even mention gimp. Gimp is pathetic in comparison to PS CS. And audacity is nowhere even close to being in CuBase's league.

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 22:46
by Pxtl
Forboding Angel wrote:ok well I need to b able to run phtoshop cs, cubase sx, spring, guild wars, other misc games on it, as well as the other little programs that are only distributed as windows binaries.

THat's the problem. Linux may be more usable, but I don't care to compile every new program I get, and I can do roughly 20% of what I need on linux due to the filesystem being different.

And don't even mention gimp. Gimp is pathetic in comparison to PS CS. And audacity is nowhere even close to being in CuBase's league.
Umm, did microsoft make Photoshop? Cubase? Spring? No. Microsoft made Windows and office and crap like that. And if they weren't around, PS and cubase and suchlike would've been made for a different, possibly superiour operating system.

I'm not saying that windows isn't the way to go. I'm saying it sucks. If the only car in the world was a Ford Pinto or home-made cars built by auto mechanics, we'd all drive a pinto for the convenience - but it'd still be a Pinto, and it would still suck.

Posted: 27 Jun 2006, 22:49
by SinbadEV
Pxtl wrote:
Forboding Angel wrote:ok well I need to b able to run phtoshop cs, cubase sx, spring, guild wars, other misc games on it, as well as the other little programs that are only distributed as windows binaries.

THat's the problem. Linux may be more usable, but I don't care to compile every new program I get, and I can do roughly 20% of what I need on linux due to the filesystem being different.

And don't even mention gimp. Gimp is pathetic in comparison to PS CS. And audacity is nowhere even close to being in CuBase's league.
Umm, did microsoft make Photoshop? Cubase? Spring? No. Microsoft made Windows and office and crap like that. And if they weren't around, PS and cubase and suchlike would've been made for a different, possibly superiour operating system.

I'm not saying that windows isn't the way to go. I'm saying it sucks. If the only car in the world was a Ford Pinto or home-made cars built by auto mechanics, we'd all drive a pinto for the convenience - but it'd still be a Pinto, and it would still suck.
Best Metaphore Yet.

I remember a really long car metaphore where the linux geeks car dealership was a hippi comune...