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Opera's CEO to Swim From Norway to the USA

Posted by Zonk on Fri Apr 22, 2005 07:51 AM
from the friday-morning-project dept.
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)."
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  • Well then. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Grey Ninja (739021) <matter,grey&gmail,com> on Friday April 22 2005, @07:52AM (#12312052) Homepage Journal
    I guess he doesn't have much faith in his own product eh?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2005, @07:53AM (#12312060)
    talk about overusing significant digits
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2005, @07:53AM (#12312064)
    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."
    • No way! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Walkiry (698192) on Friday April 22 2005, @08:03AM (#12312173) Homepage
      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.

      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 :D
    • by JaredOfEuropa (526365) on Friday April 22 2005, @08:23AM (#12312363) Journal
      "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".
  • by biglig2 (89374) on Friday April 22 2005, @07:53AM (#12312066) Homepage Journal
    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!
  • Cold (Score:5, Funny)

    by provolt (54870) on Friday April 22 2005, @07:54AM (#12312078)
    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?
  • by Leknor (224175) on Friday April 22 2005, @07:55AM (#12312090)
    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/ [opera.com] Unfortunately not all platforms have an Opera 8 download yet.
  • by SFA_AOK (752620) on Friday April 22 2005, @07:55AM (#12312091)
    ...when he gets turned away my US immigration and has t oswim back home.
  • by rde (17364) * on Friday April 22 2005, @07:57AM (#12312112)
    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 [norwaymaine.com].

    Shouldn't take him that long.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 22 2005, @08:01AM (#12312152)
    by not downloading Opera
  • by justforaday (560408) on Friday April 22 2005, @08:02AM (#12312162)
    For some reason 950,000 copies of Opera have suddenly been downloaded by an IP block owned by a company in Redmond, Washington.
  • Not possible (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hanssprudel (323035) on Friday April 22 2005, @08:04AM (#12312187)
    In case anybody is wondering - of course that cannot be done. While the atlantic ocean has been swum [didyouknow.cd], 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...
  • easy (Score:5, Funny)

    by mshiltonj (220311) <mshiltonj.gmail@com> on Friday April 22 2005, @08:19AM (#12312317) Homepage Journal
    while [ 1 ] ;
    do GET 'http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?id=26712 ' > /dev/null ;
    done ;

    C'mon in, the water's fine.

    • The obvious answer (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ggvaidya (747058) on Friday April 22 2005, @08:00AM (#12312136) Homepage Journal
      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 ...
    • by geoffspear (692508) * on Friday April 22 2005, @08:02AM (#12312165) Homepage
      Why do you continue to breathe?

      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.

    • Re:Why, exactly... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by maxwell demon (590494) on Friday April 22 2005, @08:07AM (#12312201) Journal
      Can anyone tell me why, exactly, the "direct link" to download Opera from Slashdot points to the Windows version ?

      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.