Slashdot Log In
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.
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)."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Opera's CEO to Swim From Norway to the USA
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 563 comments
(Spill at 50!) | Index Only
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
|
2
(1)
|
2
Well then. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://grey.drunkencoders.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 06 2006, @02:54AM)
Re:Well then. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well then. (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Wednesday July 16 2003, @04:16AM)
This is obviously a load of crap. 600K downloads in 48 hours? How would he be surprised to see a million downloads soon?
Heh... one day after the story about PR firms, and we're still discussing this?
This is a friggin' press release for god's sake. The CEO is not surprised about anything. This whole outrageous statement was no doubt just a plan to stir up attention. And no guarantee that Opera didn't pay to have this story published in Slashdot anyway.
-a
lets get him... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:lets get him... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:lets get him... (Score:5, Funny)
A tiny script runs on the Opera web server...waiting...watching...
Re:lets get him... (Score:5, Funny)
Dude! That is a crappy bit of code. The likelihood
of it ever working is vanishingly small.
Several problems:
Because your test is not synchronized with the
download counter your chances of stopping
at 999999 are, well, like winning the lottery.
Having determined that there have been 999999
downloads there is a nasty race condition before
the interface is brought down.
Believe it or not, once the counter reaches 999999
the number of downloads may be higher because
the process updating the counter hasn't committed
its changes yet.
For extra credit I advise that you go away and
rethink your solution otherwise your boss will
be pissed at having to swim through shark
infested water. I also see a pink slip on
your horizon.
- Moomin
Re:lets get him... (Score:4, Funny)
600.000 times (Score:5, Funny)
Re:600.000 times (Score:5, Funny)
Re:600.000 times (Score:5, Funny)
Re:600.000 times (Score:5, Funny)
Re:600.000 times (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.neverwhen.net/)
Go bomb him.
IT: Opera's CEO drowns off coast of Norway (Score:5, Funny)
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)
(http://walkiry.no-ip.org/)
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
Re:No way! (Score:4, Funny)
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying:
Valhalla, I am coming!
On we sweep with threshing oar,
Our only goal will be the western shore.
Ah, ah,
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green,
Can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war.
We are your overlords.
On we sweep with threshing oar,
Our only goal will be the western shore.
So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day
Despite of all your losing.
Re:IT: In further news... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Saturday January 31 2004, @05:25PM)
Well finally! (Score:5, Funny)
(http://biglig.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday November 19 2004, @11:48AM)
Distributed Murder (Score:5, Funny)
(http://ensilzah.deviantart.com/)
Cold (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps he'll get on a cruise ship and spend the whole time in the pool?
One word: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:One word: (Score:5, Funny)
P.S.: if you rate this "flame/troll" you'd better get a sense of humor. And no they don't sell those at Wal-Mart.
One word: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One word: (Score:5, Funny)
Opera calls their tiny products "embedded".
Re:Cold (Score:4, Funny)
they are all giant hairy barbarians with 100 % cold resistance
and sometimes they develop software
I tried it once (Score:5, Funny)
I tried it once. I actually made it half-way across before I got too tired and had to turn around and go back.
Direct Link to Win32 version (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a better download link: http://www.opera.com/download/ [opera.com] Unfortunately not all platforms have an Opera 8 download yet.
He'll be disappointed... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He'll be disappointed... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://eksploder.mine.nu/blog)
Yeah, Gov. Schwarzenegger will be there pushing him back in the water telling him the borders are closed.
Uhm.. I doubt he's gonna land in California. Check your world map :-)
Re:He'll be disappointed... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.flappingcrane.com/)
Why, exactly... (Score:3, Informative)
(http://ekj.vestdata.no/)
One would assume, if noone else, atleast Slashdot is aware that there *are* other OSes out here. (and Opera supports quite a few of them)
Re:Why, exactly... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday August 14 2002, @12:33PM)
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.
Re:Why, exactly... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Add in the modding up of the person who points out that the person who explained the modding up procedure is being modded up and it's a full blown mod orgy.
In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/~wowbagger/journal/87552 | Last Journal: Monday September 03, @08:07PM)
"I don't think there is a chance in hell of our getting a million downloads in four days, so I will make this grandiose gesture knowing full well I will never have to put up on it - much like the Taco Bell/MIR offer.
However, I will use this PR stunt to get lots of free advertising from lazy reporters who are too stupid to figure out how I am using them."
Re:Shenanigans. (Score:5, Funny)
REALLY?????
Re:Shenanigans. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, if he were swimming against it (instead of north it and perpendicular (roughly) to the current of the North Atlantic Drift), he'd be lucky to make any headway at all. The average speed of the Gulf Current is around 5 knots (or is that nauts? I've never been sure which is correct). Now, I've done a mile swim numerous times-- I was on swim/dive as a kid-- and I KNOW it takes me about 18-20 minutes to swim an imperial mile. Considering a nautical mile is even longer, I really doubt I'd make any progress swimming against that current! Take that & multiply by however many miles it is from Norway to Maine... I don't even want to imagine trying.
Yeah, but which norway (Score:5, Informative)
Sure enough, there's Norway, Maine [norwaymaine.com].
Shouldn't take him that long.
Re:Yeah, but which norway (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://confluence.za.net/)
Sure enough, there's Norway, Maine. Shouldn't take him that long.
...except for that stopover in Iceland (described as "his home country", so no wriggling out of that one).
Downloaded.... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.cypherxero.net/)
*Drags ow32enen800.exe to the trash...
Opps, I hope the download number didn't go up
I'll do my part to save this man's life (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'll do my part to save this man's life (Score:5, Funny)
(http://kombat.org/)
"Another?" How many deaths are already on your conscience???
(It's funny, laugh)
Meanwhile in Seattle (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.rapidnirvana.com/ | Last Journal: Monday January 17 2005, @09:09AM)
Muwaaahhaahaha
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Cruise Ship (Score:3, Insightful)
Not possible (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Why not something realistic? (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.devinmoore.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday May 24, @06:16AM)
yeah, ok, sure, I'll do it. (Score:3, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
all to see him eat his words =)
easy (Score:5, Funny)
(http://mshiltonj.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday July 26 2005, @09:43PM)
do GET 'http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?id=26712 ' >
done
C'mon in, the water's fine.
small shell script? (Score:5, Funny)
Read the press release (Score:5, Informative)
(http://web.lemuria.org/)
It's so much tongue-in-cheek that it stops just short of saying outright "yes, it's a joke".
Then again, it's very refreshing to see that a corporate PR department can still get away with cheap shots at the CEO. Choice quote: "However, having seen Jon in his red beach attire before, I am not sure if swimming to the USA is scarier than exposing people to this sight."
I feel a little odd now.... (Score:3, Funny)
What support group do I go to for this?
Why should I buy? (Score:3, Interesting)
The obvious answer (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.ggvaidya.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday July 16 2006, @11:28PM)
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
Re:The obvious answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Opera is one of them. Sure it seems 'bloated' at first, but most of it is because of lots of little toolbars that you can turn off and never see again within 4 seconds. And even with all this "bloat", it seems to be a lot snappier than Mozilla Firefox. And there are lot of little gemstones around the program that you keep discovering the more you use it. Some of these gem's you'll love and start using on a regular basis (one example of mine was the "drag over a non hypertext URL and right click it and choose "Go to URL"), and others that annoy you (The totally unnecissary chat client) you can turn off and never have to bother with again.
And if the thought of banner ad's for the unpaid version feaks you out, you can even switch the ads to a Google AdWrods bar that's a lot thinner than the standard banner ad....and I know I sure as hell don't mind AdWords, even on webpages.
Give it a try. I've been using the free version since 6.xx, and every time I've tried any other web browser, I've always wound up coming back.
Re:Why will he do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.geoffreyspear.com/)
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.