Opera's CEO to Swim From Norway to the USA 563
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)."
Re:Yeah, but which norway (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
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...
Re:Yeah, but which norway (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yeah, but which norway (Score:1, Interesting)
There could be an "Iceland" store (or something) near-by...
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.
Re:Why, exactly... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wonder how long this thread can go and keep getting modded up.
Re:Attack on hotmail? Google maps? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://my.opera.com/hallvors/journal/37
Re:Well then. (Score:4, Interesting)
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
Why should I buy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ISO 8601 (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:ISO 8601 (Score:2, Interesting)
How TF can a date format that automatically sorts correctly be wrong?