IT Execs On Their Dream Dinner Guests 83
StewBeans writes: In this lighthearted article for the holiday, IT executives were asked, if they could invite any technologist living or deceased to their Thanksgiving dinner, who would they invite and why? One CTO said that he'd invite the CTO of Amazon, Werner Vogels, so he could hear his thoughts on the future of cloud computing. Another would invite Ratan Tata, who he calls the "Bill Gates of India." Other responses range from early visionaries like Grace Hopper and Vint Cerf to the mysterious inventors/designers of the Roland TR-808.
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If he's the Bill Gates of India... does that mean I'll start getting calls from Americans trying to convince me my PC is hacked?
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A lot of non-IT people don't know what a jerk Gates was. He was brilliant at killing off competitors using targeted sell-at-loss campaigns, bait-and-switch "standards", bundling, and locking one in to product upgrade cycles.
But that stagnated business software evolution and robbed the market of choice. I bet he'd make a great military general.
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What I meant was one wouldn't brag about being like Gates if more knew his tactics. Perhaps ruthlessness is a necessary evil of a modern society, but people should at least be aware that it's being used.
Note I admire Steve Jobs far more than Gates because Jobs had a nose for what FUTURE consumers and movie goers would
Re:The real Bill Gates of India (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't the Bill Gates of India be Satya Nadella?
They should invite (Score:1)
A few of their internal employees so they would learn first hand what a mess they created throughout the year. Most IT execs have no f*cking clue.
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As long as he doesn't comment on the culinary choices of my other guests, Leonardo would be welcome at my table anytime.
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...who isn't vegan. The worst Thanksgiving I ever had was the one who had the one who condemned the eating of flesh in attendance. Surely there are places these people can go during the holidays!
I've done lunch with people who interrogate the waitstaff, some times the managers, scowl at other customers - and me - if we make the sin of ordering anything they decide is bad. THey seemed to have trouble gettin people to go to lunch with them more than once.
I come from an old school family where eating with others is an expression of favor, and arguing is highly discouraged. Vegetarians can usually manage, but by the time a person gets to veganism, there is a excellent chance that they believe they ha
I don't know about this premise (Score:3)
I really don't want to listen to someone ramble on and on with their mouth full of food.
Perhaps inviting them to hang out afterward would be a better idea.
seriously? (Score:1)
Seriously, this is a story?
On the other hand I would want to talk to Archimedes, his work on the catapults is of great interest to me, I would like to use one of his inventions to catapult this site.
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You speak ancient Greek and can communicate with the dead? Okay, I'm impressed. ;)
Thanksgiving trivia for the day: the word for "turkey" comes from extensive and long-running confusion about where the bird came from. For example, in English it's called Turkey. In Turkey it's called "hindi", referring to India. In India it's called Peru. In Peru it's called "pavo", referring to peacocks, which are native to south and southeast asia, such as India (cyclic
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Are the other variants more dialectal? In addition to huoji ( / ) (fire chicken) what I read states that there's also qimianniao ( / ) (seven-faced bird), tujinji ( / ) (cough up a brocade chicken) and tushouji ( / ) (cough up a ribbon chicken)
(hope Slashdot doesn't mess up the characters)
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"Thanksgiving trivia for the day: "
Folks, put a copy of this post in your Evernote so that if some relative at the dinner table brings up Islam or Black Lives Matter, you can whip out your smartphone and deflect the conversation before everybody starts screaming and throwing turkey at each other.
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On the other hand I would want to talk to Archimedes,
Really? You know he discovered his famous principle while working for the King? In other words it was government work funded by the hard earned tax drachmas stolen under threat of violence from the greek populace.
And you call yourself a libertarian.
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Seriously, this is a story?
On the other hand I would want to talk to Archimedes, his work on the catapults is of great interest to me, I would like to use one of his inventions to catapult this site.
See - you played along. Got you to think, and you made an interesting and funny choice.
I'd choose Ben Franklin myself.
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I would want to talk to Archimedes
Archimedes's life is well documented, so you wouldn't learn much that is new. I would want to talk to the inventor of the Antikythera device.
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Alan Turing? (Score:5, Interesting)
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He would probably lose some of his appetite, or at least barf a little to his tea when shown the latest Phi on the center of the cookie platter. Turing was slightly anti-floating point unit at one time.
serviscope_minor is off today (Score:2)
Be sure to invite a representative number of non-hetero white phallocrats.
P.S. Clickbait much?
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serviscope_minor is off today
No I ain't.
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You are in the "I think this milk is off" sense.
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You are in the "I think this milk is off" sense.
Well, I'm glad I've got myself a cute little stalker. It means I must be doing something right!
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Wake me (Score:2)
So you guys woke me from the grave to discuss your thoughts on your IT business? I'm dead? I feel sick. What's going to happen when you're done with me? Can I go and see my family? This is horrible, I wish you'd left me in the ground.
Why I'm not an IT Exec (Score:3)
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Porn chicks? You mean the ones that have had a full body wax and look like they are doing their tax forms when they are mechanically copulating? Wouldn't an inflatable doll seem more interested? And it would come with less risk of infections.
As for speeding along on coke or similar during sex: it really isn't interesting. Take a clue from the old Stones song "Satisfaction" - having hours of erection isn't much fun when the knob is is numb.
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As for speeding along on coke or similar during sex: it really isn't interesting. Take a clue from the old Stones song "Satisfaction" - having hours of erection isn't much fun when the knob is is numb.
Don't believe everything you read....
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You seem to have a thing for chicks who have an unusually large amount of space between their eyes. Do you have a fly or ant fetish?
Who would *I* invite to dinner? (Score:1)
Bill Gates
Steve Ballmer
Larry Ellison
Lennart Poettering
Richard M. Stallman
Lucretia Borgia
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Neil Degrass Tyson - Cause I can learn something about the stars.
You were the closest regarding my choice... I'd choose Carl Sagan, without hesitation.
you're slipping, /. (Score:1)
Come on, /.! You're missing the obvious. Spin this as a social justice troll FEEL GUILTY issue.
Ada, Countess of Lovelace, Enchantress of Numbers; Rear Admiral Hopper, Pirate Queen (yarr!), Lady of the Nanosecond (ok, I'm just making shit up now); Alan Turing, and Hedy Lamarr are right there in TFA, but they don't make it into the summary!? Instead we just get a bunch of cis het white (performing type promotion Indian to white for Ratan Tata) misogynerds!
I mean, ok, Dice, I get the cloud and Bill Gates wu
Lennart Poettering (Score:3)
I would spend the whole time giving him ideas like bashd, which would includes commands such as:
-lsctl
-rmctl
-victl
and I'd also suggest that he starts working on PulseWifi, because just like audio and daemons, wifi is something that needs to be reinvented.
Douglas Engelbart (Score:2)
Douglas Engelbart. I'd love for him to show my family the Mother of All Demos in person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
2 African Americans (Score:2)
Steve Jobs & Tim Cook (Score:2)
Standard Science Fiction List.... (Score:2)
Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler and the Tyrant of Rigel.
A few choices ... (Score:1)
In no particular order:
C.A.R. Hoare [wikipedia.org]
Perr Brinch Hansen [computer.org]
Gordon Bell [microsoft.com]
Dave Cutler [wikipedia.org]
us senator and representatives (Score:2)
So we can tell them how badly that we need more H1B's
Who the hell cares (Score:1)
Who the hell cares what or who the rich cats at the top want to eat with? You'll note none of them said "the poor bastards I laid off or that guys who's career I destroyed when he trusted me and I stabbed him in the back." I've known 100's of executives and about 3% of them got there in an honorable way.