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“Two decades earlier, an IBM computer often cost as much as $9 million and required an air-conditioned quarter-acre of space and a staff of 60 people to keep it fully loaded with instructions,” according to a history on the company’s website. “The new IBM PC could not only process information faster than those earlier machines, but it could hook up to the home TV set, play games, process text and harbor more words than a fat cookbook.” [^]
Where would we be today if the IBM PC had not come along, or if IBM had cut a deal with Digital Research (Gary Kildall & Co.), and CP/M was the dominant "other" OS, besieged by Android and IOS, and Linux ?
Google CEO, Erich Schmidt: "I keep asking for a product called Serendipity. This product would have access to everything ever written or recorded, know everything the user ever worked on and saved to his or her personal hard drive, and know a whole lot about the user's tastes, friends and predilections." 2004, USA Today interview
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Bill, virtually everyone on this site owes that man a round of applause for he created the jobs we are all doing now.
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Obscurum per obscurius.
Ad astra per alas porci.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur .
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Dalek Dave wrote: he created the jobs we are all doing now.
He created accountancy...? 
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde
Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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Colin Mullikin wrote: He created accountancy...?
No, red paint for buckets.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Dave, not to disparage the late Mr. Lowe's contribution to our present reality, but I do think that if IBM had not done its PC, and Gates and Ballmer had not sold IBM a CP/M Clone OS for the 8086 prototype they didn't even own yet: the game today would be much the same, just the brand names would be different.
I think the game was set in motion by advances in material sciences as much as anything else: the work of Kilby (TI: germanium IC), Noyce (Fairchild: silicon IC), Faggin (Fairchild, Intel: Silicon Gate IC's => Intel 4004).
But, how fascinating it is to wonder what might have happened if Countess Ada and Charles Babbage had not gotten sidetracked from their work on the Analytical Engine, a true Turing-complete computer, by the idea they could predict the outcome of horse-races and blew their funds, causing Babbage's skilled work-force to quit.
Would we, as William Gibson and Bruce Stirling in their novel, "The Difference Engine," imagined, be living in an age, now, which was the successor to an early twentieth century in which massive steam-powered mechanical computers were ubiquitous ?
And, what if the incomparable genius Alan Turing had not had a tragic end to his life at so, relatively, young an age ?
Google CEO, Erich Schmidt: "I keep asking for a product called Serendipity. This product would have access to everything ever written or recorded, know everything the user ever worked on and saved to his or her personal hard drive, and know a whole lot about the user's tastes, friends and predilections." 2004, USA Today interview
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"Bommy, Bommy I had a tewwible nightmare. I dweamt I ate a huge marshmallow."
"Well, Philly, a huge marshmallow? That would seem to be one of those sweet dreams not a nightmare."
"But bommy, when I awoke, my billow was gone!"
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Movie Quote Of The Day
Through your arrogance and stupidity, you've opened these peaceful realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of war! You are unworthy of these realms, you're unworthy of your title, you're unworthy... of the loved ones you have betrayed! I now take from you your power!
Which movie?
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Lord of the hammers. One to hammer all the nails bad guys!
Microsoft ... the only place where VARIANT_TRUE != true
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Is this from a random Fox News story?
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Masters of the Universe
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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V. wrote: I now take from you your power!
Austin Powers! After that scene, he was merely know as "Austin s"! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
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I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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Transformers - The Dark Side of Hammer.
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contracting1991 wrote: Dumb and Dumber
Hey, keep your redneck family out of this! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
-----
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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I keep the last one for your family "The Dumbest"
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The Rise and Fall of Chris Maunder
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I can't decided between
He Man
or
Wall Street - The Job interview
Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians.
Help end the violence EAT BACON
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It is from Thor.
I am damn sure...
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Spoilsport!
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
-----
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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Sampath Sridhar wrote: Thor ?
Yeth. It'th thith new thaddle.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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LOL! Nithely thaid! 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-----
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience
Greg King
-----
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin, Actress
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