Bill Gates looked like your little twerp cousin from the day he left Harvard (early) to the day he (essentially) scammed industry titan IBM (twice) to the day he held the most exciting business of his generation in the palm of his hand.

Perhaps an academic so concerned with appearances is giving insufficient attention to the field of study.

Bill Gates is a little twerp cousin, despite his millions.

"...despite his millions."

Ah. Wealth envy.

You're off by 96,600 or so...

> despite his millions.

He's got a reasonable shot at ending Malaria, and he's taking it. When you understand what that means to people who aren't Americans in comfort, it's a wonderful goal. (I've suffered mildly but just enough to take it personally.)

I often thought about it in the years when Jobs, who he'd so soundly trounced in the decades theretofore, was being sainted as a visionary from another planet for creating high-margin, closed-universe products. Gates got his gazillions with standards accessible to entrepreneurs across the globe, including tiny little garage shops in Taiwan winding power bricks for modems. He was a dick about licensing, but he could have been much worse.

I'm well aware of the ruthlessness he brought to the business throughout his career. But his devotion to charity, despite a carrying a little more faith in microprocessors than we might think appropriate, is sincere. He's pledged to give his fortune away rather than leave it for the children he loves. He started his Foundation early in life, as such things go, and so far as I can tell is bringing his full rationality and management skill to its projects.

Contrast this will Carlos Slim, who, when asked about charity, said it wasn't his place "to play Santa Claus."

And I don't know Jobs gave a lot of thought to it, either.

I'll be 60 soon. Bezos perhaps belongs to another generation, one for which his creations will have the career- and life-altering effects that Gates' work had on mine. Gates got a bunch of money from me and my people, and I'm not ashamed of what he's doing with it, despite disagreements then and now.

Don't even give this lady more attention

Interesting. Nothing was said about her gender in this comment (which most women would take as a compliment), nonetheless she feels it's sexist.

Kirsten Gillibrand, who is probably the least popular of all declared candidates for President, insisted that when she called for Al Franken's resignation, megadonors withdrew their support and made all kinds of sexist attacks.

The attacks weren't sexist. The attacks were because she fell for a transparent Republican hitjob initiated by the lying, hypocritical tramp (and most, if not all, of Franken's accusers have been discredited) and because she's a backstabber.

(Oh, by the way, who was it who called Al Franken a "handsy perv"? Yes, I do remember you. There's egg on your face. Not that I would expect you to own up to it or apologize. You have never in your life admitted to a mistake and no one in the world expects you to start now.)

She also moans that she's the victim of sexism because she's been called "unlikeable" (which she is) and been criticized for her "tone." As if male candidates have never been called "unlikable."

Ted Cruz has been called unlikable, which he is.

Besides, likability is overrated. How likable does anyone think Donald Trump is?

And, as for tone, every politician in existence in mindful of their tone.

> initiated by the lying,
> hypocritical tramp

When you talk that way, and it's happened before, it's easy to picture you living in a household full of very old rural women, farmer wives in gingham with wind-leathered crow's feet, who're trying to distract themselves from a bitter winter after a poor harvest by gossiping about the trollop in town, the one who wears lipstick & rouge and swings her hips in front of the picture show, even on weeknights.

…Like a brazen hussy.

More woundy-pants.

Nicole, she isn't the only one. There are a bunch of profs (all female) whining about this on Twitter.

We used to tease my first-year Civil Procedure prof for looking younger than us. If you want to get the visual impact, think Napoleon Dynamite as law professor.

His youthful appearance really held back his career. Within 7 years he was Associate Dean; within 10 years he was appointed Dean of Vanderbilt Law School; he now is President of Syracuse University.

I don't think he wasted much time worrying about whether we took him seriously.

People just meeting me sometimes guess I'm Irish. (I'm not -- I like to say my ancestors were Eastern Bloc shit-hole Jews & Wite-Out). Imagine being offended by this. I think the offense women take comes from the lack of power they're told they have by feminism/intersectionality

>> There are a bunch of profs (all female) whining about this on Twitter.

Yep. It's almost a meme - or whatever you'd call it when people rehearse the same type of story over and over again.

I suspect that many of these stories are made up or misrepresented, they're just too stereotyped.

But there is definitely a template in which the woman gets to take offense, humble brag, play the victim, and then claim that she's doing it for the little people.

What these women don't get is that men are constantly challenged on their worthiness, often in much harsher terms than this. They also don't recognize that by fixating on such minor offenses they're actually signalling that they have reason to feel insecure - they're showing everyone that they lack confidence in their own capabilities.

Crid: When you talk that way, and it's happened before...

Precisely because it never fails to annoy you.

It's almost a meme - or whatever you'd call it when people rehearse the same type of story over and over again.

I believe the word you're looking for is propaganda.

I loved looking younger than I was when I began my professional career; it gave me an advantage with people who underestimated me based on appearance.

> Precisely because

Think first of me, always.

I had a professor in business school who was chronologically younger than his students.

He was treated with respect as a professor by us, despite our privately-expressed doubts about his lesser experience in the world about which he was trying to teach us.

His students had at least two years of non-academic experience (required for admission) while he had six months - an internship between his Bachelor's and his Master's.

Having doubts about a professor's ability to teach, teach in depth, a subject because said professor looks too young to have amassed a solid base of knowledge in the subject is not restricted to women professors and should not automatically be considered sexist if directed at one.

✔ Stephanie at February 24, 2019 7:24 AM

You see it in the Wiki page about that starlet mentioned above: Sisterhood-is-powerful chatter sprinkled with gratitude for safe spaces. Lesser venus of feminism —and Hollywood is probably the most corrupt— have always had these twitchy exemplars, as theatrical narcissists have always presumed there's something darling and secretly forgivable about their neediness.

There isn't.

Coulda struck the second always. I'll make it up to you.

IMO, she is a little too thin-skinned to be taken seriously.

Oh, by the way, who was it who called Al Franken a "handsy perv"? Yes, I do remember you. There's egg on your face. ~ Patrick at February 24, 2019 4:05 AM

I know we’ve clashed on the Franken/Tweeden situation before, Patrick, but if that oblique reference was to me, there’s no egg on my face. I didn’t call Franken a “handsy perv” — the sentence in question was: "Eight women so far have accused Franken of being a grabby-handed perv."

I, on the other hand, did outright call him a "sanctimonious prick," and I stand by that one.

Franken's accusers have not been discredited. His office logs show him at the events at which he was accused of misconduct. Even he did not deny them, stating that his actions were innocent and misinterpreted, that he's "just a sloppy hugger."

His accusers included a military veteran and a Democrat political aide. Tina Dupuy believed Tweeden because, as she wrote in The Atlantic about Franken's alleged campaign of intimidation against Tweeden, "The detail in Tweeden’s story that keeps rolling over in my mind was after the forced kiss, while they were still on tour, Franken would toss out, 'petty insults, including drawing devil horns on at least one of the headshots I was autographing for the troops.' That report fits with the classic pattern of sexual harassment. Ribbing Tweeden to let her know she wasn’t being accommodating enough — nice enough — to him. Boundaries and rebuffing turn beautiful women into bitches."

Nor was Franken's resignation the tragedy he and others have made it out to be. Franken’s was not the indispensable voice. He was a party hack who never strayed from party talking points or broke from the party on any issue. He was easily replaced by a generic Democrat with no loss in continuity for the party.

In reality, although I believed his accusers, I defended Franken, saying he should not be forced to resign nor have his career and life ruined based on unsubstantiated charges. As for the photograph of him mock-grabbing Tweeden’s breasts, tasteless as it was, I held that it was not an actual sexual assault and he was a comedian at the time — tasteless was his stock-in-trade.

In discussing Franken, I maintained it was up to the voters of Minnesota to accept or reject him; to judge his personal immaturity against his effectiveness as a senator. If it's accepted that the people of Massachusetts have the right to re-elect a womanizing drunkard and killer like Ted Kennedy, surely the people of Minnesota deserve similar consideration.

Nonetheless, I have little sympathy for Franken, and even less for those who insist he was the victim of a "transparent Republican hit job," some sort of Christ-like sacrificial lamb for modern-day Pharisees. Franken was hoist by his own petard, brought down by a prevailing intolerance that he had a big hand in creating.

Was it really wrong to chase Franken out of office? Vox asserts it was not, "There is a difference between the actions of Harvey Weinstein (accused of rape) and Franken (accused of forced kissing and groping women). But that doesn’t mean women should have to choose between the two. The ideal is none of the above."

Personally, I'm a believer in due process and hold that ruining anyone’s life or career on unsubstantiated charges is wrong. But that does not diminish the schadenfreude of watching a hypocrite going down for failing to live up to the standards he insisted upon for others.

Keep in mind that Franken resigned of his own choice. He was not forced out. Gillibrand may have called upon him to resign, but she had no power to compel him to resign. The Ethics Committee was about to begin the investigation of his conduct, an investigation that he personally requested, that he assured us would exonerate him. Yet, he resigned.

Even Leann Tweeden, the "lying, hypocritical tramp" whose accusations against Franken got the ball rolling, said, "I'm not celebrating his resignation. It's a lose-lose situation.”

✔

I don't see why Twitter is worth the time in the first place, whether you're just reading it or tweeting. It's clearly a shallow forum.

I certainly celebrate Franken's resignation, since he was a slimy fraud who was never legitimately elected to the seat in the first place.

Links to the deepest articles and resources of the day.

(2011-2013, it was the finest farm + repository of humor on the planet.)

It is, in the deepest part of the internet metaphor, the street of the electronic mind. One shouldn't expect to like or admire the people encountered randomly, or hearsay, on the street.

But when people you value check in every day, it's an unprecedented resource in public communication.

(That was for Lenona.)

Fine, but I would hope that, since "likeability" is a foolish, childish demand from the public when it comes to whether or not they're willing to vote for a particular man or woman, some day, politicians and other smart people will be brave enough to stop trying to pretend they're just ordinary, poorly-read folk with childishly short attention spans - as if that were a good thing. Fran Lebowitz doesn't suffer fools gladly, but people love her for it - and she's a journalist, not just a humorist. (She does love certain silly TV shows, but she doesn't do social media, last I heard, and makes no apologies for that. In the meantime, she owns thousands of books.)

Also, from Bill Maher:

"The first President Bush pretended he was dumber than he was by eating pork rinds, all the better to lose the horrible stigma of being a of being a thoughtful Ivy League Eastern establishment type. His son didn't have to pretend quite so much, and was instantly adored for being one of us."

(Trouble is, Maher, for all his smarts, comes across as a pretty childish hedonist himself in ways George Carlin never was. Not that Carlin was anyone I'd really want to live with...hint, hint.)

Lenona, if you just want to see things on Twitter that are fun and amusing, you can do that3

https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1099265216150425601

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE

I've always looked young for my age. In my work, people were sometimes shocked about my productivity or when I chimed in a technical discussion (who let the child-prodigy in?). Now that I am older, it sure is great to look younger than my age.

The point here is that men don't get doors held open for them. They make enemies, people criticize, people block them. I saw where women complained about abuse on twitter (serves you right of course for being there) but it turns out men get much more abuse there. But women have delicate feelings apparently. who knew?

There is I think a trade-off between likeability and toughness (or assertiveness). Have you seen Jordan Peterson interviews where someone tries to twist his words? He pounces. He isn't "nice". I'm not terribly "nice" either but I'm not in a beauty contest.

"It is, in the deepest part of the internet metaphor, the street of the electronic mind. "

You have a lot more patience for it than I do.

Lenona, if you just want to see things on Twitter that are fun and amusing
___________________________________________

No, I'm just saying it doesn't help young people's attention span when politicians and other educated people cave in to the pressure to use it. Neil Postman anticipated this very well in his 1985 book "Amusing Ourselves to Death."

From chapter 4:

"The first of seven famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas took place on August 21, 1858, in Ottowa, Illinois. Their arrangement provided that Douglas would speak first, for one hour; Lincoln would take an hour and a half to reply; Douglas, a half hour to rebut Lincoln's reply. This debate was considerably shorter than those to which the two men were accustomed. In fact, they had tangled several times before, and all of their encounters had been much lengthier and more exhausting. For example, on October 16, 1854, in Peoria, Illinois, Douglas delivered a three-hour address to which Lincoln, by agreement, was to respond. When Lincoln's turn came, he reminded the audience that it was already 5 p.m., the he would probably require as much time as Douglas and that Douglas was still scheduled for a rebuttal. He proposed, therefore, that the audience go home, have dinner, and return refreshed for four more hours of talk. The audience amiably agreed, and matters proceeded as Lincoln had outlined.

"What kind of audience was this? Who were these people who could so cheerfully accommodate themselves to seven hours of oratory?"

More on the book (Postman died in 2003):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

Well, in 20-30 years people who are now Prof. Howell's age will not take her seriously because she's old. And she will also complain about that. And she will not perceive the irony.

Lenona, I like how Postman put it:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture....

That was, in fact, the thesis of the book.

More from chapter 4:

...For one thing, its attention span would obviously have been extraordinary by current standards. Is there any audience of Americans today who could endure seven hours of talk? or five? or three? Especially without pictures of any kind? Second, these audiences must have had an equally extraordinary capacity to comprehend lengthy and complex sentences aurally. In Douglas' Ottowa speech he included in his one-hour address three long, legally phrased resolutions of the Abolition platform. Lincoln, in his reply, read even longer passages from a published speech he had delivered on a previous occasion. For all of Lincoln's celebrated economy of style, his sentence structure in the debates was intricate and subtle, as was Douglas'. In the second debate, at Freeport, Illinois, Lincoln rose to answer Douglas in the following words:

"It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in half an hour, notice all the things that so able a man as Judge Douglas can say in an hour and a half; and I hope, therefore, if there be anything that he has said upon which you would like to hear something from me, but which I omit to comment upon, you will bear in mind that it would be expecting an impossibility for me to cover his whole ground."

It is hard to imagine the present occupant of the White House (Reagan) being capable of constructing such clauses in similar circumstances. And if he were, he would surely do so at the risk of burdening the comprehension or concentration of his audience. People of a television culture need "plain language" both aurally and visually, and will even go so far as to require it in some circumstances by law. The Gettysburg Address would probably have been largely incomprehensible to a 1985 audience...