Died Worth $20b
Paul Allen has died
221–230 of 308 posts
Re: Paul Allen has died
#222It doesn't detract from his greatness but I didn't like his hypocrisy in giving millions to gun control initiatives while personally owning a Panzer tank, SCUD missile launcher, MiG fighter jet, etc.
You can support gun control without supporting total suppression; even Japan, with some of the world’s strictest gun control laws, still lets you buy one if you qualify.
Japan doesn't have low gun violence because of strict laws, it's because culturally there is simply no desire to own guns (per-capita ownership rate is 0.3, near the bottom of all countries[1]), combined with an overall low violent crime rate due to their high trust, homogeneous society.
There's simply no comparison to the USA where firearms are a deep part of our history and culture, and where our right to bear arms is recognized right in the Constitution. That's reflected in our per-capita ownership rate.
If you look just at the laws, Venezuela has even stricter gun control laws than Japan (complete private ownership ban) yet it has the highest gun homicide rate on the planet.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...
Re: Paul Allen has died
#223One of the first people to sign on to the Giving Pledge. Worth 20 billion according to wiki. Owns the Seattle Seahawks and the Trailblazers. Will these be sold off? Will be a true test of the Pledge.
NFL rules require that an NFL team have a majority owner (with Green Bay grandfathered as an exception).
It will likely have to be sold.
Re: Paul Allen has died
#224Sad. His autobiography, a fantastic read, gave me great perspective on business and parenting.
Re: Paul Allen has died
#225Kind of feel likes a member of the family died, almost. Having literally grown up with personal computers, my third computer was a first generation PC clone with DOS 2.11 and I think I was a subscriber of PC Magazine in its very first year, and closely followed the PC revolution from its very beginning more or less continuously to now.
I mean, Paul always played second fiddle to Bill, and kind of kept out of the limelight, but he also seemed a lot funner of guy, and they were both in the news a lot over the years, even when they had their little spats or whatever.
These guys, along with Jobs, Wozniak, Ellison, and a small handful of others were really a new kind of celebrity, and helped geeks and nerds worldwide achieve unheard of self-esteem....suddenly it was fucking cool to be smart and wear pocket protectors, and such people were suddenly getting rich as Croesus too...Paul sure has some nice boats and a football team, and his bachelor lifestyle was infamous...he liked the bitches, the champagne, the south of france: all of it!
Pimpin' Paul Allen, you will be missed. R.I.P.
Re: Paul Allen has died
#226Many here have noted his many large-scale philanthropic efforts, which are fantastic, and often benefit our whole species. But my personal favorite, even if it doesn't benefit large swaths of humanity in the same way as a cell research insitute: https://livingcomputers.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Computers:_Museum_%2B_L... It's a computer museum, but they work. They're turned on, and you can use them! Y…
That Sigma 9 photo brings back fond memories. An earlier version, the Sigma 5, was my first personal computer! Back in 1968.
I was hired as "night operator" for a timesharing company in Phoenix called Transdata. Their service ran on a Sigma 5, but they didn't offer the service at night.
So my graveyard shift gave me full access to the Sigma 5 to do whatever I wanted. I learned BASIC, assembly language, and Algol 60. And the art of writing an entire useful program on a single punch card.
One single-card program we used a lot was a simple print program. You'd put the program card at the front of the deck, and it would load and then print out the contents of all the cards after it.
Only problem was it was a bit slow. It had a single buffer that it read a card into, then printed the contents, then read the next card and so on.
I looked at it and realized I could squeeze in just enough code to make it double-buffered. It could read the next card at the same time it was printing the previous one. Twice as fast!
Not much by today's standards (unless you're into code golfing), but it was a lot of fun at the time.
Re: Paul Allen has died
#227Sad day, he was one of the first to recognize the importance of neuroscience and to fund it.
This is of course completely untrue. Neuroscience has been major branch of science for thousands of years, and funded pretty much constantly in human memory.
Re: Paul Allen has died
#228https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-paul-allens-yacht-...
Scroll down to see some of the talent he invited....
....and Paul jamming the mighty Zeppelin out on the guitar... the guy was just coolness personified!! :-P
Re: Paul Allen has died
#229So sad to hear this, rest in peace, you did well
Re: Paul Allen has died
#2302 weeks ago: https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/1046864324310982668 > Some personal news: Recently, I learned the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma I battled in 2009 has returned. I’ve begun treatment & my doctors are optimistic that I will see a good result. Appreciate the support I’ve received & count on it as I fight this challenge Just now: https://twitter.com/PaulGAllen/status/1051958128885940226
I must admit that this news has shaken me quite a bit. I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma six months ago. I'm a young guy, married, and with toddlers at home. The initial tumor was removed and I am now in the "waiting period" to see if it spread and if additional tumors present themselves. It's a very good prognosis, but hot dog if this news hasn't hit close to home, especially considering this fun fact: My…
Much good luck tomorrow.