On 10/7/05, Ryan Norton wxprojects@comcast.net wrote:
Anyway, I cleaned up the Bill Gates article a bit - let me know you think :).
This doesn't belong in the opener:
"Bill Gates is often characterized as the quintessential example of a super-intelligent nerd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd with immense power. This has in turn led to pop culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_culturestereotypes of Gates as a tyrant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrant or evil geniushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_geniuscommanding power over an all-powerful empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire of technology and programming. Several films and television shows have portrayed either the real Bill Gates or a fictionalized version of him, often according to these cliches."
It gives far, far too much weight to a superficial caricature that sometimes appears in yellow rags. The body of the article also reminds me in places of a Citizen Kane-style caricature--I almost expect it to come complete with sentences like "So onward marches the progress of the planet's greatest plutocrat!"
The article downplays some of the major facts of Gates' career. IBM and MSDOS are not mentioned. The word "antitrust" is not present in the article. There is no mention of the fact that Gates founded Corbis, now owner of the largest digital image collection in the world. It's still crap.