500

[Ahau]

Happy 500th thread, Porteus Community!

Here's to many, many more!

[82issa]

Thought that this might be the sequel to 300. Saddly I am dissappointed.

[Ahau]

I can see it now: 500 spartan Linux distributions, battling for survival against the evil king Gates and his mindless mob of minions, chanting glibly, "I'm a PC!".

The scene opens on a rocky plateau above the...Nah, I'm sorry, I can't do it. None of us will look that good in a toga.

Wait, can we get Minka Kelly to be in this? Ok, I'm back on board. Where were we?

[82issa]

You know I am ready my tux avatar is a spartan called Kratos. From the "god of war" games. So yes I am ready.

[agreimann]

500 threads! That's super awesome!

In joining the "Windoze war" track, what will be way cooler is 500 users, times a thousand, using this OS!

[Hamza]

@agreimann,
Sorry, but you are wrong here.
We have 500 topics and not 500 posts

A post is a message posted by an user on the forum.
A topic is a subject on the forum like "Just to say hi" or "Porteus-v1.0-rc2-x86 | So close to the FINAL..." or "Forum Bugs"

[agreimann]

Oops. Changed to 500 threads. Thanks, Hamza!

[Ahau]

So, this weekend I will be touring the new offices of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Any suggestions for subversive behavior? Should I leave a stuffed penguin in his office? Wear a shirt that says, "Don't kill my CLI!"?

[Hamza]

Linux is life ! as you said

[brokenman]

Wow, nice opportunity Ahau.

How about: In a world without walls, who needs windows ... in a world without boundaries, who needs gates?

I wonder if the mat at the front door says ... "there's no place like 127.0.0.1"

One linux laptop per child?

[MasterSplinter]

YAYYYY!!!!!

[Ahau]

Well, I had an interesting trip to the Gates Foundation today. Now, before you accuse me of going off topic (on my own thread), let me just say that serendipity has shone on me. The address of their new office building is 500 5th Ave. That's right, I've been on topic this whole time. I'll post more tomorrow, including a pic of something that had me in stitches...

[82issa]

Did you try to close any windows while there?

[Ahau]

@82Issa - No, their windows open and close automatically to regulate the temperature. As we'll see later, their OS's appear to behave similarly.

...

Well, unfortunately I can't seem to get photos to post properly, so I have to link to an outside site.

I messed this all up and lost my longer post, so here we go again:

Here's a link to a photo I took from the top floor of the building, looking over their parking garage (which has plants on it's roof to absorb excess rainwater), with the EMP (Experience Music Project) and Space Needle in the background: http://imageshack.us/f/13/bmgf02.jpg/

The buildings are very elegant and opulent inside, but also highly efficient. There is a lot of artwork from around the world that has been given to the Gates, or commissioned by them. The building is LEED Gold certified (and will likely reach the highest level of LEED recognition once their solar panels are put in). The executive offices are actually rather small, which was kind of surprising. Bill and Melinda's offices were behind closed doors with no windows into the rest of the building, so I wasn't allowed to put my feet up on Bill's desk (or scrawl "porteus.org" on it).

The employees are given a lot of freedom to move around. They all have laptops and are encouraged to work in different locations around the building. However, they are also monitored very closely. Other employees can see where you are located and IM you if they want to find you, they can see if you left the building and how long you have been gone, and even how long your computer has been idle. There are plenty of security cameras around (including inside the conference rooms -- you can disable them temporarily, but IT is alerted whenever they are disabled). Just to visit the office, we had to have our pictures taken at the front desk, and they print out your name, the date, the name of your escort, etc., on a badge that you have to wear around inside.

So, here's my favorite thing from my tour--

Our escort showed us one of their conference rooms. She told us that in addition to the security camera, the conference rooms have heat sensors, and if no one shows up to start a meeting on time, the sensors will see that no one is in the room and they will cancel the reservation. She then pointed to a display on the wall and said, "When this thing is working, it will show you who has the meeting room reserved, and what the meeting is about". I took a closer look and almost busted out laughing:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/716/bmgf03.jpg/

That's right...a dreaded BSOD, hanging on the wall, just down the hall from Bill's office.

[brokenman]

KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR ...

She then pointed to a display on the wall and said, "When this thing is working, it will show you who has the meeting ...

too funny.

Looks like there is no button to press to turn the thing off either! How embarrassing. I'd bet my last dollar there is a linux kernel somewhere amongst all that technology.