11.21
I was originally going to come up with a list of the top ten techy things that I am thankful for this year, but with the DMCA, my broken oh key and the makings of another exploding battery, I thought I’d go back and borrow from what other people in technology had been thankful for over the years.
In 1899, Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents, was thankful that everything that could be invented already had.
In 1927, H.M. Warner of Warner Brothers was thankful that his audiences would never want to hear actors talk.
In 1943, Thomas Watson, the then chairman of IBM, was thankful that there was a world market for maybe five computers.
In 1949, popular mechanics was thankful that computers may one day weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
In 1957, the Prentice Hall editor in charge of business books was thankful that this data processing fad wouldn’t last the year.
In 1981, Bill Gates was thankful that he’d never need more than 640k of memory.
In 1995, Wall Street was thankful for all those new dotcom companies.
In 1999, Nigeria was thankful that Al Gore invented the Internet.
In 2003, SCO’s Darl McBride was thankful that there would be a “day of reckoning” for Red Hat and SuSE.
And today, you might be thankful that that’s it for BarretTime.
