My Wikipedic Life

• Ric Weiland: One of the founders of Microsoft and philanthropist. His posthumous gift to Stanford University of $60 million was featured in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed yesterday. Sadly, Weiland, succumbing to his fight with chronic depression, took his own life in 2006. He was only 53.
  
  In his estate, he also bequeathed $65 million to gay rights and HIV/AIDS organizations. He was revered as a strong benefactor to the LBGT community, particularly in the northwestern United States. His loss also holds a disturbing parallel to that of Alan Turing, the father of modern computing.
  
  Turing also gay, was a mathematical genius, and a hero. During WWII, he saved the Allies with his invention of the Turing Machines that were used to break the Nazi's Enigma code. The Turing Machine is acknowledged as the precursor (in concept) to modern computers.
  
  After the war, Turing was outed in an accidental police call to his home. The British government stripped him of his security clearance, and professional standing. He was institutionalized for a period and subjected to other humiliation and degradation in the interest of rehabilitating him. Turing took his own life by taking an bite of an apple dipped in a solution of cyanide.
• UNIX: Computer operating system originated at Bell Labs in 1969. Can never remember whether it's all caps cause it's an acronym or something else. Just trademarked that way. UNIX is actually a hack or a play on the name of it's predecessor, MultICS.
  
  Here's the cool thing: UNIX came about because its originator, Ken Thompson, had been on the Multics project which his employer (AT&T Bell Labs) decided to abandon. He'd written a game for Multics, that he found ran too slow, and in the old time-sharing days, meant that it was also too expensive to run (75 bucks a play to be exact). In rewriting his game Space Travel for another platform, DEC PDP-7, he found himself in part, writing a new operating system.
  
  So to think that the creation of the operating system that has indelibly changed the world started because someone wanted to play a video game! Think about that next time you boot your kid off of World of Warcraft so you can balance your checkbook ;-)
• Ali Larter: I've been watching the show Heroes on Netflix obsessively lately. During the first season's initial run, I only caught episodes every now and again. Now, sans cable, with Netflix as my best friend, I've found Heroes once more and am loving it. Already halfway through the second season.
  
  Anyhow, I was thinking earlier today that Ali Larter, who plays Niki/Jessica/... Sanders on the show, looked strangely familiar. I knew she was in Final Destination which I only saw for the first time a year ago, but could've sworn I remembered her from something else.
  
  Then it occurred to me: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. She shouldn't have had that Mega Mooby Muffin. That stuff makes girls fart. All these years later, superpowers, super modeling, and cheating death, it's the gas-face that remains etched in my brain. I need to get out more.