Episode 228 – How to Become a Billionaire (and what to do with it)

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1. MagicBullet says:

   04/13/2020 at 3:22 pm

   This link in the Documentation doesn’t seem to be working:

   Gates and Monsanto in Svalbard Seed Vault
   Time Reference: 51:29

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   • pearl says:

     04/15/2020 at 1:36 am

     A lot of times I’ve had success pasting a dead link into wayback machine and/or that other archive site called archive.today (but lately, my browser has been barring the way to the latter due to a “security risk”). Anyhow, I did find the link in question at wayback:

     https://web.archive.org/web/20120609082259/http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/campaign/save-our-seeds/seed-saving-and-seed-banks/

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     • richardadler says:

       04/22/2020 at 3:28 am

       Same with Billionaires meeting in secret

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2. peregrine says:

   04/15/2020 at 1:12 am

   https://www.c-span.org/video/?162717-1/ibm-holocaust

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3. SuperMom Belle says:

   04/15/2020 at 2:32 am

   Gate’s Geoengineering connection needs to be considered as well.

   “The Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research (FICER)
   Grants for (GEOENGINEERING) research are provided to the University of Calgary from gifts made by Mr. Bill Gates from his personal funds. The activities of the Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research fall outside the scope of activities of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. FICER is not a Foundation project and has no relationship with it.
   The fund has supported research in a wide range of areas. Some examples include:
   1. understanding carbon dioxide emissions associated with international trade in goods and services;
   2. developing technologies to capture carbon dioxide out of the air; and
   3. climate modeling to understand possible environmental consequences of solar radiation management”

   https://weathermodificationhistory.com/bill-gates-funds-geoengineering-research-ficer/ Jan 2007-Present (lists 12 reference links plus videos)

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4. отец says:

   05/15/2020 at 10:46 am

   Dear James,

   Part of what you suggest as the “official story” about Microsoft was first recounted to me around 30 years ago during a course on x86 assembly language, the instruction set initially used by Intel’s 8086 and 8088 microprocessors. The only difference being that Bill Gates sold IBM’s CEO, John Opel, on the idea of “DOS,” a name he made up on the spot, via a phone call, which John Opel took via a mobile phone on his private yacht. It was a fun bit of computer folklore, much like Xerox not having the foresight to patent the computer mouse, but I never thought much about it since it is irrelevant to actually working with this technology. Upon a bit of reflection, I realized that around the same time that this conversation, however it took place, between Bill Gates and John Opel, I already had person experiences with two different DOS’s, nether of which were connected to Microsoft nor IBM. In fact, Bill Gates was only 9 years old when IBM announced DOS/360 (Disk Operating System/360) for their mainframe computers and 11 years old when that IBM product was first delivered. Obviously, Bill Gates did not invent the name Disk Operating System (DOS).

   The movie Pirates of Silicon Valley is mostly fictional and based upon urban myths.

   The IBM Personal Computer, model number 5150 (no, this has nothing to do with Van Halen), which John Opel, then president of IBM, strongly supported, broke most of IBM’s development norms in order to enter the personal computer market. Had they use their traditional methods of vertical integration, it would have taken them four years, rather than 12 months, before they had a product and they would have likely lost the opportunity to enter this market. It was IBM executive Bill Lowe that spearheaded this strategy.

   Had IBM used the Motorola 68000 (a better chip than the 8088 and 8086) as Lewis Eggebrecht, one of the key members making such decisions, apparently wanted to use, Bill Gates may have never been involved in developing PC DOS, which Microsoft sold as MS DOS. However, the 68000 was not production ready at that time. IBM also chose the 8088 over the superior 8086 because Intel offered a better price and could provide more units, but this is rather irrelevant in regards to Bill Gates’ involvement. This was a major boon for Intel and the money that came their way because of it afforded development resources that resulted in Intel processors becoming much more powerful than Motorola processors. This is why Apple eventually began using Intel processors rather than the more elegant Motorola processors they had previously used, which is why Microsoft operating systems were then able to run on Apple computers. Of course, IBM could have also used their own, much more powerful, 801 RISC processor, which already had an operating system developed at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, an operating system that was much more advanced than what eventually shipped with the IBM PC.

   [SNIP – Please keep comments to 500 words or less. Longer comments can be split into multiple posts. -JC]

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   • отец says:

     05/15/2020 at 4:51 pm

     … However, the objective was to break into the personal computer market, not to develop a better product than what was already on that market. The strategy IBM chose to accomplish this depended on outsourcing and open standards. Thus, they wouldn’t use their own processor nor their own operating system.

     IBM wanted to use Digital Research’s CP/M, which was already being sold as an alternative operating system for the IBM Displaywriter System (something IBM discouraged), as the operation system for the IBM PC. For some reason, IBM approached Bill Gates concerning CP/M. This may have been because Microsoft was producing the Z-80 SoftCard, which enabled the Apple II to run CP/M. As well, Mary Gates apparently discussed her son’s company, Microsoft, with John Opel right around the time IBM was looking for the necessary non-IBM pieces to develop the IBM PC. Bill Gates sent IBM to Digital Research, from whom IBM proposed to license CP/M and rename it PC DOS. Digital Research founder Gary Kildall refused to license the operating system because he wanted to sell CP/M on a royalty basis. Had Gary Kildall taken IBM’s original offer, perhaps he would be in a similar position financially as Bill Gates is now.

     Having failed to license Digital Research’s CP/M, IBM returned to Bill Gates and Microsoft, who had already collaborated with Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products in developing Microsoft BASIC for a CPU board they had brought to market. Digital Research’s CP/M would also run on this CPU board once an 8086-compatible version called CP/M-86 was released, but the delay in its release prompted Tim Paterson to write his own version of CP/M. This operating system he wrote was aptly called QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), but was renamed 86-DOS. (The acronym DOS, for Disk Operating System, had already been used by multiple companies for a decade and a half before this, beginning with IBM’s DOS/360, as mentioned above.) As the name and quick development cycle suggest, this operating system was quite inferior to Digital Research’s eventually released CP/M-86.

     The use of 86-DOS was a temporary solution to allow Seattle Computer Products to sell their CPU board until the superior operating system from Digital Research was ready for the market. Since it had no other purpose, perhaps Bill Gates did buy it from Seattle Computer Products at an extremely low price. Regardless of what deal was made, this inferior clone of CP/M-86 was sold to Microsoft who modified it, licensed it to IBM as PC DOS, and sold it themselves as MS DOS.

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     • отец says:

       05/15/2020 at 4:55 pm

       Apparently, Bill Gates and Microsoft were only interested in developing and maintaining DOS until IBM decided to use Xenix, which was a version of the Unix operating system licensed by Microsoft from AT&T. However, IBM did not want to replace DOS and the average customer who bought an IBM PC or some clone never experience anything better like Unix or CP/M.

       Digital Research attempted to get in on this market that they had missed, but their product’s higher cost prevented them from gaining very many customers. I actually bought a used copy of DR DOS (Digital Research Disk Operating System) around 30 years ago from the instructor who taught the above mentioned course on x86 assembly language. It was far better than the product Microsoft was selling.

       As for the computer mouse, Xerox didn’t invent it, Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute did. The Xerox Alto was the first computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse well, but they did not hold the patents to these technologies. By the time the computer mouse became a marketed product, the patent held by Stanford Research Institute had expired.

       This is the actual “official” story. Not really much material for a conspiracy theory other than IBM and Microsoft legally ripping off Digital Research or Stanford Research Institute and selling their customers an inferior product. Nonetheless, this is how Bill Gates ended up getting so rich. Too bad Gary Kildall wasn’t willing to license CP/M to IBM. Had he licensed it to IBM, I may not be writing this using LiberOffice running on a distribution of Linux.

       С уважением
       отец

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       • отец says:

         05/15/2020 at 5:06 pm

         P.S. Sorry, that last paragraph should have said “Seattle Computer Products” rather than “Stanford Research Institute.”

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5. отец says:

   05/15/2020 at 5:56 pm

   Here’s an interesting thing to think about: for security reasons, many government buildings and important offices have shielded walls, floors, and windows so that cell phones and other wireless transmissions cannot enter or leave these buildings. This is likely true of people’s houses if they have enough money and feel the need for such security. Perhaps even the cars they are driven around in also have such security measures. Thus, the only time such rich and powerful people would be exposed to electromagnetic pollution is when they go outside.

   The low band on Wi-Fi routers is 2.5 GHz, around the same frequency used by microwave ovens to cook food, only with a much stronger signal than Wi-Fi routers. The Wi-Fi high band is twice the frequency, 5 GHz, which has more trouble going through walls, but can deliver a higher bandwidth, even though a wired connection is better (this is why gamers use a wired connection rather than Wi-Fi).

   These Wi-Fi frequencies are rather controversial to be beaming around one’s living space, but nothing compared to the high band used in 5G, which will run between 25 GHz to 39 GHz. (The low and mid bands used to transmit lower amounts of data will be in the ranges of what is already being used.) These line of sight singles will not go through most solid objects, but will deliver a higher bandwidth that is as good as a wired connection. Of course, line of sight singles like this were considered quite dangerous 30 years ago while I was studying antennas and electrical communications. The lab experiments we were assigned were all done within a Faraday cage with the antennas and test equipment inside the cage and us students outside the cage, at least when the power was turned on.

   Did they stop teaching how dangerous these line of sight signals are since I was in school? I’m sure Bill Gates and other rich techies over the age of 50 know this… of course, they are all living and working in shielded buildings. Do they ever go outside? If so, where do they go outside? Once they have 5G in their neighborhoods, will they be staying inside?

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