Gates On a Plane: Alaska Airlines Inflight Entertainment Stars Bill Gates (miamiherald.com) 50
theodp writes: On Tuesday, it was announced that Alaska Airlines will make a new Code.org series of six short videos starring Microsoft's Bill Gates on How Computers Work available as inflight entertainment. "Because students and adults alike can learn from these videos," wrote Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi, "we are pleased to announce Khan Academy and Alaska Airlines will make them available beyond Code.org classrooms."
The original submission notes that Gates (and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) have contributed millions to both educational groups, but Alaska Airlines calls the videos "entertaining and approachable," and says they'll start appearing on their flights in April.
But the videos are also available online, and besides Gates also feature appearances by former Apple designer May Li Khoe and Nat Brown, one of the creators of Microsoft's Xbox gaming system.
The original submission notes that Gates (and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) have contributed millions to both educational groups, but Alaska Airlines calls the videos "entertaining and approachable," and says they'll start appearing on their flights in April.
But the videos are also available online, and besides Gates also feature appearances by former Apple designer May Li Khoe and Nat Brown, one of the creators of Microsoft's Xbox gaming system.
Swell (Score:2)
Listening to Bill Gates drone on about whatever is one small step better than sitting in a coach seat next to Andy Dick on a 16-hour trip to Australia.
Re: (Score:2)
Listening to Bill Gates drone on about whatever is one small step better than sitting in a coach seat next to Andy Dick on a 16-hour trip to Australia.
No it isn't.
Title (Score:1)
No one will need more than 6 videos to learn coding
Better not ride with Sam Jackson (Score:4, Funny)
I have had it with these motherfucking Gates on this motherfucking plane!
Re:Better not ride with Sam Jackson (Score:4, Funny)
Good. Someone else already did the obligatory quote. Now I don't have to mangle it. :D
airbus.sys has crashed (Score:2)
airbus.sys has crashed
Re: (Score:2)
Right. Unlike all other forms of videos, commercials, etc, which are purely informative.
Re: (Score:3)
But commercials are obviously commercials., This will be masquerading as a documentary.
sausage (Score:3)
Fine, rich bloke lectures kids on how stuff works in a trivialised manner.
Just as long as he doesn't have a foot-long hotdog and wiggles his arse as he walks away [youtube.com]. Still traumatised by that, k guys.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the heads-up! (Score:3)
I'll choose another airline then.
Hopefully, they'll not be... (Score:2)
full of howl-inducing inaccuracies, generalizations, and implications that Microsoft-based computers are the end-all-be-all of computing. But I'll bet they'll contain hackneyed comparisons like "the CPU--or (spoken slowly) Central Processing Unit--is the brains of a computer".
Oy! I rather hope these are soon-to-be-available on YouTube for our entertainment.
Re: availability (Score:2)
I'm looking forward to these videos (Score:5, Insightful)
I can just imagine the first video:
"Hi, I'm Bill Gates, and this is a computer. To run a computer, you must have software that tells the computer what to do. The most important software is the operating system that controls every aspect of the computer's operation."
"Windows is an operating system created by Microsoft, the company I founded. So let's put Windows on this computer. Now let's make few adjustments to Windows so that our competition's programs won't run on it any more. Now let's sit back and let the money pour in." (At this point dollar bills start showering down on Bill.)
"Let's make it better. Let's cut deals with computer manufacturers so that Windows is the only operating system they will install on their products. Now even more money pours in." (The shower of dollar bills increases.)
"Now let's charge hundreds of dollars for Microsoft products, because only our software will run on our operating system. Boy, are we making money now!" (The torrent of money buries Bill up to his neck.)
"And now I'm one of the richest people on earth. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how computers work."
Re: (Score:2)
Too honest.
Re: (Score:1)
You missed the party about the importance of Daddy's lawyers, but I'm sure Bill leaves that out too.
Don't forget the "foundation" part... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
True. It is however tax avoidance.
That's your Tax Avoidance dollars at work.
(waves invisible hand)
Better still... (Score:4, Funny)
I'd be a lot more entertained watching Bill Gates being thrown out of the plane.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps they will show this one [youtube.com], a lesson on what you get for being a jerk :-
I just hope that Bill Gates... (Score:2)
Why Stop There? (Score:2)
Hey, it's Alaska Airlines, maybe they can get some old clips of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens explaining how the Internet is a "series of tubes", as the next step in their curriculum toward a highly-valued certificate in "Understanding Computers Via Inappropriate Metaphors".
They also have Gates ... (Score:2)
... in the Terminals.
I would rather have "Snakes on a plane"... (Score:2)
\o/ (Score:1)
Hopefully one episode is about how the BSOD works :P
better stock up... (Score:2)
Good stuff. (Score:2)
I notice that almost nobody has actually looked at the videos, they are fine. If your knowledge of computers extends little further than using a cell phone then they are quite informative. They even have Vint Cerf explaining DNS. There is no Microsoft angle and there are plenty of young and hip designers and coders explaining stuff.
So why post *political* viewpoints without bothering to look at the evidence? You are no more nerds than Facebook is likely to win a Nobel science prize.
Time to move on to the Bi
Re: (Score:2)
(young and hip) != (useful or interesting)
Reminds me of... (Score:2)
This little gem...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Bill Gates Microsoft farewell video
Demonstration (Score:2)
To demonstrate, this plane's autopilot runs on Windows Vista. Pay no attention to that planet approaching at terminal velocity.