OT: Andrew Tanenbaum AP story

From: Dan <guntermann_at_verizon.com>
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 18:25:19 GMT
Message-ID: <jcvhd.9820$vJ.253_at_trnddc02>

For those of you familiar with Andrew Tanenbaum, here is a link to an interesting AP story:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041101/ap_on_el_pr/electoral_predictor&cid=694&ncid=2043

Some background:
Dr. Tanenbaum is a preeminent expert in and has written textbooks on computer organization, operating systems, and networks, among other things.

He gained a great deal of notoriety when he posted a message on the comp.os.minix Usenet group entitled "Linux is obsolete" in 1992. An interesting and heated public exchange between Linus Torvolds and Dr. Tanenbaum ensued concerning Linux in contrast to microkernal OS architectures. Obviously Linux wasn't obsolete, but Tanenbaum wasn't wrong in some of his criticisms. He is the man behind the Minux OS and the Amoeba distributed OS projects.

The reason I post this here is because of Dr. Tanenbaum's direct involvement in computer science and *theory*, much of which is related in some aspects, often tangentially, to DBMS and database theory. What I find interesting is the fact that he has the interest, talents, and time to offer a pretty good electoral college website as well.

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

Since he resides in the Netherlands, I have to wonder if Jan knows him personally.

Regards,

Dan Received on Mon Nov 01 2004 - 19:25:19 CET