Regards To The Man of the Year

Bill and Melinda Gates, along with Bono, of U2 have been named Persons of the Year, by Time magazine, for 2005.

It is not because one of these men has won this award, but because of what he has done to earn it, that I am writing about him. Bill Gates, Person of the Year, has made amends in my book.

Amends for what? For a long time, part of my writing for the Mac Continuum was reporting on working on the Dark Side – employed at a Windows only company, trying to do productive work. Compared to the productivity of using a Mac, this was a heartbreaking effort by many good, hard working people. . .

Well, enough of that. You can read it all in my Archives.

More than once I have demanded that Microsoft be made to repay all those people and companies for all their man-years of lost productivity from (ahem) their faulty office software and the lamentable Windows operating system.

But, as I see it, Mr. (Sir) Gates has made full restitution by giving away a great deal of his money to combating world poverty and disease. More than that, he has set up foundations to effectively accomplish the goals of ending these modern day plagues, stating that he plans to leave all of his fortune to his foundations. And far above all of that, these three people, have gotten corporations and governments to commit much more money to his efforts, than even Bill has given (which lately equals all of UNICEF’s yearly fundings)

Quite cool, in my book, making every Microsoft Windows and Office buyer an unwitting philanthropist. This story has a much happier ending this way, than if he had just returned eveyone’s money, don’t you think?

There is a great writeup on this in the current issue of Time magazine (December 19th, 2005). It is worth getting this one just for the excellent article by Nancy Gibbs. (I know you will enjoy reading there about Bono and his amazing comtributions to this cause.)

Does all this mean that this writer would use Windows now? Nope. Still using, and still preferring, my rock solid, ultra secure, productive and beautiful Macintosh running OS X, the best OS on the planet, thankyouverymuch.

However, I will be sending something to one of Bill Gates foundations. If you don’t wish to assist Bill yourself, this issue of Time magazine lists a bunch of other places you can contribute to the eradication of world poverty, hunger, disease and the horrific lack of education and housing. What a nice thing to do, in this holiday season of giving.

Regards, and Merry Christmas,
Roger Born
“No Sig Necessary For This One, Wilfred”