Bill Gates Handwriting Analyzed 609
Kaal Alexander Rosser writes "The BBC is reporting that a doodle left behind at a Davos press conference given by Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono shows the writer to be: "an unstable man" amongst other things. The Gates Foundation has confirmed the doodle was left there by Bill Gates."
unstable (Score:5, Funny)
The real scoop (Score:5, Insightful)
A spokesman said: "Following the press conference given by the prime minister, Bill Gates and Bono in Davos on Thursday, a number of newspapers printed stories claiming that a page of notes and doodles left behind on the platform belonged to Tony Blair, and provided an insight into the mind of the prime minister.
"They were in fact doodles made by Bill Gates.
"We look forward with amusement to explanations by a variety of psychologists and graphologists of how various characteristics ascribed to the prime minister on the basis of the doodles, such as 'struggling to concentrate', 'not a natural leader', 'struggling to keep control of a confusing world' and 'an unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure', equally apply to Mr Gates.
"We are astonished that no-one who ran the story thought to ask No 10 if the doodles were in fact Mr Blair's, particularly as it was obvious to anyone the handwriting was totally different."
In other words, graphology is BS and the people who analyzed it already had a preconceived notion about whose it was and made the appropriate BS analyses.
Re:The real scoop (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The real scoop (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The real scoop (Score:5, Insightful)
> unfortunate that these ideas are given any
> credibility.
Agreed. Polygraphs are so pathetically unreliable, but unfortunately if you refuse to take one (which I would seriously consider if I was charged with a serious crime) then somehow that makes you guilty; the classic "If you're innocent, you've got nothing to fear." Even the cops know that lie detectors are crapola, but it's a useful tool to smoke out a true believer who thinks the freakin' things can read minds.
People seem to give a lot of credence to this pseudoscience, though to my mind this sort of handwriting analysis is no better than phrenology and astrology.
Re:The real scoop (Score:4, Interesting)
The human race would be so funny if they weren't so dangerous.
Re:The real scoop (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The real scoop (Score:5, Interesting)
Always agree to take it. They will want you to sign a release form (they have no liability, blah, blah). Refuse to sign the release form. They will decide not to administer the polygraph test. Remind them that you are agreeing to take the polygraph test and it is they that are choosing not to administer it.
I did this with an employer many years ago. It was very funny.
Re:The real scoop (Score:3)
Re:The real scoop (Score:5, Informative)
It was a page and a half saying they could do anything they wanted and I couldn't hold them liable.
No way I'd sign that.
The emplayer was a retailer you'd find a majority of malls in the US.
To be fair, the man that was there to administer the polygraph was the president of his own company contracted by the retailer. He said the retailer's liability waiver was more extreme than most and showed me the standard one he uses for other clients. It still wasn't something I'd sign given how unreliable and subjective polygraphs are.
He then asked if he could do a security interview. He explained that to be asking all the same questions but without the polygraph machine. I agreed to whichever he wanted to do.
Is this the Bill obesssion? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like when 2 students pass in the exact same assignment and get 2 vastly different marks.
It's interesting but why does slashdot care about some doodles? I'm sure most of us don't. It has nothing to do with tech or tech-related news. If, however, there was an improved version of quick sort hidden in the doodles we should all sit up. Is there a way to mod the original articles down?
Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're right. It is like when two students hand in the same assignment and get two different marks. The professor reads the paper and assigns a grade based in part upon the quality of the paper, but in part on preconceived notions of that student's performance. It's human nature.
Now if none of these people had the slightest idea that it was believed to be Mr. Blair's, then that would prove that either graphology is crap, those people din't know what they were doing, or Mr. Gates is unstable and not a natural leader. There's not enough evidence here to say more than that.
From everything I've read, Mr. Gates got lucky by buying MS-DOS from someone who didn't know its value, then used that as a springboard to buy other technologies and hire other people. That's not leadership. It's business. There's a big difference. Only the people directly under him can truly speak for his leadership skills or his stability. I don't see any volunteers coming forward, though.
Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dislike him all you want, but the lack of technical skills does not equate to a lack of leadership. As a businessman, he is one of the world's top leaders. Yes, he got a few lucky breaks and happened to be in a few right places at the right time. As the old saying goes, "when opportunity knocks, answer the door". Bill Gates is a leader because he answered the door, walked through it, and kept on going. How many of us would have bet our fledgling business in 1981 by buying a CPM/86 clone?
Or to put it another way, you don't take a two man firm financed off your mother's credit cards and shape it into a monopoly with 90%+ marketshare by being a follower.
Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention evaluate your own statements. Using the tech to springboard other technologies is smart. Hiring other people around you to support a moving product is smart. Mobilizing at the right time is smart. Amassing resources is smart. The middle two have factors indicating good leadership.
Frankly, organizing people well despite your flaws indicates quite a deal of leadership.
Heck, knowing a business opportunity and moving on it...yes, it includes luck, but also mobility in decision making. Yes, he has a rich father, yes, he was gifted with above average technical intelligence, but you still have to DO quite a number of things to amass the fortune and company he has.
Yes, business tactics do not indicate leadership by themselves. However, forming a multi-billion dollar company needs luck, intelligence, and leadership. Frankly, he's been on the front lines with Microsoft and was more so in the past, and despite all the MS bashing, he did make it into a monopoly, which surprisingly was his true miscalculation and the success was used against him.
iow, despite the millions of naysayers, the talk, the ability to mobilize as he did, the only way that he was was taken down was because he was too successful and manipulative of the power he had already amassed.
Further, why is it any surprise that Gates has his flaws? Maybe you are lucky and fortunate to have surrounded yourself with good people. But looking at the average person, and a comparison of the extremes to that average, Gates has fewer mental flaws than the norm. You just know about them because you and others like to nitpick at every damn thing.
Frankly, it's the
The
Re:Is this the Bill obesssion? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Back that up (Score:3, Interesting)
Congrats, Einstein (Score:3, Funny)
And up until this point I thought it was all hard science. Next you are going to tell me that psychics and spoon-benders don't really have extraordinary powers.
Re:Congrats, Einstein (Score:3, Funny)
But there is no spoon!
Couldn't resist.
Re:Congrats, Einstein (Score:5, Funny)
Handwriting analysis is also not complete crap. The other day, my wife went shopping, and correctly bought an item that I had written down on our shopping list, even though I myself couldn't read my own handwriting.
Amusing (Score:4, Insightful)
Graphology is just as laughable as astrology, acupuncture or homeopathy. Here's a nice experiment for your amusement: when you meet a "graphologist" who'd like to demonstrate her amazing "skills" to you, be sure to make an experiment using text copied from some newspaper, the same text written by all of the tested people who had no contact with the graphologist before and during the handwriting examination at all. Observing the graphologist's face when she doesn't have "side channels data" and no interaction with people to play with "cold reading" is a trully hilarious experience.
"This shape might sometimes mean that maybe some kind of a impatience... am I right?"
"Just keep going, I don't want to disturb you!"
And the most funny thing is that unlike psychics they can't just make up some dumb excuses that they feel some disturbance of Force or that the Angels are scared by the camera, because they are supposed to be scientists. Looking at someone's writing you can usually tell the gender and age--the same I can guess reading someone's palm... Or foot... Or arse! Does it make me an arsologist?
For more interesting informations read: Wikipedia article on graphology [wikipedia.org], James Randi's comments on graphology [google.com] (by The Amazing Randi of JREF [randi.org] who offers "a one-million-dollar prize [randi.org] to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event"), graphology in the Skeptic's Dictionary [skepdic.com] by Robert T. Carroll, PhD, and of course the excellent Quackwatch [quackwatch.org] paper How Graphology Fools People [quackwatch.org] by Barry L. Beyerstein, PhD. This is not the first time [slashdot.org] we can laugh at psedoscientific morons on Slashdot thanks to The Amazing Randi.
And a comment to CmdrTaco: please add the Monty Python foot to the article because without it we look like a bunch of imbeciles. What next? Bill Gates tested by the lie detector [antipolygraph.org] and a story posted on science.slashdot.org? Please just add the foot. Thanks.
Re:The real scoop (Score:3, Informative)
I was taking a law / ethics class back in college (simple class, not the advanced stuff) and we went over a case that kind of freaked some of us out. It was about a man falsely imprisoned in Texas.
The guy was brought in on bad evidence and testimony. That was bad enough, particularly the "witness" who never actually saw anything.
While waiting for trial, the police sent in a psychologist. They didn't even inform the guy what was going on, t
Re:unstable (Score:2, Funny)
Re:unstable (Score:3, Funny)
Not to be confused with Domestos [wikipedia.org], a chemical for cleaning toilets or Bobby Davro [wikipedia.org] who isn't used for cleaning toilets, more's the pity.
Speaking as a geek... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Speaking as a geek... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Speaking as a geek... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Have you ever met Bill? I have. He most certainly has the geek nature. He most certainly does have a deep understanding of the "how" of technology and asks very penetrating questions if you're demonstrating something to him. He's a good business man too, but don't let that lead you into underestimating his technical abilities.
Paul
Re:Speaking as a geek... (Score:3, Funny)
*closes down IE*
Re:Speaking as a geek... (Score:5, Interesting)
After a couple minutes, they got into the technical part and after Bill had spent two or three minutes looking over stack trace information he abruptly starts screaming at the team about how the memory footprint was too large, and then stopped, thought a minute, and accounting for a dependant project off the top of his head, spit out what he thought was the appropriate memory size for the stack. Everyone in the room stared at him slack-jawed - he quoted a number that was too small by half. No one outside the marketing department would make up a number like that.
But they had an explicit order from BillG to rewrite the stack to that size, so they went back to the drawing board and, after bringing in some more BSD hackers, realized that not only was his number achieveable, but he'd hit the number they could theoretically reach given the dependencies with other portions of the system right on the head. Although that section of NT has been revisitted in every version since NT4.0, no one has been able to improve on the memory footprint of that section of the kernel.
That's not neccesarily the sign of a genius - I know people who can look at a database and give the same sort of summary judgements. But when a man can make realizations like that within 10 minutes of having learned about a technology, at a bare minimum you have to give him credit for being a geek.
Re:Speaking as a geek... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry I have to break this to you, but you are a geek. I don't care how cool your friends are.
And for the record, Geek != Loser.
Bill Gates doodles... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill Gates doodles... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bill Gates doodles... (Score:5, Funny)
I heard there were drawings of some short squat bird and the words "die die die" over and over again...
handwriting analysis? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:handwriting analysis? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy to modify your handwriting style. It takes some time, but you can adjust your habits to write "in whatever font" you want. I don't understand how people can draw useful conclusions from it.
Re:handwriting analysis? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:handwriting analysis? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:handwriting analysis? (Score:4, Informative)
Aha (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Aha (Score:3, Funny)
Apologies to Mr. Gates - it needed saying.
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:2, Funny)
Naah, much to easy this one
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
I thought most Visual Basic users were.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
i had to fill in a form today (Score:2)
First Name:
Address of Mortgage Provider (1st Applicant)
but i got the same thing, my handwriting was appalling even when i was at school. i looked at this form after i had completed it and just wanted to cross my name out and write "MUNGO" in large letters across the page. and i had to print in capitals. even i cant read my own joined up writing any mo
I first read that as (Score:3, Funny)
I thought, pity the lab technician who had to do this for media purposes.
Speaking of doodles (Score:3, Funny)
George: Yeah.( reaches for the purse and finds a piece of paper . he looks annoyed.
Monks , next day
Jerry: Yeah! So
George; Don't you see what this is?
Jerry: Yeah! It's a doodle.
George: Yeah!, a doodle of me...look at the size of the nose , the ears, all my features are distorted.
Jerry: Oh!.It's an affectionate caricature.
George: I'm grotesque . I look like a troll.
Jerry: It's just a drawing.
George: Don't you see what this says? How can you possibly like somebody
Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... (Score:4, Funny)
Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono go into a bar... (Score:5, Funny)
Tony Blair says, "But can we at least vote on it?".
The bartender says, "No!".
Bill Gates says, "But we just need a place to crash.".
The bartender felt betrayed because he expected support from Bill, and thus said, "You too??".
Bono says, "Yes...".
Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a lift (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Bono and you are in a l (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, wait, this is slashdot, wrong answer:)
Re:Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono... (Score:5, Funny)
With an obvious need to one up the other two egos in the room, Tony orders a kamikazi and says, "I know they say the three of us are quite unstable, but I believe I have you chaps beat, even on that front. I overthrew a country on the advice of a Texan." He passes a "one-free-knighting" coupon to the bartender for escro on his challenge.
Gates, drinking a screwdriver and squiggling on a piece of paper, blurts out "It's not like Britain didn't do that to the same people before. Try dominating the world with a collection of buggy software and an army of marketroids. Allow the single most significant collaborative creation of the 20th century to be brought to its knees. Then get back to me". He passes a check totaling the GNP of a small country to the bartendar to see Blair's challenge.
Bono, not even inclined to remove his sunglasses responds passes a black I-pod to the bartender. "You see that blonde, at the end of the bar? I'm going to eat her now." He downs his tequila, walks up the blonde, stabs her repeatedly, then eats her, and returns to the conversation.
The bartender interjects and says to Bono "I don't think your instability counts... after all, you're on drugs, and that makes it artificial." Bono, looking puzzled because he hadn't taken a pill in at least three days says "Hell, I'm not on drugs". The bartender passes the pot to Gates, refills the men's drinks and replies, "of course you are, that was a bar-bitch-you-ate".
Handwriting analysis? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Handwriting analysis? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Handwriting analysis? (Score:3, Insightful)
Would these be the same Western intelligence agencies who for years overestimated the capabilities of the Soviet Union and
Actually... it can be accurate. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, he'll be the first to tell you that it's not a perfect science -- but if you see five different indicators that suggest the person is dishonest, there's a better chance that there's a correlation.
Here are a few points that I remember from reading the manual that he had written --
Right up until you try a handicapped person's (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I disorganized? An idiot?
No. I have MS. To me the pen is an instrument of torture; my own.
I probably should have mentioned -- (Score:3, Interesting)
He started studying human behavior, and from that, thinking in general, and now spends his time trying to further research into cognative neuropsychology [drexel.edu].
He's not some Miss Clio wanna-be trying to hawk his wares. I don't even know if he's done much with his handwriting analysis work in years, if not
Hitting the Nail on the Head ! (Score:5, Funny)
I bet he draws penguins and apples and little tiny bugs and all sorts of odd things when he's bored !
Re:Hitting the Nail on the Head ! (Score:2)
Re:Hitting the Nail on the Head ! (Score:3, Funny)
Consistent (Score:2)
See for yourself (Score:5, Informative)
Want to see the doodle? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Want to see the doodle? (Score:5, Funny)
Bear in mind... (Score:5, Insightful)
'Scuse me (Score:2)
Typo? (Score:5, Funny)
Since this is Microsoft and Bill Gates we are talking about, shouldn't you consult "Ka Ching" instead?
Handwriting Analysis.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now analysis to verify for a court that this is the defendants handwriting yes or no,for example is a science.
Tying some Psychological profile to someone's doodle is a joke......
Re:Handwriting Analysis.... (Score:2)
All fine bathroom reading materials to be sure.
Him2? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Him2? (Score:5, Funny)
WTF?!?! (Score:2)
Seriously. WTF. It's like you plug in "Bill Gates" into Google
"objective" (Score:2)
the fact who "analysts" thought was the source of writing turned out to be incorrect makes it pretty interesting. :)
Wake me... (Score:2)
But how did they... (Score:5, Funny)
And why didn't the paper contain a little ticker that showed the time and date and author of the doodle?
Anyone have a link the torrent? Oh man, I feel strange... it must be the
Did the doodles point to any new ideas in windows? Or was one of the doodles a strange on-flying bird like creature being beaten to death by office stationary (paperclips)
Who knows?
Bill's future. (Score:5, Funny)
I remember one card had a Skull...
and the other had a Penguin.
The real story (Score:2)
Then after publishing all that they found out it was Bill Gates' doodles. He may not be mentally focused or a leader, but he just happens to be the wealthiest man in the world.
I wish they had more. (Score:2)
Does anyone dare... (Score:2)
Analysis was of Blair (Score:3, Insightful)
Is Nothing Sacred? (Score:2)
In my expert analysis... (Score:4, Insightful)
From reviewing the doodle [zdnet.co.uk], it's is my expert opinion that Bill Gates has the doodling skill of my five year old son!
Next on Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Tastes Nutty (Score:2)
"Any idea where I misplaced Steve Ballmer's stool sample?"
This is juvenile (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt that Microsoft has some shady business tactics. There's no question that they provide shoddy products from a security perspective and then push responsibility for their goofs to on user community. There's the issue ,of corse, that they hound free software by the cheapest pr tricks in the book and the system Microsoft sucks shit! Well, hell! There's a lot of valid complaints when it comes to chastising Microsoft as a corporation
I really don't want to ideolize Mr. Gates and he is often guilty of wrong speak; willingly or out of ignorance.
But attempting a character analyses from a doodle he left at a conference (which potentially was boring) is just plain juvenile.
Hold your ammunition for the real issues, slashdot, and retain your credibility in the bargain...
handwriting analysis? (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno - I don't consider myself all that anal, but my notes are generally a lot less flamboyant than that - a little more organized, legible, useful, etc.
Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Bono walk into a bar. (Score:2)
"So, Bill", says Tony, "What about that 80% discount on MS software?"
"No way" says Bill.
"Bill. Software patents. Just for you. A word to the jury in patent cases."
Bill stares at Tony, takes out a pen and starts nervously doodling on a coaster.
"No. I can't. Not 80%".
"Must be 80%. Just the government. Schools... We'll make it obligatory in schools. No discounts either."
"60%, please, Tony, I can't." - Bill bites his lip and staring blankly at the coaster, continu
Pseudo-science (Score:4, Insightful)
Handwriting analysis?!?!?!? for Jebus sakes (Score:3, Funny)
Handwriting experts = psychics? (Score:3, Informative)
Newspaper stories contained phrases such as "struggling to concentrate" and "not a natural leader".
That's why the pshychologists and handwriting experts spend a lot of time analyzing a doodle while Bill Gates is very rich and leads a multi-billion dollar industry.
It reminds me of someone who was explaining to me that there's no money in the cumputer business. He said that he was a business owner in an excellent industry. I later found out that he was the bathroom dude in a bar.
typing this from linux. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is really of bad taste guys. As much as I think Bill G. is Napoleonic and demented I don't put that basis on his handwriting.
... So, Bill seems to like ... (Score:3, Funny)
When I doodle, I end up with spheres and cubes and conic sections, not because I'm a great three-dimensional thinker, but because I like to practice light/shadows and foreshortening.
Maybe Bill was practicing his triangles? Even if they were Tony's doodles, what's so wrong with Tony practicing triangles?
What I get from it is this: Some of the most powerful people in the world have fun with triangles, so they must be okay to play with.
This reminds me of something I saw on art critics (Score:3, Interesting)
They showed art critics discussing the art they were looking at and describing, in detail, the emotions and message that the artist was trying to convey.
The show's host didn't believe any of that so he showed some "respected" art critics a piece of art, which looked like scribble to me- it was just random strokes of the brush in different colors. The critics all agreed with each other and explained what exactly the artist was thinking, and the raw emotion that went into the painting.
Very impressive, I thought- and maybe I would have believed them had the artist not been AN ELEPHANT.
Yes, an elephant painted the picture with its trunk. The "respected" art critics were really just good at winning popularity contests- in reality they had no clue what they were talking about. It's the same thing between a "good" phychic and a "bad" psychic- neither one knows what they're talking about, but one just seems "more believable" than the other.
Handwriting analysis bug (Score:3, Insightful)
Handwriting analysis is well known to be a non-science with non-facts based on non-events that produce non-results.
It's also a non-brainer way for slashdotters to do some M$ bashing.
Maybe it's time for /. to move on or for me to stop wasting my time. The quality of information on this site is degrading every day.
analyzing bil's handwriting (Score:3, Interesting)
Dudes! (Score:3, Funny)
Bill Gates , Davros ? (Score:3, Funny)
I read this automatically as being about Bill Gates at a Davros press conference. Immediate thought: Davros, inventor of the Daleks, and Bill Gates together. You just know it makes sense.
Hmmm. Must . get . out . more.
Re:Wow (Score:2)
Re:What's this you say? (Score:2)