1) Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson – Dennis was the original developer of C and one of the core developers on UNIX while Ken was the man responsible for UNIX

2) Bjarne Stroustrup - This guy brought us C++! I couldn’t talk trash about a guy who made C++

3) Alan Kay – This is one of the fathers of object oriented programming.

4) John McCarthy – The original designer of the Lisp programming language.

5) Richard Stallman – Like him or ignore him, he is a seriously influential person in the computer world, The man is the founder of GNU and creator of gcc compiler

6) Larry Wall – This guy brought us Perl. The most admired programming language

7) Alan Cox – Alan Cox and Richard Stallman must have been long lost twins . This guy was one of the earliest developers on the linux kernel and apparently has not shaved since he started.

8 ) James Gosling – This guy brought us Java and is wearing a shirt with the java mascot playing an electric guitar.

9) Guido Van Rossum – This guy brought us Python. My favorite programming language.

10) Linus Benedict Torvalds: Best known for initiating the development of the Linux kernel.

11) Dr. Andrew Stuart “Andy” Tanenbaum : He is best known as the author of MINIX, a free Unix-like operating system for teaching purposes. The inspiration for the linux kernel came from Minix. He regards his teaching job as his most important work.

12) Bill Gates : The chairman and founder of Microsoft. Love him, Hate him, he still is the most influential guys in modern history.

13) Steve Jobs : His name may have skipped this list a year ago, But after brilliant launch of the ipod and iphone, he manages to make the list. The CEO of Apple. The guy who miraculously managed to bring Apple from a loss making company to the most admired company in 2007.

I may have missed a few, but these are the guys who come to my mind at this time. I may add to the list later.

This was a email sent by Linus to the LKM(Linux Kernel mailing List) in Nov 2001. The debate was if Sun Solaris was taking the right approach for its kernel development and linux was lagging behind.

The reply from linus really sums up why open source or free software is the way to go. 7 years after the email, linux has easily gained more popularity than solaris and is by far the most active. Its not about the technical brilliance, its just plain logic, nature has for millions of years, shown us the most optimized path.

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Rik van Riel wrote:
> I’m very interested too, though I’ll have to agree with Larry
> that Linux really isn’t going anywhere in particular and seems
> to be making progress through sheer luck.

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Linus wrote:
Hey, that’s not a bug, that’s a FEATURE!
You know what the most complex piece of engineering known to man in the
whole solar system is?
Guess what – it’s not Linux, it’s not Solaris, and it’s not your car.
It’s you. And me.
And think about how you and me actually came about – not through any
complex design.
Right. “sheer luck”.
Well, sheer luck, AND:
- free availability and _crosspollination_ through sharing of “source
code”, although biologists call it DNA.
- a rather unforgiving user environment, that happily replaces bad
versions of us with better working versions and thus culls the herd
(biologists often call this “survival of the fittest”)
- massive undirected parallel development (“trial and error”)
I’m deadly serious: we humans have _never_ been able to replicate
something more complicated than what we ourselves are, yet natural
selection did it without even thinking.
Don’t underestimate the power of survival of the fittest.
And don’t EVER make the mistake that you can design something better than
what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a
feedback cycle. That’s giving your intelligence _much_ too much credit.

Ed Edd and Eddy has to be the most intelligent and funny cartoon series ever. The show’s basic premise has the three main characters (Ed, Edd, and Eddy) interacting with nine major supporting characters but it doesn’t stop there. One of the most revealing aspects of “Ed, Edd, and Eddy” is the interactions between the supporting cast themselves. Another major aspect of “Ed, Edd, and Eddy” I like are the distinct characters. Every character on that show is well-written so they can have depth and personality. The situations they all get involved may be seriously far-fetched but I think it brings out the best parts of each personality. Each character that was created to portray some sort of typical adolescent personality (eg Eddy is the brainy wimp and Ed is the stupid brawn). Each character has its’ own flaws and they are displayed perfectly in each episode they appear. Here’s my brief up of the three main characters Ed Edd and Eddy

Ed – An idiotic but lovable guy who’s absolutely crazy for those ridiculous alien movies, buttered toast, and stuff we rarely care about. His head is so empty you could fit a stadium in there but yet he’s what makes this show so funny! My favorite character, never fails to make me laugh. He is very kind and good-natured kid and can often confuse reality with his monster movies. He’s stupid and he usually speaks in some sort of jumbled up riddle. Just today I walked in on an episode where he said “What can you do if you live in a shoe and you ain’t got no soul”. Funny? Brilliant? you decide.

Edd-Also known as Double D, this genius knows just about everything as we all know. I enjoy his liking for being clean, labeling everything, and being kind of course. Loved the way he played that Pedal Steel Guitar! Edd is amazingly intelligent, able to construct complicated machines from cardboard, signs and various junk the Eds come across. Edd is kind-hearted and would never betray his friends, which is also his weak point. Edd has a obsession for wearing too much clothes. He is always seen with his cap on and has a secret below the cap that nobody except Ed and Eddy know.

Eddy-The master scammer, as we know him, is always trying to scam the kids.(or pigeons as he refers to them) He may not be the most popular of this fab trio but he’s funny and hey, I like him! Everybody has at some point in his life met someone like Eddy. The guy who loves money and would do anything for it.Eddy is the self-appointed leader of the Eds (or Ed brothers as Rolf calls them). He is very sensitive about his lack of height. Eddy loves his retro styled room, complete with a lava lamp, a large round king-sized bed and a disco ball. Eddy is extremely selfish and would probably sell his friends for jawbreakers (the candy type thing every kid loves. notice the name itself says so much about the thought gone into it)

The nine other characters, which includes a wooden stick that johnny has a face drawn on and calls him his friend (Johnny actually talks to his plank and is often seen taking advice. Many people believe Johnny is faking it and is a very intelligent kid to actually make a fool of all other characters ) and a completely unseen character “eddy elder brother” have distinct personalities. Many people (including my brother) complain about the style of animation used, It may not be as clean as other cartoons, but it sure does bring so much energy into the screen. The series is created by DANNY ANTONUCCI and airs between 11 to 12 pm on Cartoon Network sunday to friday. So go ahead and watch it, it might take a few episodes before you actually understand why its loved so much.

Oh, there’s even a online petition asking DANNY ANTONUCCI to create a movie on the characters http://www.petitiononline.com/edsmovie/petition.html