I guess that’s the Paul Harvey version of the story. You might want to read a little more about Gary Kildall the “first guy” who wrote the first operating system (CP/M), his company, and what really happened that day.
Kildall, his wife, and their lawyer definitely made a huge mistake, but it wasn’t as cut and dried as that makes it sound.
rjung, even if you believe that the ruling was a “mistake”, you have to believe that we are better off for it…I’m pretty sure the Bearded One himself (Gore, not Bin Laden, although I see the similarity) would agree.
Future biggest mistake: “First strike” in attempt to “win” nuclear war.
Modern biggest mistake: Leaving Europe a mess after World War I (all due respect to the Forgiving Sniper in the earlier post).
All-time biggest mistake: When the first tribe broke into two separate and competing tribes.
Funniest biggest mistake: William Shatner’s and Leonard Nimoy’s albums.
Personal biggest mistake: Leaving Dad’s Penthouse in the bathroom instead of returning it to Top-Secret Underbed Lair.
Biggest cultural mistake: Permitting the first hygeine advert on television, leading directly to 1980s on-air discussions of “feeling fresh” and the current ubiquitous radio ads for penis-lengthening creams and pills. Not that I need them.
Biggest mistake that turned out OK in the end (tie): Accidental discoveries of photography and penecillin.
Biggest highly foreseeable mistake: No, seriously, I think we can win a land war in Asia (multiple contributors).
Biggest mistake almost (but not) made: Playboy’s 1962 attempt to lock up Liz Taylor for a forty year layout-per-year contract.
Not the biggest ever… It was quickly followed by one far worse: Hitler declaring war on the US. Had he kept his trap shut, or better yet, condemed the attack and let the Japanese take their beating, he’d have effectively removed the US from the European conflict for three or four years. With America being royally pissed with Japan, Roosevelt’s desire to intervene in the European war, first, would’ve been pushed to the sidelines on a wave of righteous anger. Hitler’d have had enough time to force Britain to a negotiated peace, leaving him a much more free hand in Russia, where Germany might have achieved stalemate, and a defacto control over Europe.
I’m still voting for the burning of the Library at Alexandria as the biggest mistake of all time, though.
And don’t mistake a high popularity rating for competence. Carrot Top could’ve been President on 9/11/2001 and gotten a 94% approval rating afterwards.
Babe Ruth for cash and a mortgage on Fenway Park (???!)
McLean Stevenson leaving MAS*H for his own series.
I have to concur with the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor.
Cornwallis’ decision to encamp on a peninsula.
The guy (I don’t remember his name, but I saw a special about it on PBS a few years back) who had the opportunity to license DOS before Bill Gates but turned it down.
I’d like to think I can check back on this thread in a hundred years and find “hijacking those planes and flying them into the World Trade Center.”
