I guess it wasn't Al Gore....

[cphilip]

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040415-074931-1042r.htm

[Jeffy-CanCon]

It's nice to see that guy get some recognition.

[cphilip]

It's nice to see that guy get some recognition.

I agree. Until I saw that article I really had no idea.

[Thordic]

I knew it was developed at CERN, but I didn't know the guy who did it. Good for him

[Jeffy-CanCon]

I had heard his name, and knew that he made no real attempt to profit from his ideas. That's why it's so nice to see him get that prize.

It's kind of like how Gaines & Noel never patented paintball, but instead just wanted a small piece of the expanding pie they had baked up. Except that no one ever gave them a $1M tahnk-you.

[sharpshooter1286]

what did al gore claim anyway? thats great for this guy though.

[cphilip]

At one point he sort of claimed to invent the Internet. He used it in his Election campainge and was widely ridiculed for overstating his actual role in that.

In fact he served on a commission that made up some basic legislation for adopting some universal standards for the US internet system and assuring its compatablilty with existing World Wide Web standards.

[Jeffy-CanCon]

Gore's actual claim was:
"While in Congress, I took the lead in developing the internet."

Which isn't quite "invented", but still a gross overstatement.

[1stdeadeye]

That's cool. The $1million is kind of weak conssidering how much money his baby has generated. I hope he made some royalties off of it though!

[Dryden]

I've worked at ISPs and tech companies from the mid-90's to present and have taken sabbaticals to travel the country and deliver technology keynotes ... I can recite this is my sleep.

No, Al Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet. The entire line was:

But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

This remark was part of a response to a question posed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Late Edition in 1999.

The media took it and ran with it, so the statement developed a life of it's own. Al Gore earned his very own Top 10 list on Letterman that December, where he was credited with also inventing the orgasm and opposable thumbs. Even Bill Clinton was privvy to the joke, himself commenting, "Al Gore invented the Internet. For the record, I, too, am an inventor. I invented George Stephanopoulos."

This is a classic case, at worst, of Gore over-asserting himself, but it's really not too much of an exaggeration. Gore was lobbying for funding for NSFnet back as far as 1986. There are transcripts available on the Internet of both his original NSFnet speech to Congress and a subsequent speech from 1988 calling for a national high speed data network.

He was well liked and conversant with Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, et al, who were the real creators of what became the modern Internet.

A good example of how one little word self-destructs the whole thought.

Instead of:

"I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Gore should have said:

"I took an initiative in creating the Internet."

The first statement was correct in the context of the statement above. The second statement is an absolute fact.

Also, it's worth noting that Al Gore's father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., was chairman of the Subcommittee on Roads for the Public Works Committee under President Eisenhower. Al Gore Sr was the 'inventor' of the "Interstate" highway system with his Federal-Aid Highway Act.

Gore Jr's "Internet" is much the same thing.

[cphilip]

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. [/i]

And admittedly that was far too much of an exageration. And not mentioning all the people he was working with on that and taking all the credit for the initiatives put forth was his second mistake after being challenged on it later. So the joke stuck even more. He was presented with the initiatives and he supported them. Many people worked on these. He hardly was the author of them...Yes and what was intended as an old return of an old joke to start this thread might be lost in this discussion.

[Jeffy-CanCon]

Dryden,
while I agree that Gore got bashed too much for his statement, I think you give him too much credit. It would be fair to say that he took an initiative in developing the internet, but it is still an absolute lie to say he had any hand in creating it. The internet has its roots in defense projects of the 1960's, back when Gore was still a student. And as we saw in cphilips link above, the "world wide web" as we now know it was actually conceived in Europe.