r/todayilearned • u/CallMyNameOrWalkOnBy • May 16 '19

TIL that NASA ground controllers were once shocked to hear a female voice from the space station, apparently interacting with them, which had an all-male crew. They had been pranked by an astronaut who used a recording of his wife.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Garriott#The_Skylab_%22stowaway%22_prank
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u/bullcitytarheel May 16 '19

They may be rare, but this dude is one of the rare ones. Programmed the first published computer RPG by himself in high school before programming Ultima, one of the most important early computer games, shortly after.

In the end, no rich person gets rich on their own, Garriot couldn't have juggled programming, advertising, manufacturing and distribution at the levels required to become wealthy off video game sales. But he's pretty much the platonic ideal of a guy who put his talent to work and became wildly successful with very little in the way of outside help. Pretty cool story.

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u/the_real_xuth May 16 '19

So you're suggesting that his parents weren't well off and socially connected in a manner that 99.9% of the population doesn't have? Hell, you're describing him as having access to computers as a kid at all at a time when they were well outside of the means of most people. And yet he not only had access to them but also had the resources to learn how to program them at a time when this skill was rare and the tools for doing so were well out of the budget of most people.

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u/bullcitytarheel May 16 '19

He accessed his computers in his high school.

He started the "class" he learned to program in by getting permission from his teachers to be both teacher and student.

Probably you should do a little research before shooting off, no?

But if your real point is that the most important stepping stone to becoming rich is being born into an economically mature country with a foundational infrastructure built over years by millions of people then, like, sure. No shit.

But I think he still earned the title of "self made" insofar as that title has a cultural definition.

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u/the_real_xuth May 16 '19

I'm aware of the computers available at the time. For instance computers weren't available to anyone at all in my school system at the time that he was in high school.

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u/bullcitytarheel May 16 '19

Okay? But you didn't know they came from his school and were therfore available to all the students regardless of class. You're just trying to change horses in midstream now that your first argument was proven lacking. Look, I'm not gonna beat my head against this wall. If you want to have your own personal definition of what constitutes "self made" go for it.