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Tâm
của mỗi chúng ta, hẳn nhiên đang khu trú trong hình hài của mỗi con
người rồi dần dà phát triển, lớn mạnh một cách tự nhiên theo hình hài,
theo ngày tháng và theo cái vòng lẩn quẩn của sanh, bệnh, lão, tử. Chính
vì thế, chúng ta phải biết kiểm soát tâm từ những hành vi, việc làm của
chính ta giữa cõi đời này bằng cách thường xuyên nhắc nhở ta phải “dọn
rác” trong tâm, đừng để rác rưởi sinh sôi nảy nở bám chặt vào tâm, e
rằng khó gột rửa.
Nói đến việc “dọn rác” trong tâm, tạm mượn hình
ảnh của nhà tỷ phú
Hoa Kỳ Bill Gates, chỉ xin nói đến hai giai đoạn theo thiển nghĩ của
tôi, ông ta có sự chuyển hóa tâm (mang tính đạo đức) rõ nét nhất. Giai
đoạn thứ nhất: Thời gian ông ấy đem tâm mình để đưa sự phát triển công
nghệ thông tin đến tột đỉnh, vừa phục vụ cho sự phát triển kỹ thuật, vừa
đem lại nguồn lợi nhuận kinh tế lớn cho đất nước cũng như bản thân
mình. Bill Gates sớm trở thành nhà tỷ phú không những “tài sản” riêng
của Hoa Kỳ mà cả thế giới khi ông còn rất trẻ. Thực tài ấy của ông khiến
bao nhiêu người trên thế giới ngưỡng mộ, trân trọng và cả sự thách
thức, đố kỵ từ những kẻ kém tài hám lợi.
Giai đoạn thứ hai: Bill
Gates tuyên bố “gác kiếm từ quan”. Khi tin này được loan ra, có những
người yêu quý cái “đầu
vàng” của ông băn khoăn tiếc nuối, ngược lại các đối thủ cạnh tranh của
ông lại vỗ tay reo mừng, âu cũng là chuyện thường tình, trong lúc ông
đang ở độ trung niên, tuổi nghề đang độ chín và công việc kinh doanh hết
sức thuận lợi, xán lạn ở phía trước. Vậy mà, ông đành lòng “đoạn tuyệt”
để dành thời gian toàn tâm toàn ý và bỏ ra một khoản tài sản khổng lồ
(khoảng 30 tỷ dollars) thành lập một quỹ từ thiện nhằm chống chọi với
căn bệnh thế kỷ AIDS và giúp đỡ người dân vùng đói nghèo bệnh tật nhất
thế giới (châu Phi)… Việc làm của ông nhận được sự đồng thuận hưởng ứng
một cách tích cực của người vợ hiền “thuận vợ thuận chồng tát biển Đông
cũng cạn”.
Bill Gates
Mặc
dù họ có đến 3 người con, nhưng ông bà Bill Gates chỉ dành cho các con
của họ một phần tài sản khiêm tốn ít ỏi. Bill Gates xem nhẹ đồng tiền
“là vật ngoài thân” và cũng có thể nói ông đã xem đồng tiền chỉ là
“phương tiện” mà chính ông đã dùng phương tiện đó một cách thật hữu
ích... giúp cho những mảnh đời bất hạnh, nghèo đói, bệnh tật. Và ông
luôn mong muốn cho xã hội phát triển trong công bằng, người thương
người, nhân ái, tốt đẹp theo ý nghĩa nhân bản nhân văn, không hề có sự
phân biệt giai cấp, giàu nghèo, như thổi vào một khát vọng vươn lên cho
mỗi con người đều có được một cuộc sống tốt đẹp như
nhau…
Trong khi đó ở xứ ta có những chuyện bi hài lắm kẻ “giàu
giả” mà xài thật, họ vung tiền ăn xài một cách vô tội vạ, những buổi
tiệc tùng đình đám tốn kém hàng chục tỷ đồng như những trường hợp gần
đây ở huyện miền núi nghèo Hương Sơn - Hà Tĩnh, một phụ nữ tổ chức cưới
vợ cho “cậu ấm”, trong đám rước dâu từ Hà Nội về Hương Sơn đã huy động
hàng loạt “siêu xe” dài hàng mấy cây số, mời những ca sĩ tên tuổi trong
và ngoài nước về hát hò (nghe nói với số tiền cát-xê cao ngất ngưởng),
trong lúc người dân quê ở đây đang thiếu đói phải chạy ăn từng ngày,
từng bữa do hậu quả thiên tai bão lụt triền miên để lại. Một trường hợp
khác cũng không kém phần kệch cỡm, đó là một nữ doanh nhân tổ chức đám
cưới cho cậu “quý tử” cũng đưa hàng chục siêu xe để rước dâu từ Sài Gòn
chạy lòng vòng về Cần Thơ để thiên hạ “lác mắt chơi”. Trong khi doanh
nghiệp do bà làm chủ đang nợ ngân hàng trên cả ngàn tỷ, nợ người nông
dân một nắng hai sương đã cung cấp thủy hải sản nguyên liệu gần 300 tỷ
đồng. Hơn thế nữa, bà chủ doanh nghiệp này cũng đã nhiều lần hứa đóng
góp tiền giúp quỹ từ thiện xã hội, thực chất chỉ để đánh bóng tên tuổi
của mình, sau đó không chuyển tiền cho tổ chức từ thiện như đã hứa…
Những việc làm này gây xôn xao dư luận, gần đây qua hệ thống thông tin
truyền thông càng tô đậm điểm đen trong xã hội ngày nay. Cũng có thể nói
đây là những trường hợp điển hình khoe mẽ, hợm hĩnh, rác rưởi đã bám
chặt trong tâm
của các con người này!...
Với Bill Gates, ông hiểu cuộc đời này
thật mỏng manh, vô thường, cái sống cái chết thay đổi trong từng sát-na
nên ông đã đem tâm thực hành Bồ-tát hạnh bố thí, đây là một tấm gương
sáng đáng cho chúng ta soi tâm. Qua hình ảnh và tấm gương của ông Bill
Gates, ta có thể thấy rằng để có một cái tâm sáng trong, chúng ta luôn
phải “dọn rác” trong tâm của chính mình!
Thanh Phương DATE AND PLACE
OF BIRTH
Born October 28, 1955
Seattle, Washington
FAMILY
Parents: William H. Gates, Sr.
Mary Maxwell Gates
Wife: Melinda Gates (Married 1994-Present)
Kids: daughters Jennifer Katharine Gates
(born 1996) and Phoebe Adele Gates (born 2002)
and son Rory John Gates (born 1999).
Siblings: Older sisters: Kristi
Younger sisters: Libby
HEROS LIFE
Gates was born to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates, of English,
German, and Scottish-Irish descent. His family was a rich one with his dad
a prominent lawyer, his mum a director for First Interstate Bank System and
her dad was a national bank president. He is the fourth of his name in his
family but was known as the 3rd or Trey because his dad had dropped his 3rd
suffix. Early on in his life his parent had a law career in mind for him.
At the age
of 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside an exclusive Preparatory School. When he was
in 8th grade the Mothers Club at the
school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy an ASR-33 teletype
terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for
the school's students. Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in
BASIC and was excused from math classes to pursue his interests. He wrote his
first computer program on this machine: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that
let users to play games against the computer. Bill was fascinated by the machine
and how it would always work software code. When he reflected back on that moment,
he commented on it and said, there was something neat about that machine. After
the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, he and other students sought time on
systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging
to Computer Center Corporation (CCC), which banned four Lakeside students—Gates,
Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Kent Evans—for the summer after it caught
them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.
At the end of the ban, the four students offered to find bugs in CCC's software
in exchange for computer time. Rather than use the system via teletype, Gates
went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran
on the system, including programs in FORTRAN, LISP, and machine language. The
deal with CCC continued until 1970, when the company went out of business. The
following year, Information Sciences, Inc. hired the four Lakeside students
to write a payroll program in COBOL, providing them computer time and royalties.
After his administrators became aware of his programming abilities, Gates wrote
the school's computer program to schedule students in classes. He modified the
code so that he was placed in classes with mostly female students. He later
stated that "it was hard to tear myself away from a machine at which I
could so unambiguously demonstrate success”. At age 17, Gates formed a
venture with Allen, called Traf-O-Data, to make traffic counters based on the
Intel 8008 processor. In early 1973, Bill Gates served as a congressional page
in the U.S. House of Representatives. Gates graduated from Lakeside School in
1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and enrolled at Harvard College
in the autumn of 1973. While at Harvard, he met Steve Ballmer, who later succeeded
Gates as CEO of Microsoft, and computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou, with
whom he wrote a paper about pancake sorting. The following year saw the release
of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw
this as the opportunity to start their own computer software company. He had
talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after
seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.
In 1975 gates
contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) to tell them that
he had made a 
BASIC interpreter for the company’s ALITAIR 8800. Gates and Allen hadn’t
really written a code for it he just wanted to get MITS attention. MITS president
Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demonstration, and over the course of a
few weeks they developed an ALTAIR emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and
then the BASIC interpreter. They were both hired into the company shortly after
Bill took leave from college to work for MITS They named their partnership "Micro-Soft"
and had their first office in Albuquerque. Within a year, the hyphen was dropped,
and on November 26, 1976, the trade name "Microsoft" was registered
with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico. Gates never returned
to Harvard College to finish his studies.
BASIC was
popular with computer hobbyists but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy
had leaked into the community and was being widely copied and distributed. The
company moved to Bellevue Washington. During Microsoft's early years, all employees
had broad responsibility for the company's business. Bill oversaw the business
details, but wrote code as well. In the first five years, he looked at every
line of code the company shipped, and often rewrote parts of it.
In 1980, IBM
asked Microsoft to write the BASC interpreter for its up-coming computer, the
IBM PC. They asked him to write a code for it. Their agreement went poorly,
and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned
the licensing difficulties during another meeting with Gates and asked him to
get an acceptable operating system. A few weeks later Gates proposed using 86-DOS
(QDOS), an operating system similar to CP/M that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer
Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC. Microsoft made a deal
with SCP to become the exclusive licensing agent, and later the full owner,
of 86-DOS. After adapting the operating system for the PC, Microsoft delivered
it to IBM as PC-DOS in exchange for a one-time fee of $50,000. Gates did not
offer to transfer the copyright on the operating system, because he believed
that other hardware vendors would clone IBM's system. They did, and the sales
of MS-DOS made Microsoft a major player in the industry.
Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated
the company in Washington State and made Gates President of Microsoft and the
Chairman of the Board.
Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November
20, 1985, and in August, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a different
operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed
the first version of the new system, putting on creative differences undermined
the partnership. Gates distributed an internal memo on May 16, 1991, announcing
that the OS/2 partnership was over and Microsoft would shift its efforts to
the Windows NT kernel development.
From Microsoft's
founding in 1975 until 2006, Gates had responsibility for the company's product
strategy. He aggressively broadened the company's range of products, and wherever
Microsoft achieved a dominant position he strongly defended it. Over the year
Bill has been in a few ads to promote Microsoft.
Major
accomplishments
His awards are:
One of the 100 people who most influenced the 20th century
One of the Persons of the Year
In 2006, he was voted eighth in the list of "Heroes of our time
He ranked number one in the "Top 50 Cyber Elite
He ranked number two in the Upside Elite
One of the Top 100 influential people in media
He was honoured as the twentieth Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer
Society.
Gates has received honorary doctorates from Nyenrode Business Universiteit,
Breukelen, The Netherlands, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden,
Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, Harvard
University, the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and Cambridge University.
He has received an honorary trustee of Peking University
Gates was also made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British
Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in addition to having entomologists name
the Bill Gates flower fly, Eristalis gatesi, in his honor.
He and his wife were awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle for their philanthropic
work around the world in the areas of health and education, particularly in
Mexico, and specifically in the program "Un país de lectores".
It was announced that Gates will be awarded the 2010 Bower Award for Business
Leadership of The Franklin Institute for his achievements in business and for
his philanthropic work. In 2010 he was honored with the Silver Buffalo Award
by the Boy Scouts of America, its highest award for adults, for his service
to youth.
EVIDENCE
OF HEROISM
Bill Gates
is a hero because he is giving away half of his fortune to The Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation which he and is wife set up. He is also a hero because he helped
bring software to computers around the world. He has been the leader of the
technological change in our society.
Hero Characteristic this person possesses
• Bill gates is a hero because he:
•
• He started Microsoft from nothing.
• He
took a risk on starting his own business.
• He
put his intelligence and his talents with computers to good use.
• He
worked hard to get Microsoft off the ground.
• He
invented an operating system that was better than anything else around at the
time, and then once it became the industry standard he made sure the folks at
Microsoft kept improving it.
• He
expanded on the success with Windows and developed other software applications
that are useful and user-frie ndly
(like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Publisher, etc.)
• He
has provided thousands of people with jobs.
• He
gives huge amounts of money to charity every year.
Special Events
Occurring In The World During This Persons Life
During Bills
life there was a technological evolution where computers were cheaply made so
ordinary people could have them at home and the Internet was founded. Was also
in his life they sent humans to the moon and there was the Vietnam War.
Date and Place Of Death Or Up-To-Date Information On Current
Stats
Bill gates
is still alive but has left Microsoft as its CEO but still owns the company
and is living with his wife and three children. For a job now he helps student
with their exploration of technology.
Made
By Joel Ransley
6/7
2010
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