, by
Dan Greenburg
Unemployed Californian Larry EllisonAfter being divorced by his first wife because she said that he would never amount to anything or make any money, started Oracle Corporation, world's leading supplier of relational database management software (Note to academic computer scientists: don't worry if you aren't sure what an RDBMS is; it isn't necessary for running Microsoft Word). |
Tuberculosis Sufferer Niels Henrik AbelDeveloped group theory, proved the binomial theorem, and did important work in quintic equations and elliptic functions prior to his death at age 26. |
Hartford Connecticut Insurance Executive Wallace StevensWon Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1954; best known for "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird". |
Corsican Lieutenant Napoleon BonaparteConquered most of Europe and Egypt. Emancipated the Jews throughout Europe. |
Programmed by Eve Astrid Andersson and Philip Greenspun back in the mid-1990s. If you're a nerd, you might find the source code useful.
Original Inspiration: How to Make Yourself Miserable