The tech-loving characters on "The Big Bang Theory" are about to find themselves severely star-struck. The comedy series has booked Microsoft founder Bill Gates to guest star as himself in an upcoming episode, CBS and Warner Bros. tell CNN.
In the episode, Penny (Kaley Cuoco) will find herself hosting Gates at work, and her friends go to great lengths in their effort to meet the billionaire innovator. The episode is set to air in late March.
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/20/entertainment/bill-gates-big-bang-theory/index.html
https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17035236/bill-gates-the-big-bang-theory-appearance
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aim on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:32AM (9 children)
So, will they slam him as having thrown back the industry by a couple of decades? For having created an illegal monopoly?
As for the philantropy, Al Capone did some good too... but that doesn't change the fact he got his money by bad means.
(Score: 5, Informative) by jimtheowl on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:43AM (7 children)
As for the actors, they are mostly clueless about science and technology except for Mayim Bialik (Amy Farrah Fowler) who actually has her Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:52AM
Wow, I had no idea. What a horrible example of how bad scientists are treated.
So instead of a cure for cancer we get another episode of some lame sitcom.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:40PM (3 children)
As for the actors, they are mostly clueless about science and technology except for Mayim Bialik (Amy Farrah Fowler) who actually has her Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
That's all well and good, but that's not really "tech". A neuroscientist doesn't know squat about computer software, Linux, FOSS, etc. unless it happens to be a hobby of hers, just like I as a software engineer don't know squat about the brain other than what I learned in high school or in layman-oriented articles online.
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Thursday February 22 2018, @05:35PM
Apologies; my use the verbal 'and' is slanted by boolean algebra. That said, what you state is obvious.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 23 2018, @02:07AM (1 child)
Aren't most neuroscientists basically glorified psychologists? Maybe some of them have a bit of superficial biochem training and experience conducting tedious experiments, but I think the population of M.D.s, especially neurologists, among neuroscientists is pretty damn small.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday February 23 2018, @03:33AM
I have no idea really, I was just throwing that in there as an example. Neurologists would be a better comparison I think.
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], there's a whole raft of different branches within neuroscience, some looking like glorified psychology as you said, but others very hard-science and looking at the biological or molecular levels, and some doing computational modeling. None of these really need someone to be an M.D.; biological researchers for instance have no real reason to be an M.D. M.D.s are people who practice medicine on actual patients; researchers in labs aren't like this, though they probably work with M.D.s who work with patients with related problems. But surely a lot of research is on animals.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Friday February 23 2018, @07:59PM (1 child)
And an Anti-Vaxxer? ...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/is-mayim-bialik-an-anti-vaxxer-its-complicated/ [timesofisrael.com]
Later she publicly 'retracted' by saying that she did have her kids vaccinated.
Personally having a PhD and even acknowledging the anti-vax community as has having any legitimacy publicly is extremely disturbing.
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Friday February 23 2018, @08:38PM
I find her comment quite reasonable. Yours are mostly innuendos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @06:05PM
He must be paying for the ad time for his foundation. Penny is a medical rep and Gates Foundation is footing medical treatments.
Gates maybe a geek. Hitler brought us the Volkswagen Bug. The Good does not out-weight the Bad.
Now the WOZ episode is great. James Earl Jones' episode was wonderful. Even Nimoy's son episode was fun.