This article originally appeared on Global Nerdy.
After winning the auction for the Free Software Foundation plush gnu, I hung out in the hotel lobby, checking my email. I talked with some passers-by, and occasionally Richard Stallman, who sat at the couch across from me, cracked the occasional (and very painful) pun.
In these conversations, I was approached by no less than three people who asked me if the gnu – the animal mascot of the Free Software Foundation — was a real creature or a mythical one.
Doesn’t anyone watch Animal Planet, nature shows or The Great Space Coaster (starring Gary Gnu) anymore?
They’re real. Here’s the first line of their Wikipedia entry:
The wildebeest (plural wildebeest or wildebeests), also called the gnu (/gəˈnuː/ or /ˈnjuː/), is an antelope of the genus Connochaetes. It is a hooved (ungulate) mammal.
Maybe it’s time to organize a bus trip of geeks so that we can all go to the zoo.
It’s Sunday, and it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are the memes, pictures, and cartoons…
Once again, here’s another of my regular reminders to double-check your work (or better still,…
It’s Sunday, and it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are the memes, pictures, and cartoons…
It’s Sunday, and it’s time for another “picdump!” Here are the memes, pictures, and cartoons…
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I knew what a wildebeest was, I just didn't know it was also called a gnu =(
Guillaume Theoret: That's okay, Guillame: the other two didn't even know what a wildebeest was. Those were the ones I was worried about.
Maybe they didn't watch that scene in The Lion King.
It looks a bit like a skinny ox. 2009 must be the year of the Linux Desktop!
Happy GNU year!
Or the Lion King! I would have figured Disney would have indoctrinated everyone.
Wow, now that i think back, that was an intense kids movie. One of the best.
I can't believe it was GNU that helped killed Mufasa :L
I suppose I can blame Gary Gnu for my love of both bad puns and geeks.
This long and still no Flanders and Swann reference?