Few people can claim one of the world’s richest men as their “Secret Santa.” But that’s what happened with one lucky Reddit user, when she discovered that the person behind her generous gifts through Reddit’s holiday gift exchange was none other than Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

For the last few years, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has been making one person’s Christmas a little bit more special by taking part in Reddit’s Secret Santa present exchange.

Nearly 60,000 users across 120 countries take part in the Reddit Gifts scheme – including the Microsoft mogul, who sent a box crammed with presents to a woman named Aerrix Laurel.

Ms Laurel received the parcel via Fed Ex and uploaded photos of her incredible haul to Reddit.

The Redditor known as Aerrix described how thrilled she was when she opened the giant box that was mailed to her from her Secret Santa.

“So then I get the box open and there’s just bubble wrap EVERYWHERE, but under the first layer I see a picture… and my jaw. Just. Drops. I will let the picture speak for itself! I immediately call my husband at work, I normally text him first to make sure it’s ok if I call but I couldn’t wait…he answered and I spoke very quietly because I knew if I didn’t I would just yell, and I said something like “dear, please tell me you can talk right now,” and he sounded worried and he’s like “yes? What’s going on?” And I said BILL GATES IS MY FREAKIN SANTA!!!!!!!! I worried him too much, it took a second for it to sink in but oh MAN I was excited and flipping out!” she wrote.

The parcel contained around 10 gift-wrapped packages which included:

An Xbox One

Xbox Controllers

A NES Classic Edition

Some Bluerays

Matching Zelda mittens for her and her dog Claire

Harry Potter-themed slippers

a paper “Zelda” “Master Sword,”

Cajun cookbooks,

And a photo of Aerrix, her partner, her dog – and a photoshopped-in Bill Gates

Also in the box was a note from Mr Gates saying:

Dear Aerrix,

“I can’t believe your Secret Santa left you hanging last year. To ensure you don’t lose faith in the Reddit Community I’ve enclosed several gifts that I hope you enjoy. There are a few video games for you to play, some things to keep you warm, and three of my favorite movies to watch over the holidays.

“I’ve also made a donation in your name to Code.org to help give more students the chance to learn computer science.

“With Best Wishes from Seattle, Bill Gates.

“P.S. I won’t be able to consult with the Sorting Hat but I can tell that you are quite clever – so I got a pair of Ravenclaw slippers from Hot Topic.”

“I would love to send a thank you card or some kind of something to him,” Ms Laurel told The Huffington Post.

“There was a return address, but I’m not sure if it would actually get to him.”

source: The Telegraph

Interesting Facts about Bill Gates

Can yo fill in the gaps in the sentences with a word from the table?

1. Bill’s …… as a child was “Trey” which was given to him by his grandmother.

2. He scored a 1590 out of 1600 on the …… .

3. At first Microsoft had a …… in the name “Micro-soft”. It was a combination of microcomputer and software.

4. When Microsoft first started out, Gates would look at every line of code before a new software product …… .

5. In 2004, Gates predicted that …… spam would be gone by 2006. He was wrong on that one!

6. He was dubbed an honorary knight by Queen Elizabeth. He does not use the title “Sir” because he is not a …… of the United Kingdom.

Key

1. nickname 2. SAT 3. hyphen 4. shipped 5. email 6. citizen

The inventor who revolutionized the personal computer. The son of a lawyer and dropped out student of Harvard University who has become the owner of  the world’s largest personal computer software company, Microsoft, though he had no formal business training.  Once he commented that he wished he were not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought.

Most people know three things about Bill Gates: He’s the richest man in America, he co-founded one of the most successful tech companies of all time in Microsoft, and he’s an extremely generous philanthropist through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

But there are a lot of things about Gates you probably didn’t know.

As a young teenager at Lakeside Prep School, Gates wrote his first computer program on a General Electric computer — it was a version of tic-tac-toe, where you could play against the computer.

Once his school realized Gates’ proclivities for coding, they let him write the school’s computer program for scheduling students in classes. He even slyly altered the code so he was placed in classes with a “disproportionate number of interesting girls.”

Like many other successful tech entrepreneurs, Gates was a college dropout. He left Harvard University in 1975 to fully devote himself to Microsoft.

Gates was once arrested in New Mexico, in 1977. He was driving without a license and ran a red light.

Despite his immense wealth, Gates says his kids (daughters Jennifer and Phoebe and son Rory) will only inherit $10 million each — just a fraction of his $81.1 billion net worth. “Leaving kids massive amounts of money is not a favor to them,” he says.

Gates doesn’t know any foreign languages. That, he says, is his biggest regret in life thus far.

When he was 7 years old he decided to read the entire encyclopaedia, but he only got to the Ps.

It should come as no surprise that the young Gates demonstrated a staggering intellect as a kid. He left perhaps his biggest impression as an 11-year-old in his church confirmation class. Every year, Reverend Dale Turner challenged his pupils to memorize chapters 5-7 of the Book of Matthew – which is the Sermon on the Mount – and treated the successful ones to dinner in a restaurant. When Gates took his turn, Reverend Turner was stunned as the boy recited the approximately 2,000-word text with zero errors. Among 31 of his classmates Gates was the only one to deliver a flawless performance.

Gates scored a 1590 out of 1600 on his SATs.

Gates says if Microsoft hadn’t worked out, he probably would’ve been a researcher for artificial intelligence.

Gates has stated that he plans to give away 95 percent of his fortune to charity, but as you might expect from someone named “world’s richest man” by Forbes for 16 of the past 21 years, he’s also made his share of lavish purchases. Topping that list are the $36 million he paid for the Winslow Homer painting “Lost on the Grand Banks,” and $30 million for a Leonardo da Vinci journal known as the Codex Leicester, a collection of writings by Leonardo da Vinci. He acquired the codex at a 1994 auction for $30.8 million.

He also shelled out $21 million for a private jet, an understandable expenditure for a man with so much global business. And then there’s his estate in Medina, Washington: Valued at more than $120 million and nicknamed “Xanadu 2.0,” the 66,000-square-foot behemoth has a private beach, an Art Deco home theater, a 60-foot pool with an underwater sound system and a trampoline room.

And a very fresh piece of news: Amancio Ortega, who transformed clothing group Inditex from a tiny family dressmaker into Spain’s biggest company, briefly overtook Bill Gates on Friday October 25^th 2015 to become the world’s richest man.

Although a 10 percent surge in the share price of Microsoft later on Friday put the software firm’s founder Gates back on top, the brief appearance of Ortega at the summit of the Forbes “real time” global rich list was hailed in Spain as a milestone.

At one point on Friday, Forbes put Ortega’s fortune at $79.9 billion more than Gates’. Later in the day, thanks to fluctuations in the euro as well as the surge in Microsoft, Gates had $79.3 billion and Ortega a mere $78.5 billion.

source: businessinsider.com

Bill Gates has dressed up as a chicken in a viral video to promote his new website. The Microsoft founder figured that his appearance on the talk show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon would be the perfect platform to do it. While chatting to Fallon about his latest venture, GatesLetter.com, Gates suggests he’d like to get a viral video out.

Fallon doesn’t think he has time to help but Gates takes over the show with his bizarre clip. In a variety of guises including an afro, a fake beard, some dodgy specs and even a chicken costume Gates recites his website name in a repetitive – and quite catchy – manner. The video is certainly doing its job – it has over 400,000 views in less than 48 hours.

source: www.mirror.co.uk

to dress up as – valaminek beöltözni
to promote – reklámozni
to figure – gondolni
platform – itt felület
to chat – csevegni
venture – vállalkozás
to suggest – javasolni
viral video – vírusként terjedő videó
to take over – átvenni az irányítást
guise – álruha
afro – mikrofonfrizura
fake beard – álszakáll
specs = spectacles – szemüveg, pápaszem
repetitive – ismétlődő
catchy – fülbemászó
it’s doing its job – megfelelően végzi a munkáját

Match the words with their definitions.

answers: 1-e 2-d 3-b 4-a 5-c

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-GB
X-NONE
X-NONE

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