"anyway, this post is pretty amazing. Woody really took it on the chin. and in the eye. and in the nuts. God bless him." - Wade, the 239th response in a news post
xmx said at 3:36 PM 04-01-2002: maybe ben has an identical twin somewhere in the world, who is also friends with wil and josh and draws the heads for a site just like killoggs!
the only difference is that ben's twin draws in blue!!
xmx said at 3:40 PM 04-01-2002: that's obviously a completely different head, rendered by another artist. any similarities are all in the imagination of the viewer! ;-]
wil [email] said at 4:09 PM 04-01-2002: When Jen (from ThinkGeek) asked me about doing this OS story, I told her that I thought it would be way funny and cool.
She asked me about pictures, and I suggested that she use the one that Ben designed, because it's so cool.
My intention wasn't to rip Ben off, at all.
When I write all about the April fool's stuff, tomorrow, I am gonna use it as an excuse to pimp Ben's work.
xmeredithx [email] said at 4:18 PM 04-01-2002: i still think ben should sue.
and, i think you're going to lose a lot of fans over this, mr wheaton! you ought to be ashamed of yourself! thousands of mid-twenties females like myself were in hormonal rages today, their dreams of an adult wesley crusher returning to the holodeck in his rainbow-striped unitard finally coming to fruition, they couldn't wait to get home, to rub themselves on the rough carpeting in the living room, just as they did circa 1987-1990!! you go to hell, boy, you go to hell!
Bendependent [email] said at 4:22 PM 04-01-2002: I really don't mind at all you know... It seems like everyone else minds more than I do. If I were starving in a ditch somewhere I might care, but look at me. I've got my solid gold house and my rocket car. what else do I need?
Bendependent [email] said at 4:49 PM 04-01-2002: i kind of see the heads as being the property of the person who they depict. that's why i drew them in the first place. your head is yours to do whatever you want with. put it on stickers, shirts, buttons. tattoo it across your back. it's yours.
i feel the same way about my artwork as i feel about mp3's and software. it's actually quite flattering to wake up at 4:00 in the afternoon, start eating cookies, and then see your stuff all over the internet. i haven't done anything yet today, but it looks like I have.
Jeff said at 6:22 PM 04-01-2002: The only thing that would be cooler than WheatoniX is if Wil started his own Linux distribution and maintained it on his site. I could see that actually taking off.
"Former Star Trek manboy turned Digital Prophet releases v1.2 of his WheatoniX distribution, a Linux varient fine-tuned for WiFi devices, speech-recognition, touch-screens, and handheld clients."
Using a slimmed down kernel and minimal apps to talk with StarTrekish devices would be a good gimmick for people to jump into its development. It would also impress everyone who first presented it as a joke. Ben's drawing could be the official Linux distro logo. I'd personally love to see this happen, especially with a Debian basis.
Jeff S. said at 7:02 PM 04-01-2002: The quote by "Donald Knuthe" on WheatoniX was good for a chuckle. The real Knuth actually liked some of the older LSU letterhead and wanted to generate a fontmap for it.
Jeff said at 7:37 PM 04-01-2002: I ran this idea by a local well-known Debian developer and he agreed it would be hilarious. I'm considering a few angles to go with this.