They did it!!!

[D M]

Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson just finished their free climb of the Dawn Wall!
YIIIIPPIEEEEE! Way to go guys!

[BlackHatGuy]

NBC had a live feed online that I watched for a bit. An amazing achievement.

[Dennis Lee]

What a display of determination! We berely missed them as we were in Yosemite over Christmas…

[Greg Mihalik]

Good words by both climbers.

[Art …]

How come Todd Skinner and Paul Piana didn't get this kind of press coverage back in 1988 ?

[Andrew F]

I saw their headlamps on the wall over Christmas. Very cool that they finally finished this project. I remember hearing about it on Supertopo a good five years ago.

Warren Harding certainly got this level of press after and during his climb of the Nose. Just read somewhere that President Obama wants to talk to Tommy and Kevin on the phone.

[BlackHatGuy]

"How come Todd Skinner and Paul Piana didn't get this kind of press coverage back in 1988 ?"

No social media in 1988, and CNN was still relatively young.

[David Ure]

"How come Todd Skinner and Paul Piana didn't get this kind of press coverage back in 1988 ?"

Because Al Gore hadn't created the internet yet.

[David Chenault]

B/C the Free Dawn is a harder and more visionary accomplishment than the Free Salathe was, even controlling for relative difficulty at the time. There were a number of 13b/c cracks around in the late 80s. How many pitches of 14+ vertical granite face climbing exist?

A better question would be why the Free Nose got less hype? (Answer: Hill was very modest about her accomplishment.)

[Art …]

what's visionary today always stands on the shoulders of what was visionary yesterday.
retrospective assessment ?
in 1988 14a-b for just a single sport pitch was pretty much the limit.

but the boys of today did a decent job …

[Bob Gross]

I didn't understand why this was lightweight backpacking. Geez, they even used a Porta-Ledge.

–B.G.–

[Jim Colten]

Because Al Gore hadn't created the internet yet.

FWIW, I'm not an Al Gore fan, but ….

Hey Dave U, why don't you try getting informed for once before your opening your yapper. Gore NEVER claimed to have invented the internet.

[Jerry Adams]

ha, ha, ha,…

I just ignored that, but,…

Al Gore was a key senator passing the legislation that enabled the internet, so maybe he didn't invent it (which he never said) but he can take some credit for it.

Good example of how the government does a lot of good things.

[Earl Gilbert]

He lead the way in creating the internet.

[David Ure]

Hi Jim and Jerry,

you two are dense (I say this in a loving way).

Best,

The Sarcastic Canadian

[Jim Colten]

Al Gore was a key senator passing the legislation that enabled the internet, so maybe he didn't invent it (which he never said) but he can take some credit for it.

More specifically, he recognized the usefulness of a nationwide computer network when he started hearing academics talk about it in the late 1970's and made that a good chunk of his legislative efforts, culminating in the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991.

By that time the internet (aka ARPANET) was quite functional. Along with some new funding, the act's biggest accomplishment was to pry the internet out of the cold dead exclusive hands of DOD, which had funded the bulk of development research up to that point (no small achievement).

That's what Gore did … and he never claimed credit for more.

[Jerry Adams]

Hi Dave

I lovingly notice that some people repeat the same half truths (giving you a lot of benefit of doubt) thinking that if they're repeated often enough, people will believe it.

[Tony Ronco]

First, my apologies in advance to the OP about continuing this thread drift.

Al Gore's "inventing the internet" misquote is actually just a slight misquote taken from a statement he made during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN Late Edition (March 9, 1999):

"… during my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet";

Here is the full interview response.

Whether he just misspoke … or … intentionally or unintentionally confused/blurred the different concepts of "creating" with 'advocating for' is for the Chaff section

EDIT: Getting back on track from this thread drift, here is another insightful link on the climb
:-)

[David Ure]

Sweet Lord, it was a joke.

Next thing you are going to tell me is that Obama was born in Hawaii. Sheesh.

[Michael L]

"Because Al Gore hadn't created the internet yet.

FWIW, I'm not an Al Gore fan, but ….

Hey Dave U, why don't you try getting informed for once before your opening your yapper. Gore NEVER claimed to have invented the internet."

That's pretty funny. Since you misquoted the previous poster (who was joking around) and messed it up.

Truth is Gore did indeed claim to have taken the initiative in creating the internet.

Maybe you should take time before opening your yapper as well!

[Jerry Adams]

"Truth is Gore did indeed claim to have taken the initiative in creating the internet"

And Gore did indeed take the initiative in creating the internet – like Jim said in more detail

He took the initiative in creating that bill

as a result of the bill, the arpanet technology got transferred to commercial use

I wish rather than coming up with one line snarky comments that they think will be effective in promoting or defeating political people, people would talk about whether it makes sense for the government to develop technology and transfer to commercial. Should the government be more envolved with running the internet? Should the government just stick to running jails and the military and if the internet is viable, private companies will develop it without government help?

I think what happened was okay – a 50/50 mix of government and private.

[Ian]

Someone really needs to study the relationship between ADHD, OCD, and backpacking.

[Peter Boysen]

"Someone really needs to study the relationship between ADHD, OCD, and backpacking."

They actually have an acronym for that as well. It's called BPL. :)

Also, from this we can all learn the lesson that even using a politicians name is an instant recipe for thread drift.

[Jerry Adams]

I think this trolling is dispicable, we should get back to the OP

I think they cheated by using ropes and a support team : )

[Jerry Adams]

doesn't that other guy they interviewed on 60 Minutes climb Yosemtie walls without a rope? Climbed it twice in one day…

[Author]

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