There's no doubt that Rip has always been a social butterfly, someone so unacquainted with shyness that the only time he says, "Excuse me" is from that comedy bit he wrote. As a young boy, Rip's desire to reach for his fellow man, ways that transcended previously understood or accepted social conventions, knew no outlets. Rip decided his goal (one of many) was to know new outlets. Little did Little Rip know that he would soon find his chance, surrounded by wealthy backers and the occasional like-minded individual.
Rip's first major breakthrough, as is not surprising, came during his much touted page days. All the pages, residing in the same assigned housing, often needed to share messages...well, gossip really. They'd often scribble a nasty rumor or observation about the senators they worked closely with. At night, before lights out and unspeakable acts committed by these very same senators, the pages would gather around a large blackboard and giggle mercilessly. While Rip enjoyed the camaraderie, he saw an opening (one of many) to put one of his earliest concepts into practice, a digitized open-source information sharing tool for pages to keep each other updated in real time. Rip originally referred to his project as the Page Web and quickly gained popularity for its ease of use and access.
Rip took this concept a step further, enabling anyone anywhere in the world to dispense political info. Though never officially named or registered by Rip, this tool laid the foundation for activists to openly criticize each other for atrocities and hypocrises they themselves commit. When Julian Assange's appropriation of the forum landed him in current headlines, Rip was questioned about the similarities between the projects. Rip responded, "All I know is I have to go take a WikiLeak right now. I'll tweet you about it! [raspberry]"
As is tirelessly observed, Rip catapaulted to fame as a result of his political advisory career and left behind friends family and his already loose morals. During the 60's, Rip's main concern that his ouvre was not reaching nearly enough people. Time for another one of Rip's fantastic innovations. Rip initiated and held an ever vigilant presence at hearings to establish a television network completely for by and under the people. Ironically, even though most of the proceedings are available in video and audio archives, Rip's statements have been stricken from the record for rampant and unnecessary vulgarity. In fact, his colorful language (often followed by even more colorful confetti) resulted in a hasty escort from the hall. As a result, Rip's idea for a free TV (and accompanying radio) station featuring All Rip All The Time, was regrettably transformed into what we now know as PBS. Adding insult to injury, the US government beat rip to securing rights to the NPR acronym which, until 1970 was universally understood as "No Problem Rip."
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| Rip leaving the 1969 Senate hearings, clearly under the influence. |
Not one to allow petty setbacks to curb his zest, Rip continued on to what ended up being the most lucrative and high-profile phase of his showbiz career. All the while, Rip watched hundreds fumble with what they call "modern" technology and waited for it to catch up to his passion for innovation. Finally, as the century drew to a close, Rip was able to unveil a new concept. Having already conquered the realms of activism and broadcast, rip focused on p2p file sharing. You can easily guess what the P's stood for in Rip's original blueprint, and racy photos were the only items passed back and forth.
The turntable says it all...
He was convinced by financial backers to modify it to allow for sharing of all types of files and such, including at the last minute, music taken from CD's. Rip had eschewed the format at its inception, forseeing its limitations. Once again, he allowed others the credit for what he created, though, for the sake of novelty, named the audio extraction process after himself.
One may wonder why Rip has never taken full advantage of all the money to be made from privatizing such valuable and proven ideas. As with most questions we ask of a higher power, the answer's simple. Far from the public's perception of the shrewd businessman, Rip is a philanthropist of the highest degree, happy to rest and watch as this planet enjoys his creations.
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