Kibo (IPA: [ˈkaɪ.boʊ]) is the nickname, username and e-mail address of James Parry (b. July 13, 1967), a Usenetter known for his sense of humor, various surrealist net pranks, an absurdly long .signature,^[1] and a machine-assisted knack for joining any thread in which his nom de guerre is mentioned (to "kiboze"). His exploits have earned him a multitude of enthusiasts, who celebrate him as the head deity of the parody religion kibology, centered on the humor newsgroup alt.religion.kibology. Kibo can mean a number of things: Kibo is also the name of a volcano which contains the highest peak of Mount Kilimanjaro Kibo a. ... Image File history File links Kibo Inside File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... // A nickname is a short, clever, cute, derogatory, or otherwise substitute name for a person or things real name (for example, Bob, Rob, Robby, Robbie, Robi, Robin, Bobby, Rab, Rabbie, Bert, Bertie, Butch, Bobbers, Bobert, Beto, Bobadito, and Robban (in Sweden), are all nicknames for Robert). ... Note: to create a user account for Wikipedia, go to the login page. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... July 13 is the 194th day (195th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 171 days remaining. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Usenet (USEr NETwork) is a global, distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ... This article discusses humour in terms of comedy and laughter. ... Yves Tanguy Indefinite Divisibility 1942 Surrealism[1] is a movement stating that the liberation of our mind, and subsequently the liberation of the individual self and society, can be achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the unconscious mind to the attainment of a dream-like state different from, or... A signature block (often abbreviated as signature, sig block, sig file, or just sig) is a block of text automatically appended at the bottom of an e-mail message, Usenet article, or forum post. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A pseudonym or allonym is a name (sometimes legally adopted, sometimes purely fictitious) used by an individual as an alternative to their birth name. ... A recent parody religion, Pastafarianism was created in 2005 to protest a decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to allow intelligent design to be taught in science classes alongside evolution. ... Kibology is a humorous Usenet-based satire of religion, partly parodying Scientology. ... A newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. ...

Background

James Parry grew up and lived in Scotia, New York. He showed early computing skills, such as being able to open up and reprogram ROM video game cartridges such as those for the Atari 2600, but was more interested in graphics and artistic pursuits. In this vein, he initially was a Computer engineering major at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York, but moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1990 and attended Emerson College, where he studied videography and graphic design. At that time, he also worked as a typeface designer and for the world.std.com internet service provider. He has an artistic eye for typeface and developed several fonts in use today. Scotia is a village located in Schenectady County, New York. ... Read-only memory (ROM) is a class of storage media used in computers and other electronic devices. ... In a variety of electronic equipments, a cartridge (in video game terms, cart, game pack, or Game Pak) can be one method of programming different functionality, providing variable content, or a method by which consumables may be replenished. ... The Atari 2600, released in October 1977, was the first successful video game console to use plug-in cartridges instead of having one or more games built in. ... Computer engineering (sometimes also called electronic and computer engineering) is a discipline that combines elements of both electrical engineering and computer science[1]. Computer engineers are electrical engineers that have additional training in the areas of software design and hardware-software integration. ... Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, or RPI, is a coeducational private university in Troy, New York, near Albany, founded in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer. ... Looking west down Broadway at downtown Troy. ... Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, Athens of America, The Hub (of the Universe)1 Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County  - Mayor Thomas M. Menino (D) Area    - City  89. ... Emerson College was founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a school of oratory, in Boston, Massachusetts. ... For the origin and evolution of fonts, see History of western typography. ... The World is an internet service provider headquartered in Brookline, Massachusetts. ... An Internet service provider (abbr. ... For the origin and evolution of fonts, see History of western typography. ... In typography, a typeface is a co-ordinated set of character designs, which usually comprises an alphabet of letters, a set of numerals and a set of punctuation marks. ...

Kibo has publicly stated that he has prosopagnosia and is a supertaster. He frequently dyes his hair, which as of late 2005 is bright red. Prosopagnosia (sometimes known as face blindness) is disorder of face perception where the ability to recognize faces is impaired, while the ability to recognize objects may be relatively intact. ... A supertaster is a person who has an unusually strong sense of taste due to extra taste buds. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Many assume his nickname is derived from the acronym KIBO, although Parry himself has repeatedly denied this. Another rumor has it being short for King Body, a pseudonym he very briefly used on computer forums as an undergraduate at RPI in the late 1980's. [1] The word 'kibo' has a long history of use in Southern Ontario Scout camps as the word of the outhouse-toilets. The origin of the word and this use is unknown. This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... A BlueGene supercomputer cabinet. ... In some educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a Bachelors degree. ...

Growing fame

In the early 1990s, as public awareness grew of the Internet and Usenet, Parry received a great deal of national publicity, including a cover story in Wired magazine, and mentions in Playboy and Time magazine. A sample of Wired covers. ... The first issue of Playboy. ... Time (whose trademark is capitalized TIME) is a weekly American newsmagazine, similar to Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. ...

He became known on Usenet for grepping all occurrences of the term "Kibo"--whether intended to refer to Kibo himself or not--and replying, often in a fanciful manner. A typical exchange: grep is a command line utility that was originally written for use with the Unix operating system. ...

 >At CMU, we also have something called Gray Matter in the center of Skibo >(our student union substitute). It's a bunch of shapes, walls, holes, >and steps covered with the same dark gray carpet that's on the floor. >It looks like a giant cat toy. Actually, it's a life-size model of S. Kibo himself, my great great grand-uncle. This was before he evolved past the 'giant metazoic amoeba' stage a few aeons ago. Now he's a trilobite. -- K. 

This practice become known as kibozing.

He is perhaps best known on Usenet for his famous (or infamous) "Happynet Proclamation" (1992), circulated to many newsgroups, some absurdly unrelated, which satirised the endless flamewars on the network, with Parry posing as a godlike being issuing an edict full of in-jokes and humor targets that claimed to unify all news into one glorious totality, "happynet". In the article, Kibo claimed that 1: Flaming is the act of posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board (usually on the Internet). ...

"UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE ALL-WISE LEADER KIBO, THE NEW NETWORK SHALL BE ORGANIZED THUSLY: Three hierarchies encompassing ALL HUMAN DISCOURSE:

nonbozo.* bozo.* megabozo.*

It is estimated that the statistical breakdown of HappyNet will be thus:

1.0000% nonbozo.* 90.0000% bozo.* 9.0000% megabozo.* (Computations courtesy of Bell Labs) Bozo.* will, of course, be subdivided logically: bozo.nerd.*, bozo.tv.*, bozo.inane.*, bozo.boring.*, bozo.sex.*, bozo.argue.*. "

The term "bozo" and related jokes like the physics particle the "bozon" were Parry hallmarks.

In 1992, at age 25 (ten years younger than the constitutional minimum age for election), he launched a spoof campaign for President of the United States. For a short time, the official White House website listed "Kibo" as a candidate, with links to statements by him, because it had mirrored a university candidate speech archive including him with George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot. This led the Libertarian Party to complain that its candidate was not included, though a joke candidate was. 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... The presidential seal was first used by President Hayes in 1880 and last modified in 1959 by adding the 50th star for Hawaii. ... North façade of the White House, seen from Pennsylvania Avenue. ... George Herbert Walker Bush GCB (born June 12, 1924) was the 41st President of the United States of America serving from 1989 to 1993. ... William Jefferson Bill Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III[1] on August 19, 1946) was the 42nd President of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. ... Henry Ross Perot (born June 27, 1930), is a billionaire American businessman from Texas, best known as an outsider candidate for the office of President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. ... The Libertarian Party is an American political party founded in 1971. ...

For reasons unknown, after constant daily changes for over a decade, his personal website stayed stagnant from late March 2004 until late December 2005. It has since been updated, though not nearly as often as years past. Kibo has hinted at a possible site redesign. ^[2] A personal homepage is a World Wide Web site belonging to one person. ...

References

• Wired magazine profile, September 1993.

1. ^ See http://kibosig.googlepages.com/kibosig.txt for a version dated 5 May 1994
2. ^ See http://www.kibo.com/whatsnew/ where Kibo hints at site revamping.

Wired is a full-color monthly magazine and on-line periodical published in San Francisco, California since March 1993. ... May 5 is the 125th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (126th in leap years). ...

External links

• Kibo's website
• The alt.religion.kibology newsgroup (via Google Groups)
• http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6270/kibosig.html - .signature