Kibo

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For other uses, see Kibo (disambiguation)}}}.

Kibo (IPA: 'kaɪ.bəʊ - he pronounces it to rhyme with "eye-so") 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,See http://kibosig.googlepages.com/kibosig.txt for a version dated 5 May 1994 and a machine-assisted knack for joining any thread in which his nom de guerre is mentioned (to ""). 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.

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.

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 a freshman at RPI in the mid-1980's.

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.

In 1992, he launched a spoof campaign for President of the United States (though only 25 then, 10 years younger than the constitutional minimum age for election). 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.

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.

For reasons unknown, after constant daily changes for over a decade, the website stayed stagnant from late March, 2004 until late December, 2005. Some net historians could argue that many aspects of his site make him the first blogger, as he gave regular updates on himself on his site (albeit tongue-in-cheek most of the time) since the early 1990's.

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