If you want to see *running* ancient computers, you need to visit the Univerity of Amsterdam Computer Museum (http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum)
It's just one small room in the university (plus a few display cases in the hallways), but *everything* works, including a 1960's training relay computer. Wanna see a calculator that uses delay line memory or see a PDP-8 boot and print? Check it out.
When I went last month, the curator, Edo H. Dooijes, took me to the book dipository where the rest of the collection is stored. Those don't work...yet!
I read the first edition and loved it. Can anyone who has read both editions say if it's worth buying the second edition?
My only complaint about the book is that non-techies looked at the title when I was reading and said, "Aren't 'Hi there' are 'How are you?' regular expressions?"
This technology has been around for a while now, but it's very expensive. The use is not for windows that face outside, but for inner windows.
I've heard of corporate conference rooms that use windows like this. When the meeting becomes "closed door" all of the windows can be frosted.
I live in a small apartment, but it seems bigger than it is because of many internal windows between rooms. The problem is privacy. Shades and blinds are ugly. Instant frosting is what I've been looking for. If the prices come down, I'll buy.
I use a different one, too. I works on top of a unix filesystem. I call it TTT. I hacked it together with ksh's CDPATH, symlinks, and a shell script.
It works like this:
1) make a reasonable first (2nd, 3rd...)-level hierarchy like 'work', 'home', 'documents',...
2) Add them to your CDPATH
3) make a.short directory and add that to your CDPATH, too.
4) make links from the.short directory to the other direcories in the hierarchy. (for example, ~foo/.short/linux -> ~foo/work/projects/non-windows/os/bar/linux. I have a script that keeps the links up to date. I rerun it whenever I change the directory structure.
5) Want to find a file? Take a guess as to where it might be and 'cd' there! like this
$ cd linux # takes you to your linux stuff no matter how deep it is
$ cd foo # takes you to your foo project dir.
It has some limitations, but it's worked great for me. It's cheap and easy, fast, and works everywhere.
If you want to do this 'one time email address' method, you don't have to do any sendmail munging. Just use spamgourmet (http://www.spamgourmet.com). Once you register (which is free), you can just make up your own addresses like this:
ANYWORD.NUMBER.SPAMGOURMETNAME@spamgourmet.com Then at most NUMBER emails are forwarded to your email address. You know where it came from because you know what ANYWORD you used.
You can believe (as I do) that complex systems must fail without being pessismistic abount it.
Complex systems, especially ones with certain characteristics, will fail in unexpected spectacular ways. That doesn't mean that they'll fail tomorrow, or that we shouldn't try to reduce the likelyhood or impact of a failure.
However, your solution to "overengineer, build in failsafes and error-correcting logic and so forth" could make things worse. When you add to a complex system, you make it more complex. A "failsafe" system could fail taking down a perfectly working system. It's happened to me.
Take a look at "Normal Accidents" by Charles Perrow, or "The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dörmer or even "Systemantics" by John Gall
For some examples of complex system failure, see "Computer-Related risks" by Peter G. Neuman or his risks digest.
Slashdot Mirror
In the interview KR said:
There are only two real problems in computing: computers are too hard to use and too hard to program.
Does everyone buy this? What about issues of availability and maintainability? How about:
There are three real problems in computing: computers are too hard to use, too hard to program and too hard to administer.
If you want to see *running* ancient computers, you need to visit the Univerity of Amsterdam Computer Museum (http://www.science.uva.nl/faculteit/museum)
It's just one small room in the university (plus a few display cases in the hallways), but *everything* works, including a 1960's training relay computer. Wanna see a calculator that uses delay line memory or see a PDP-8 boot and print? Check it out.
When I went last month, the curator, Edo H. Dooijes, took me to the book dipository where the rest of the collection is stored. Those don't work...yet!
I read the first edition and loved it. Can anyone who has read both editions say if it's worth buying the second edition?
My only complaint about the book is that non-techies looked at the title when I was reading and said, "Aren't 'Hi there' are 'How are you?' regular expressions?"
This technology has been around for a while now, but it's very expensive. The use is not for windows that face outside, but for inner windows.
I've heard of corporate conference rooms that use windows like this. When the meeting becomes "closed door" all of the windows can be frosted.
I live in a small apartment, but it seems bigger than it is because of many internal windows between rooms. The problem is privacy. Shades and blinds are ugly. Instant frosting is what I've been looking for. If the prices come down, I'll buy.
I use a different one, too. I works on top of a unix filesystem. I call it TTT. I hacked it together with ksh's CDPATH, symlinks, and a shell script.
...)-level hierarchy like 'work', 'home', 'documents', ...
.short directory and add that to your CDPATH, too.
.short directory to the other direcories in the hierarchy. (for example, ~foo/.short/linux -> ~foo/work/projects/non-windows/os/bar/linux. I have a script that keeps the links up to date. I rerun it whenever I change the directory structure.
It works like this:
1) make a reasonable first (2nd, 3rd
2) Add them to your CDPATH
3) make a
4) make links from the
5) Want to find a file? Take a guess as to where it might be and 'cd' there! like this
$ cd linux # takes you to your linux stuff no matter how deep it is
$ cd foo # takes you to your foo project dir.
It has some limitations, but it's worked great for me. It's cheap and easy, fast, and works everywhere.
If you want to do this 'one time email address' method, you don't have to do any sendmail munging. Just use spamgourmet (http://www.spamgourmet.com). Once you register (which is free), you can just make up your own addresses like this:
ANYWORD.NUMBER.SPAMGOURMETNAME@spamgourmet.com
Then at most NUMBER emails are forwarded to your email address. You know where it came from because you know what ANYWORD you used.
You can believe (as I do) that complex systems must fail without being pessismistic abount it.
Complex systems, especially ones with certain characteristics, will fail in unexpected spectacular ways. That doesn't mean that they'll fail tomorrow, or that we shouldn't try to reduce the likelyhood or impact of a failure.
However, your solution to "overengineer, build in failsafes and error-correcting logic and so forth" could make things worse. When you add to a complex system, you make it more complex. A "failsafe" system could fail taking down a perfectly working system. It's happened to me.
Take a look at "Normal Accidents" by Charles Perrow, or "The Logic of Failure" by Dietrich Dörmer or even "Systemantics" by John Gall
For some examples of complex system failure, see "Computer-Related risks" by Peter G. Neuman or his risks digest.
My $.02
Tapper (coin-op) came out the same year as Pole Position. It advertised Budweiser.