My first computer was a ZX80. Totally useless, but fun to play around with. It's still sitting in a closet in my basement.
Its cassette interface was virtually unusable. The wall wart created so much electrical interference that it showed up on the tapes as a loud hum. The machine also overheated badly and had to be run with the top of the case removed.
I upgraded it with the ZX81 ROM and keyboard overlay and the 16k RAM module before I gave up on it.
A couple years later I picked up a TS1000 just to play around with. It was a little more usable and was a fascinating bit of electronic efficiency.
Anyone remember Synch magazine? It was put out by the publisher of Creative Computing and was dedicated to the Sinclair machines. This tells you what a fanatic following these computers had. Lots of ads in the magazine for all kinds of software and odd peripherals.
Re:How much the present moment means
on
2Ghz P4 Shown Off
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· Score: 1
I personally enjoy a little pearl of Emily tossed into the mix. Lighten up.
This is absolutely true. I will never buy a computer without a full system CD. Last year I finally bought a Windows laptop after years of Mac use (I've been programming Windows for a lot longer than that, to my chagrin). Now that it's gone (lost in shipping by the good old USPS), my next machine will either be another Mac or a Linux box. This CD business was the last straw for me. No more Windows on my personal machines!
The librarian culture is very strong on issues of privacy and free availability of information, very much like the hacker/geek culture. The importance of privacy and of free information access is drummed into them throughout their MLS programs, and librarians are often at the forefront in resisting restrictions on information availability.
As for libertarians, they will grow out of it just as young communists of the thirties, forties and fifties grew out of it as they saw how impractical their ideology was. There are two lessons we should have learned from the past 150 years: (1) Communism doesn't work (witness the former Soviet Union); (2) Capitalism doesn't work (witness the Great Depression and the conditions that led to the rise of the labor movement). What works is a balanced system with characteristics of both, driven by capitalist greed but regulated by a strong, central, and democratic government. Most of the 20th century was spent in trying to find the right balance of the two, and this struggle continues into the 21st century.
atomfilms.com uses ActiveX on its main page. Can't see or do anything when viewing on a Mac, and I assume on Linux. Webmasters who use ActiveX will be the first ones against the wall!
I saw the premier, but blew off the rest of the series. Totally implausible but fun. Griffith builds a moon rocket in his salvage yard while hiding it from a suspicious FBI agent, and flies two people to the moon to salvage equipment from the NASA moon landings. I liked the way they gave a semi-plausible scenario for doing this with simple technology and little fuel, yet didn't actually follow the scenario in the script.
Back in the early days of the IBM PC, before multi-synch monitors, it actually was possible for software to send signals to the monitor that would destroy it. I don't think it would explode but it would make interesting noises as it died. I knew a guy who ran the QA dept. at a major SW house. They had a bug in their software that would fry monitors and they went through a whole stack of them before they were able to locate and fix the bug.
"Under English law ISPs are not held to have been the publishers of defamatory material providing they satisfy two criteria.
"They must prove they took reasonable care to ensure such material was not published, and once alerted to a problem, took steps to resolve it." ... "He said he asked Demon to remove the message but the ISP refused. The message was copied to its servers around the world and many others containing newsgroup messages."
In other words, the issue is not that the ISP didn't monitor and censor its content, but that it refused to remove a libelous message when requested in accordance with the law.
This provision requiring removal of offensive messages is still offensive to those of us who favor free speech, but it is far less onerous than a requirement that the ISP be aware of every posting and remove any that strike its hypothetical censors as libelous.
...I preferred people WITHOUT comp sci degrees. 'Scuse me while I don my flame-proof suit. OK. I have found through the years that people with CS degrees tend to have much more limited outlooks on problems than those from other fields. I want people with real-world knowledge and personal depth, not people who relate mostly to computers. I've seen great programmers with math degrees, degrees in the sciences, and even in English. Naturally, I want these people to have had some cs training so they understand algorithms, but the most important factors for programming success are native intelligence and a willingness to always be learning new things.
I do agree with you on certification. It's mostly useless.
I've never telecommuted, but two programmers associated with my office telecommute full time (both are nearly 1000 miles away), and my wife holds two part-time telecommuting jobs. The two programmers are both single, no kids, and both seem happy with their work situation, especially since they finally got high-speed internet access recently.
My wife and I have no children, so she has no problem with kids distracting her. She likes being in the comfort of her own home, she likes not having to drive to work, and she likes having access to her kitchen so she can see to her unusual dietary needs. She does sometimes miss the in-person interaction with other employees and can get lonely (when I walk in the front door in the evening she starts yakking at about 1000 words a minute to make up for lost contact time).
Your satisfaction depends on your personality (do you need regular face-to-face contact), the quality of your net connection, your home situation, and the politics at your job. Study these factors carefully before jumping in.
Even if this were true (and it's looking less likely), which Windows would they open source? My bet is Win98, which is very soon to be replaced by Windows ME (dumb name). And eventually the old consumer windows products will disappear in favor of Win 2000 derivatives. I'm sure those will never be opened. So the most we might get out of this is an obsolete and dead-ended code base that will do nobody any good.
I was at the Smithsonian over the holidays (I live just outside DC), and I saw the Edison exhibit. I was amazed at the inaccuracy - Edison getting credit for Tesla's work, no mention of Tesla, Edison being credited with inventing the light bulb when he only improved it, and on and on. I'm glad someone is bringing attention to this misrepresentation of history by one of our most respected institutions.
On the other hand, I found this guy's web site to be overly aggressive. I don't think he is setting a good example for his students in how to influence the powers that be. And children are exposed to enough cynicism through the media without being taught it by their teachers.
Be careful what you wish for. Tort reform as it has been proposed would make it HARDER to sue, not easier. Tort reform would be good for big business, neutral for small business, bad for lawyers, and bad for consumers.
That's not to say that some reform isn't desirable, but what's been proposed is just CYA for the big boys.
What disturbs me the most about this type of class action suit is that the consumers seldom get more than a token award: a coupon towards the purchase of another of the manufacturer's products, or a few hundred dollars. Meantime, the lawyers collect millions in fees. I understand that these suits often get started when a law firm gets word of a problem and recruits "harmed" consumers to representative of the class. It's legalized extortion on the part of the law firms, nothing else.
I'm wary of tort reform as it has been presented in the past, because it tends to rob consumers of their rights to recompense for real damages. But I think some restrictions on legal fees would do wonders for the legal system. If lawyers could collect only a reasonable amount, we'd see fewer extortion suits, but consumers with real complaints would not be restricted in their rights to sue and collect damages.
I suspect that most prospective parents would hesitate to resort to genetic enhancement of their offspring. However, if this becomes available, many parents will feel compelled to make use of it just to keep their children competitive. The only way to prevent this domestic genetic arms race is to strictly regulate genetic enhancement technology. I'm not sure regulation is a good idea, but the alternative scares me.
In one of his short stories (I don't remember the name and I'm not at home so I can't look it up), PKD described a future society in which children weren't considered human until their brain functioning had reached the point where they could pass a certain mathematics test. Up until that point, they could be "aborted" at will. Is that where we're headed?
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My first computer was a ZX80. Totally useless, but fun to play around with. It's still sitting in a closet in my basement.
Its cassette interface was virtually unusable. The wall wart created so much electrical interference that it showed up on the tapes as a loud hum. The machine also overheated badly and had to be run with the top of the case removed.
I upgraded it with the ZX81 ROM and keyboard overlay and the 16k RAM module before I gave up on it.
A couple years later I picked up a TS1000 just to play around with. It was a little more usable and was a fascinating bit of electronic efficiency.
Anyone remember Synch magazine? It was put out by the publisher of Creative Computing and was dedicated to the Sinclair machines. This tells you what a fanatic following these computers had. Lots of ads in the magazine for all kinds of software and odd peripherals.
I personally enjoy a little pearl of Emily tossed into the mix. Lighten up.
This is absolutely true. I will never buy a computer without a full system CD. Last year I finally bought a Windows laptop after years of Mac use (I've been programming Windows for a lot longer than that, to my chagrin). Now that it's gone (lost in shipping by the good old USPS), my next machine will either be another Mac or a Linux box. This CD business was the last straw for me. No more Windows on my personal machines!
The librarian culture is very strong on issues of privacy and free availability of information, very much like the hacker/geek culture. The importance of privacy and of free information access is drummed into them throughout their MLS programs, and librarians are often at the forefront in resisting restrictions on information availability.
As for libertarians, they will grow out of it just as young communists of the thirties, forties and fifties grew out of it as they saw how impractical their ideology was. There are two lessons we should have learned from the past 150 years: (1) Communism doesn't work (witness the former Soviet Union); (2) Capitalism doesn't work (witness the Great Depression and the conditions that led to the rise of the labor movement). What works is a balanced system with characteristics of both, driven by capitalist greed but regulated by a strong, central, and democratic government. Most of the 20th century was spent in trying to find the right balance of the two, and this struggle continues into the 21st century.
So is there a difference engine emulator available for Linux?
And I think we should give Babbage honorary First Post for this article.
atomfilms.com uses ActiveX on its main page. Can't see or do anything when viewing on a Mac, and I assume on Linux. Webmasters who use ActiveX will be the first ones against the wall!
I saw the premier, but blew off the rest of the series. Totally implausible but fun. Griffith builds a moon rocket in his salvage yard while hiding it from a suspicious FBI agent, and flies two people to the moon to salvage equipment from the NASA moon landings. I liked the way they gave a semi-plausible scenario for doing this with simple technology and little fuel, yet didn't actually follow the scenario in the script.
Back in the early days of the IBM PC, before multi-synch monitors, it actually was possible for software to send signals to the monitor that would destroy it. I don't think it would explode but it would make interesting noises as it died. I knew a guy who ran the QA dept. at a major SW house. They had a bug in their software that would fry monitors and they went through a whole stack of them before they were able to locate and fix the bug.
From the article:
"Under English law ISPs are not held to have been the publishers of defamatory material providing they satisfy two criteria.
"They must prove they took reasonable care to ensure such material was not published, and once alerted to a problem, took steps to resolve it."
...
"He said he asked Demon to remove the message but the ISP refused. The message was copied to its servers around the world and many others containing newsgroup messages."
In other words, the issue is not that the ISP didn't monitor and censor its content, but that it refused to remove a libelous message when requested in accordance with the law.
This provision requiring removal of offensive messages is still offensive to those of us who favor free speech, but it is far less onerous than a requirement that the ISP be aware of every posting and remove any that strike its hypothetical censors as libelous.
...I preferred people WITHOUT comp sci degrees. 'Scuse me while I don my flame-proof suit. OK. I have found through the years that people with CS degrees tend to have much more limited outlooks on problems than those from other fields. I want people with real-world knowledge and personal depth, not people who relate mostly to computers. I've seen great programmers with math degrees, degrees in the sciences, and even in English. Naturally, I want these people to have had some cs training so they understand algorithms, but the most important factors for programming success are native intelligence and a willingness to always be learning new things.
I do agree with you on certification. It's mostly useless.
I've never telecommuted, but two programmers associated with my office telecommute full time (both are nearly 1000 miles away), and my wife holds two part-time telecommuting jobs. The two programmers are both single, no kids, and both seem happy with their work situation, especially since they finally got high-speed internet access recently.
My wife and I have no children, so she has no problem with kids distracting her. She likes being in the comfort of her own home, she likes not having to drive to work, and she likes having access to her kitchen so she can see to her unusual dietary needs. She does sometimes miss the in-person interaction with other employees and can get lonely (when I walk in the front door in the evening she starts yakking at about 1000 words a minute to make up for lost contact time).
Your satisfaction depends on your personality (do you need regular face-to-face contact), the quality of your net connection, your home situation, and the politics at your job. Study these factors carefully before jumping in.
Even if this were true (and it's looking less likely), which Windows would they open source? My bet is Win98, which is very soon to be replaced by Windows ME (dumb name). And eventually the old consumer windows products will disappear in favor of Win 2000 derivatives. I'm sure those will never be opened. So the most we might get out of this is an obsolete and dead-ended code base that will do nobody any good.
I was at the Smithsonian over the holidays (I live just outside DC), and I saw the Edison exhibit. I was amazed at the inaccuracy - Edison getting credit for Tesla's work, no mention of Tesla, Edison being credited with inventing the light bulb when he only improved it, and on and on. I'm glad someone is bringing attention to this misrepresentation of history by one of our most respected institutions.
On the other hand, I found this guy's web site to be overly aggressive. I don't think he is setting a good example for his students in how to influence the powers that be. And children are exposed to enough cynicism through the media without being taught it by their teachers.
Instructions on electric hand dryer:
Push Button
Hold hands in warm air flow while rubbing gently
Wipe hands on pants
He chose this over the light bulb?
Be careful what you wish for. Tort reform as it has been proposed would make it HARDER to sue, not easier. Tort reform would be good for big business, neutral for small business, bad for lawyers, and bad for consumers.
That's not to say that some reform isn't desirable, but what's been proposed is just CYA for the big boys.
A shame he never got to use his new fishing boat.
Seriously, he was a great contributor to the whole Bond mythos and will be missed.
As of 0810 EST I'm getting HTTP 403 - Forbidden Access at the download site. Wassup?
Looks like the Outback Steakhouse chain will have to change its commercials. Instead of "No Rules", it'll be "Bluenoses Rule".
What disturbs me the most about this type of class action suit is that the consumers seldom get more than a token award: a coupon towards the purchase of another of the manufacturer's products, or a few hundred dollars. Meantime, the lawyers collect millions in fees. I understand that these suits often get started when a law firm gets word of a problem and recruits "harmed" consumers to representative of the class. It's legalized extortion on the part of the law firms, nothing else.
I'm wary of tort reform as it has been presented in the past, because it tends to rob consumers of their rights to recompense for real damages. But I think some restrictions on legal fees would do wonders for the legal system. If lawyers could collect only a reasonable amount, we'd see fewer extortion suits, but consumers with real complaints would not be restricted in their rights to sue and collect damages.
Seems very relevant seeing as how the average geek is as blind as a bat from staring at his/her monitor all day.
1. Make eye contact. 2. Treat her with respect. 3. Don't be a jerk. 4. Be yourself (unless you're a jerk - see #3) 5. Listen. 6. Have fun.
I suspect that most prospective parents would hesitate to resort to genetic enhancement of their offspring. However, if this becomes available, many parents will feel compelled to make use of it just to keep their children competitive. The only way to prevent this domestic genetic arms race is to strictly regulate genetic enhancement technology. I'm not sure regulation is a good idea, but the alternative scares me.
In one of his short stories (I don't remember the name and I'm not at home so I can't look it up), PKD described a future society in which children weren't considered human until their brain functioning had reached the point where they could pass a certain mathematics test. Up until that point, they could be "aborted" at will. Is that where we're headed?