Over at Computer World, they’ve got a piece celebrating this summer’s 40th anniversary of the invention of the UNIX operating system with a look back at its past. While originally designed to be a multiuser operating system, and later becoming the default for big iron, UNIX was initially created on a quite gutless, even by […]
Negroponte vs. the Open-Source Fundamentalists
Rumblings of discontent within the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project erupted to the surface last week with the resignation of chief software architect, Walter Bender. A split has formed between those, like Bender, who see the project as primarily educational, and OLPC leader Nicholas Negroponte, who wants to push as many laptops into the […]
Naked geeks are easy, Easter is hard
By Eric Pettifor I commented to a friend the other day that Easter seemed early this year, and he replied in disgust “Yes, first they move up daylight savings time and now this.” While the ever-changing date of Easter might seem arbitrary, it is actually carefully calculated. Obviously, it was of great concern to Church […]
The Fraud of “Intellectual Property”
There is no such thing as “intellectual property.” Take copyright: if we are to look at creative works as property, then it is the property of the commons (that is, public domain), and copyright is simply a limited duration monopoly on works extended to creators as an incentive and reward. Patents likewise are of limited […]
Naked Geeks
Who are the 12 greatest computer geeks of all time? Can you put names to the following 12 clues? There will be an answer key at the end of this blog entry. Difference engine. AI test and work on defeating Nazi enigma encryption during WWII. In 1983, geeks 3 and 4 below received an award […]
