notes.husk.org. scribblings by Paul Mison.

2013-04-18

post/48291029388

photo 19:30:32
criminalwisdom:

DIGITAL DRILLS: THE MONSTER MACHINES THAT MINE BITCOIN»

ftao the new aesthetic types (although there’s a good chance they’ve seen it).

criminalwisdom:

DIGITAL DRILLS: THE MONSTER MACHINES THAT MINE BITCOIN»

ftao the new aesthetic types (although there’s a good chance they’ve seen it).

2013-04-01

post/46861883176

quote 18:52:00
“ Whimsy is not a quality we usually associate with computer programs. ”

Jacob Harris, describing the Haiku NY Times Tumblr (via derekg)

One last note on this: I’m entirely unsurprised that a description of whimsical software comes from New York, not San Francisco. The other place I’ve seen people talking about whimsy is London, usually from people connected to the BERG/RIG axis.

SF needs to be more whimsical.

2012-08-29

post/30469371576

quote 21:03:15
“ 51 percent of respondents, including a majority of Millennials, believe stormy weather can interfere with cloud computing. ”

2012-05-03

post/22299857025

photo 03:47:43
From Man Made, a collection by Natasha Otrakji. (via prostheticknowledge)

From Man Made, a collection by Natasha Otrakji(via prostheticknowledge)

2012-04-05

post/20501665874

quote 02:38:07
“ Seventeen 803 machines were exported to America between 1960 and 1963, where they were applied to on-line industrial process control - sometimes via the Panellit company under the badge of Panellit 609 computers. In the UK, a notable first for an Elliott 803 in 1960 was the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA)’s Calder Hall atomic station project at Windscale (Sellafield). The 803 provided a 24/7 logging and alarm-scanning system for the prototype Magnox gas-cooled reactor, for what became the world’s first industrial scale nuclear power station. ”

2012-03-15

Patents vs Copyright

text 19:13:06

It’s is an amusing point, but at least patents expire after twenty years (for example, the LZW/GIF patent held by Unisys). What would have been terrible was if he (or one of the other early computing pioneers) had been granted copyright on the idea.

2012-02-08

post/17271413736

quote 18:28:50
“ More monitors cut down on toggling time among windows on a single screen, which can save about 10 seconds for every five minutes of work. ”

NY Times: In Data Deluge, Multitaskers Go to Multiscreens.

I recently switched from a single 15” 1440×800 MacBook Pro display to three screens: the MBP and two external 1920×1080 monitors (whose diagonal sizes I’m uncertain of, but let’s say 21”). I think it’s helped, especially with having editor, browser, and dev tools on screen at once, with less important stuff glanceable at one side.

I suspect my next home setup will be an Air with a 27” Thunderbolt display acting as a hub. I’m looking forward to it.

Having said all that, 10 seconds for every five minutes of work? That seems like a micro-optimisation.

2011-03-02

post/3606177424

quote 21:32:32
“ Maybe you should remember this the next time Tumblr 500s or your Gmail is offline for an hour, because the alternative is that you host your own blog, which means provisioning your own server and dealing with it yourself when MySQL inevitably crashes (“downtime”!), or running your own procmail/postfix mailserver and running your own redundant onsite/offsite backups and setting up your own MX records and tweaking your own /etc/my.cnf files and so on and so forth (and trust me, there is a lot more so on and so forth where that so on and so forth came from!).
Or: you can just fucking deal! ”

2009-07-02

post/134097443

quote 12:18:11
“ The show, which is currently in production with an expected broadcast date later this year, will focus on the rivalry between the maverick Sir Clive Sinclair, played by Armstrong, and his former colleague Chris Curry, portrayed by Freeman. It has the working title Syntax Era. ”

Battle between ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro to be BBC4 comedy drama, reports the Guardian.

For anyone thinking there’s no drama in this story, or that the Spectrum and Model B weren’t rivals, here’s a story from Sinclair User in March 1985:

THE RIVALRY between Sir Clive Sinclair and former employee Chris Curry, now head of Acorn Computers, developed into open warfare over the Christmas period.

Having commissioned a survey on the reliability of micros which appeared to demonstrate the superiority of the BBC over the Spectrum, advertisements were placed in two national newspapers on behalf of Acorn, implying that Spectrums bought as Christmas presents would soon be taken back to the shops, and their owners would do better to buy BBC computers instead.

The advertisement so angered Sir Clive that he attacked Curry in the Baron of Beef, a Cambridge pub where both are regular customers. Sir Clive walked up to Curry and slapped him about the head, then argued with him about the advertisement. There was some shoving and jostling, and the two men later began fighting again in Shades, an upmarket Cambridge wine bar.

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