I was shopping at Office Depot, and next to the checkout line they had this bin full of cheap items on sale. And in it, thrown carelessly with less decorum than potatoes get at the grocer’s, were blister-packaged Flash memory cards. They had 2.0 GB units selling for a pittance. That’s two billion bytes, or … Read more
I never dreamed I’d be blogging a post with the word Eyjafjallajökull in its title… Anyway, this volcano is belching again, and airports are closing again – and one can’t help but wonder at the shoddy maintenance practices of these Icelanders. I mean, it’s not like they don’t know a volcano needs to be properly … Read more
I was busy putting the basement in order and found a box of much used Lego pieces going back to the kids’ childhood, and in it I found – as is – what you see in the photo. Of course there are Lego kits today for anything from Rocket ships to Medieval castles, but Zaphod … Read more
Here is a striking photo I snapped in Tubingen, in southern Germany, showing a building with a tile roof… bearing a weird pattern: The cause of the red circle on the roof is unmistakable, the air flows around the chimney… but it is the opposite of what you’d expect, and the details are a bit … Read more
Isaac Asimov once wrote a SciFi story named The feeling of Power, in which a future age has become so accustomed to computers that the rediscovery of how to calculate sums with pencil and paper – or in one’s head – is considered a major breakthrough. That age may be nearer than we think. Recently … Read more
We have a McDonald’s in downtown Jerusalem (of course!), but within spitting distance of it there is another kind of fast food restaurant, one that is dear to the hearts of the city’s old time residents. It is the Ta’ami restaurant. Ta’ami is a tiny restaurant: one room, opening right onto the sidewalk in Shamai … Read more
These days vendors have become masters of trivial warnings, as seen in coffee cups that warn us their content is hot, and countless other examples. Recently I ran into an amusing case. The little piggy is yet another form of the classic kitchen timer. What makes it interesting is the inscription on its base: “Not … Read more
I was visiting the Intrepid museum in NYC (an aircraft museum housed in a retired aircraft carrier – a real treat!) and they had, as a bonus, a fifites-era submarine, the USS Growler, moored alongside the carrier. So I had to see that too (of course). Submarines are always amazing from a design standpoint, given … Read more
Anyone interested in the Brain – that ultimate piece of high technology – has seen the true but overused statement that each age in history sees the brain as analogous to the latest current technology: the ancients thought of it as a hydraulic system, our grandparents as a telephone exchange, our parents as a computer… … Read more
In the US, where I just gave a lecture at a conference on Information Load and Overload, and of course I found the time to visit the wonderful Computer History Museum in Mountain View. This is always a delight, but this time they surpassed themselves: they demonstrated the newly built Difference Engine #2 in action! … Read more
