2022 – Postcards

Kathleen Booth, the inventor of assembly language, Dead at 100

November 24, 2022 No Comments

Obit in the Reg: Professor Kathleen Booth, one of the last of the early British computing pioneers, has died. She was 100. […] As well as building the hardware for the first machines, she wrote all the software for the ARC2 and SEC machines, in the process inventing what she called Contracted Notation. This language, […]

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Dublin Military Oddities

That Friday Siren Sound

November 13, 2022 No Comments

Ever hear that air-raid klaxon sound on a Friday afternoon? In fact, it is a “test general alarm”, according to Mick Duffy, company quartermaster of Cathal Brugha Barracks. It’s just for the barracks, not for the rest of us. If it were for real, and not just an every-Friday test, it would be a call to […]

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Economy Food for Thought

The Proximate Cause

November 11, 2022November 11, 2022 No Comments

This (via Reuters): Twitter has $13 billion in debt after the deal and faces interest payments totaling close to $1.2 billion in the next 12 months. The payments exceed Twitter’s most recently disclosed cash flow, which amounted to $1.1 billion as of the end of June. https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-information-security-chief-kissner-decides-leave-2022-11-10/ The real question is why load it up with debt […]

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Computing Germany History

LGP-30

November 10, 2022 No Comments

What a find: On Monday, a German Redditor named c-wizz announced that they had found a very rare 66-year-old Librascope LGP-30 computer (and several 1970 DEC PDP-8/e computers) in their grandparents’ basement. The LGP-30, first released in 1956, is one of only 45 manufactured in Europe and may be best known as the computer used by “Mel” in a famous […]

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People Sounds

Shirley Manson Interview in the Guardian

October 14, 2022 No Comments

Always been an Garbage fan since forever. Shirley did a Q&A with the Guardian, worth reading in full. Sample: How much sexism did you face as a rising female rock star in the 90s? Is it better now or is it still too depressing to ponder? StupidGrrrl The outrageous way I was spoken to or about […]

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Places & Travel

Must do tours: 1920’s Berlin Today

October 14, 2022 No Comments

This looks very enjoyable – Beautiful, decadent, damaged: a walk back in time through roaring 20s Berlin The Weimar Republic – a democracy imposed on Germany from 1918 to 1933 as part of the Versailles treaty – is regarded as an incredibly innovative time for science, politics, culture and medicine. An entire generation – their understanding of […]

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Bits & Bobs Journalling

Interesting Bits: Friday, 09/09/2022

September 9, 2022 No Comments

A date that is correct in Yankee and Hiberno-English formats. Facebook has no idea what data is really has Bruce Schneier posts: The hearing amounted to two high-ranking engineers at one of the most powerful and resource-flush engineering outfits in history describing their product as an unknowable machine. The special master at times seemed in […]

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Freedoms Society

“Websites are not similar to telephones”

September 8, 2022 No Comments

Excellently put here by Ryan Broderick: Websites are not similar to telephones. They are not even similar to books or magazines. They are street corners, they are billboards, they are parks, they are shopping malls, they are spaces where people congregate. Just because you cannot see the (hopefully) tens of thousands of other people reading […]

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Health Society

HSE – Harm Reduction in action

September 2, 2022 No Comments

Good to see a harm reduction plan in action from the HSE/Govt/PowersThatBe. Humans have taken drugs since they became human – prohibition does not work. https://www.rte.ie/news/health/2022/0902/1320344-electric-picnic-drugs/

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X-Files

Numbers Stations – Shortwave Mysteries

September 2, 2022 No Comments

I find these fascinating, there’s true mystery to them yet they’re also very evocative of spy thrillers, cold war stories and the X-Files. In this video, Curious Droid gives a great summary of their purpose and how they’re used (allegedly, of course, although, we’re all pretty certain what they’re for now).

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Who?

Murf

Kathleen Booth, the inventor of assembly language, Dead at 100

That Friday Siren Sound

The Proximate Cause

LGP-30

Shirley Manson Interview in the Guardian

Must do tours: 1920’s Berlin Today

Interesting Bits: Friday, 09/09/2022

“Websites are not similar to telephones”

HSE – Harm Reduction in action

Numbers Stations – Shortwave Mysteries

Year: 2022