Some Fun and Useful Pages
I was a young teenager during the Apollo lunar landings, and I couldn't
get enough of them. They helped inspire me to become
an electrical engineer.
So I'm personally offended by ignoramuses like Bart Sibrel, Ralph Rene, James Collier,
Bill Kaysing and others when they claim that Apollo -- one of the biggest
scientific and engineering achievements in human history -- was just a big hoax.
Just because they can't understand how it was done
doesn't mean that the hundreds of thousands of Apollo scientists and engineers couldn't have done it either.
Most of their bogus "evidence" is downright silly. All of it belies their own scientific ignorance.
Unfortunately, our educational system has failed us so miserably --
and our government has given us so many valid reasons to distrust it -- that
some of the public actually is taken in by the conspiracy theorists' bullshit. So we're fortunate
that many knowledgable people have taken the time to counter it. I know from
experience in other contexts that it can take much more time and effort to debunk a silly claim
than to dream it up in the first place, so I'm really impressed that they've done such a thorough job on a
thankless task. This is just one of several truly excellent anti-hoax websites.
This is the blog of
Professor Ben Friedlander
of UCSC (University of California
at Santa Cruz), writing under the nom-de-guerre of Jim DeGries.
Like me, Ben has a morbid fascination with bogus digital wireless technologies,
and he is trying his hardest to explain to the general public why
certain claims being made for would-be breakthrough inventions
(like xMax) really are too good to be
true and can be safely dismissed out of hand.
Ben has attracted quite a lot of hate mail for his efforts. I never
would have thought that anyone could base a religious cult on
a modulation method, but it seems to be true!
This site has a wonderful collection of World War II-era propaganda posters
from all sides, updated to be more current. This one is a favorite of mine;
they have many more.
A prescient and insightful essay on the continuing American slide
toward fascism. It is rather interesting to watch
the defenders of the present Administration react whenever a critic
dares to use the "N"-word (Nazi) -- witness the reaction to Illinois
Senator Durbin's remarks about torture in US prison camps, which in
context were actually quite reasonable. But they don't seem to mind
when Rush Limbaugh talks about "feminazis". Methinks they doth
protest just a little too much, eh?
I do think one item is missing from Britt's otherwise excellent
list, though: Pseudoscience flourishes at high levels.
His item 11 arguably touches on it ("Disdain and suppression of
intellectuals and the arts") but I think pseudoscience plays
such an important role in fascism that it deserves its
own entry.
The Soviet Union had Lysenkoism and
Nazi Germany had its ridiculous racial theories
that, unfortunately, weren't ridiculous enough to keep many
millions of so-called "subhumans" from being slaughtered. One of the
most enduring ironies of the Nazi era is that so many of the
scientists who worked on the US Manhattan
Project were European Jewish refugees from Hitler. Einstein's
theories, crucial to the development of the bomb, were lambasted
by the Nazis as "
Jewish Science".
That there should be a close association between fascism and
pseudoscience is not hard to understand. Both pseudoscience and
fascism appeal to blind emotion and to the passions and prejudices of the
majority. Neither can withstand rational scrutiny and open debate.
In modern times, pseudoscience has never enjoyed such prominence in
the United States as now. The best example, of course, is the
widespread belief in creationism and
the rejection of biological
evolution. Evolution now ranks among the most solidly grounded of
all scientific theories, supported by overwhelming evidence. It
interlocks nicely with solid theories in other scientific
fields, e.g., geology, physics, chemistry and astronomy. And evolution has
practical applications from plant and animal breeding to understanding
and treating human afflictions such as bacterial infections and
sickle-cell anemia. As Theodosius
Dobzhasky famously said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in
the light of evolution". Yet a majority of Americans -- especially
political conservatives who idolize George W Bush --
reject evolution. And there are continuing, relentless
attempts to introduce creationism "Intelligent
Design" into public school science classrooms despite a long series of
Supreme Court decisions that quite properly hold the teaching of
creationism in public schools to violate the First Amendment's
Establishment Clause.
I think it no coincidence that technology scam artists like Dennis Lee prey
primarily (or even exclusively) on members of fundamentalist churches.
Where else can you find so many gullible people who lack even the most
basic critical thinking skills when it comes to issues of science and
technology?
Some serious gerrymandering after the 2000 census made US Rep. Randy
"Duke" Cunningham my local congressman. (It used to be Susan
Davis, a halfway decent Democrat.) Recently a major scandal has
erupted over the 2003 sale of his home for $1,675,000 to Mitchell
Wade, CEO of defense contractor MZM,
Inc. Wade, who immediately began to reap numerous secret
government contracts, put the home right back on the market
where it finally sold 9 months later at a $700,000 loss. Wade claimed he
discovered the house "didn't meet his needs" only after he bought
it. He must think that everyone buys their houses sight
unseen. Or he must think we're all pretty stupid.
San Diego, even more than most places
in the US, has been in an incredible real estate boom over the past
few years; there's simply no chance that Cunningham's sale to Wade was at
anywhere near true market value. In case I have to spell it out for you, here goes:
B R I B E.
As if that wasn't enough, Cunningham has been living on a yacht in
DC named the "Duke Stir", also owned by Wade. And now it seems that
his new Rancho Sante Fe home, bought with the proceeds of his Del Mar
sale, was bought well under market value.
For those not familiar with San Diego and its expensive real
estate, Del Mar is a definitely upscale yet still crowded suburban
area, with current average home prices somewhere around a
million. (Cunningham's old house is actually in the Del Mar Heights
area of the City of San Diego, just east of the beach city of Del Mar
proper, but the locals just call the whole area Del Mar.) Rancho Sante
Fe, on the other hand, is somewhere up in the stratosphere, with
multi-acre lots and average prices now probably around $3
million. It's about the richest community in the United States. You
may remember it as where the "Heaven's Gate" cult killed themselves in
1997.
Politically, Cunningham is somewhere to the right of Atilla the
Hun. He rants about "homos in the military"; Rep Barney Frank says
that Cunningham "seems more interested in homosexuality than most
homosexuals". While speaking to a group of prostate cancer survivors,
he flipped the bird to a WW2 veteran who commented that the defense
budget was too high. He said Vietnam War protesters and "liberal
leaders" in Congress should be lined up and shot. He picks fistfights
with fellow Members of Congress. He talks out loud
about raking the Capitol with 20mm cannon fire from his old F-14 (he was a
Vietnam War ace, you see, as if that's supposed to impress us with his
statesmanlike wisdom). He
voted for the "Communications Decency Act" and introduced the awful
"flag burning" amendment that recently passed the House.
So it'll be
most gratifying to see this jackass go down in flames. He'll find it
rather difficult to wrap himself in the flag when he's wearing
handcuffs.
Note added 30 November 2005: As the world now knows, on 28
November 2005 Duke Cunningham pled guilty to federal bribery and tax
evasion charges and resigned from the US House of Representatives. Not
only did he admit that, indeed, his defense contractor buddy bought
his house at an inflated price and covered his boat fees, this was only
the tip of his bribery iceberg. As much as I detested this guy, I was
still astonished by the extraordinary scope and crassness of his
corruption. Cunningham has never been known for his brains
(Congressional aides routinely gave him their "No Rocket Scientist
Award") but I still can't believe the man could be that
stupid.
The plea
agreement cites four un-named co-conspirators, and the
investigation continues. I can only hope the prosecutors are able to
connect the dots and finally begin to take down the whole rotten,
stinking, corrupt Republican war machine. When President Eisenhower
famously warned us about the "military-industrial complex", he
actually wanted to say "military-industrial-Congressional
complex" but was talked out of it. He should have stood his ground.
Like they really have to be stated, huh?
Now this one is definitely a parody site. And also pretty funny.
Did you know that Apple Computer promotes the Forces of Darkness,
and are promoting -- gosh -- godless evolution because they
named their operating system "Darwin"?
I can't tell if this site is real or a hoax. If it's a hoax, it's a
really good one. Either way, it's one of the funniest websites I've
seen in a long time.
Various items related to the terrorist attack of
September 11, 2001
Bruce Schneier is one of the most clueful people now working in the
fields of cryptography and computer security. He is the author of the
book
Applied Cryptography,
the central issue in my
lawsuit
against US export controls on cryptography. The
Crypto-Gram Newsletter is Bruce's free monthly newsletter on a variety
of topics related to cryptography, computer and network security, and his
insights are always worth a look.
Adobe has instigated the first-ever criminal case under the odious
Digital Millenium Copyright Act by having the FBI arrest a Russian
programmer who had the audacity to embarass them by showing how to
break the pitifully weak encryption in their "ebook" format. A furious
reaction is rapidly developing, the likes of which have not been seen
since the passage of the Communications Decency Act and the
Gestapo-style raid on Steve Jackson Games by the Secret Service --
two heavy-handed government actions that were firmly slapped down by
the courts.
The irony of a Russian being arrested in the US
for what amounts to a political crime and an exercise of free speech
is difficult to swallow. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of
the DMCA; we can certainly hope so.
I discovered this one when the NASA website linked to it after the Fox
network ran an abysmal
and ridiculous program claiming that the Apollo moon landings were all hoaxed.
I
forget how I first came across this site. Loads of fun, though.
The Wireless Applications Protocol
Forum has produced a whole new suite of supposedly "open"
protocols for data services on cell phones. I've worked in the field
of wireless networking for quite some time, first in amateur packet
radio, then at Qualcomm. But I scratched my head when I first read
about WAP, because they seemed completely clueless -- or worse.
Many other IETFers seem to agree with me, having dubbed WAP as
Why Another Protocol? or Wait and Pay.
Finally, somebody has written up
these objections in an excellent essay.
I finally happened to see an uncredited copy of Mahlberg's
In-A-Gadda-Da-Oswald on another site, so I found the original
site with just a little websearching. This photo is not only
disturbingly funny, it's a very convincing demonstration of the
fact that with computers, photographs are no longer meaningful
as legal evidence of anything...
Science writer James Gleick has a brilliantly written
article
Patently Absurd
in the March 12, 2000 edition of the
New
York Times Magazine. It didn't surprise me at all to learn that the patent
commissioner tried to pressure the Times editors and lawyers to not run the
article. It is an absolutely devastating account of how the US Patent Office
blithely churns out ludicrous patents without regard to the devastating effect they're
having on society.
Lawrence Lessig is a professor at the Harvard Law School. He is also
rapidly becoming a hero of mine, which is pretty astonishing when you
think about it. (A lawyer being a hero to an
engineer?) Lessig first become widely known when he was
appointed a "special master" by the judge in the Microsoft antitrust
trial. More recently, he has published brilliantly
insightful articles about how the US intellectual property system
has gone totally out of control; has filed suit to have the
Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act declared unconstitutional;
and filed
comments with the FCC citing the
End to End Argument
in arguing for open access to cable modem services.
Lessig has also written a book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace.
He argues that the software and hardware that implement cyberspace are a
far more pervasive means of social control than laws passed by governments,
and that it is important for us to retain control over that software and
hardware. I absolutely agree, and I could only think that this guy really
gets it when I read him saying that
open code represents an important check on the power of
the state.
I certainly don't agree with everything Lessig says.
In particular,
he has too much faith in the ability of government to do good in
cyberspace. But his books and writings really get you thinking, and that's
what being a professor is all about.
This is a remarkably comprehensive collection of GPS user information: product
reviews, user information, navigation theory, links to other GPS-related
sites, etc.
The surest way to judge whether a piece of satire has hit its target is
by how loudly said humor-impaired targets howl in righteous indignation.
By this measure, the South
Park movie has scored a bullseye on censor-happy fundamentalist groups.
Some of their reviews are (unintentionally, I'm sure) quite hilarious.
Check these out:
Christian Analysis
of American Culture: "... another movie straight from the smoking pits
of Hell." [well duh, much of the movie was set there] "South Park is an
incredibly
dangerous movie...INCREDIBLY dangerous..."
Focus on
the Family review: "Positive Elements: None."
The South Park movie is by no means the best movie satire ever made.
Nothing will ever top
Doctor
Strangelove. And the South
Park TV show is by no means the best satirical cartoon on TV; that
honor clearly goes to
The
Simpsons. But I still like South Park. Sure, the writing is
highly uneven and it's definitely not for kids. I also accept that many
adults just don't like its brand of humor. That's OK. Personally, I find
enough moments of inspired brilliance to make it worthwhile. And the songs
in the movie were great.
And to the humorless fire-and-brimstone fundamentalists who are about
to have coronaries over this movie, I say: c'mon guys, it's just a cartoon!
If you weren't so busy tallying up precise counts of 4-letter words and
computing your pseudo-mathematical (but utterly bogus)
influence
density scores, you might actually realize that you've already proven
the main point of the movie...
Ross Anderson is a British cryptologist who has made many contributions
to the field, primarily in the protection of personal privacy and anonymity
against attack by large corporate and governmental entities.
My favorite Anderson project is his Eternity
Service, a way to combine encryption and redundancy to publish information
on the Internet such that it can never be censored or traced to its source,
even when attacked by substantial technical and legal means. Such methods
will become an increasingly vital defense against government censorship
of the Internet, legal harassment of whistleblowers (e.g., those who dare
to criticize the Church of Scientology), and patent infringement lawsuits
against authors of open source software.
Here's a distributed Internet-based computing effort that does more
than find crypto keys. This is a serious effort to find narrowband extraterrestrial
radio signals that may be evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
They'll provide a client program that downloads batches of raw data to
your machine, runs lots of FFTs (fast fourier transforms) with various
doppler chirp rates, and returns the results to the central server. Neat
stuff, though I really wish they'd release their source code so I can look
at how they do their FFTs.
Finally, a comic strip by and for system administrators. In-humor that
nobody else in the world will get. Except maybe for the continual Microsoft-bashing
gags, like what happened when somebody
sticks
a Windows NT CD-ROM into the microwave.
Great stuff, especially now that Dilbert is past its creative peak and
well into the "cashing in" phase.
Recently my doctor had me take a MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan.
Being an engineer, naturally I had to learn how these things work.
After some websurfing past the usual basic stuff for the general public,
I found this highly detailed technical discussion. It seems you can find
information on just about anything in whatever depth you want (or more!)
on the web if you know how to look for it.
Sign this petition now!
This is the space section of Florida Today, a newspaper in Melbourne, Florida
with outstanding coverage of space issues. The most noteworthy section
contains detailed status and progress reports on just about every upcoming
space launch in the world, not just those leaving nearby Cape Canaveral.
Living in San Diego, I can go outside and watch launches out of
Vandenberg
AFBif I can find out about them in advance. This is the site
I check.
This is another wonderful resource for those trying to stem the tide of
creationist nonsense. Evolution is still a "theory" in the same way that
gravity is just a theory: the evidence for both is so overwelming that
they come as close to "proven fact" as you can ever get in science.
I found this one from a link from the LPF
site below, but it's so outstanding that it deserves its own link.
Don
Lancaster is famous among electronics hobbyists for writing all those
"cookbooks" starting back in the 1970s: the TTL Cookbook the CMOS
Cookbook, etc. Don's a pretty creative guy, exactly the kind you'd
think would appreciate the US Patent Office.
Not exactly. Quoting from The
Case Against Patents:
Just what are the alternative methods for successfully marketing
your ideas and concepts? [...] First, totally avoid any and all contact
with anything even remotely patent related. In any way, shape or form.
Do so religiously.
The League for Programming Freedom has been around since 1989, started
by Richard Stallman and others largely in response to Apple's GUI look-and-feel
copyright lawsuits of the time. The LPF seemed to go dormant when the Supreme
Court deadlocked and let stand an appeal of a similar look-and-feel copyright
lawsuit that had been correctly decided (i.e., against GUI copyrightability).
Meanwhile, the software patent situation has steadily progressed from
the "major disaster" stage to the "cataclysmic catastrophe" stage. A single,
understated, yet highly ominous sentence in the Second
Microsoft Halloween Document:
The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains
to be investigated.
drove home like nothing else the singular threat that software patents
pose to the increasingly successful Open Source movement. So the LPF seems
to have rewoken, and none too soon. Their web site has an excellent collection
of material about the harmful effects of an overzealous intellectual property
system on the quality and availability of computer software. They deserve
your support.
This is a detailed, entertaining collection of some of the scientific misconceptions
pervasive even among people who ought to know better, like high school
science teachers. The classic example is the claim that the Coriolis force
of the earth's rotation causes the water in toilets and sinks to rotate
counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern.
Even Lisa Simpson, who is normally annoyingly right about all things scientific,
fell
prey to this misconception. If you know any science teachers, make
sure they read this page!
Here is a lot of information on the hardware in the Palm Pilot. This thing
has really become a phenomenon!
These are writeups of two leaked documents from Microsoft that shows they're
finally getting scared of open-source software in general and Linux in
particular. It discusses ways to destroy it by corrupting the Internet
protocols with lots of proprietary and incompatible features.
Too bad Gates' lawyers went after that San Diego T-shirt seller who
portrayed Bill Gates as Star Trek's Captain Picard when he was Locutus
of Borg, speaking the classic lines: "Resistance is futile...you will be
assimilated". The acquisitive and relentless Borg are the
perfect
metaphor for Microsoft.
See also the Salon
Magazine article.
A well-done archive of past foolery on the net.
An excellent essay. It certainly expresses an opinion (and you can guess
what that opinion is, given that I've created a link here), but it is solidly
backed up with facts. To quote from the introduction:
Why Windows NT Server 4.0 continues to exist in the enterprise
would be a topic appropriate for an investigative report in the field of
psychology or marketing, not an article on information technology.
This is a fun online technology newsletter I just discovered. The editorial
style has a definite satirical bent that appeals to me.
Home Power magazine is available on the newsstand (e.g., at Tower
Records) and for free on the web. It caters to the rugged individualists
who want to generate their own electricity in places far from the electric
grid. It also appeals to the environmentalists who prefer not to use commercial
power even where it is available.
I've always been interested in solar power, batteries, inverters and
related electric power technologies, so I find the practical parts of this
magazine quite interesting even if the editorial tone is a little too rabid
for my tastes.
The home power community does seem to be mellowing a bit. Many used
to consider everything associated with the electric power grid to be an
unmitigated evil and wanted nothing to do with it. Now they're embracing
the idea of using the grid to sell their home-generated power to their
neighbors, displacing energy from utility plants. This is an attractive
alternative to off-grid operation, especially since it eliminates the need
for a large battery plant to store electricity for nighttime use.
The NSA has finally declassified and published the SKIPJACK and KEA algorithms
used in their infamous Clipper Chip. Too little and too late, of course,
but it's of significant historical interest.
Richard Hoagland is one of the most dedicated pseudoscientific loonies
of our time. For two decades he has made a pest of himself claiming that
aliens built a giant human face on Mars and that NASA is trying to cover
it up. You might think that the new Mars Global Surveyor pictures
of the so-called "face" would finally shut him up. But you'd be wrong.
His ever-more-desperate quests to "uncover the coverup" are downright comical.
Hoagland chose an especially apt name for his site. Not only is
Enterprise
the name of an entirely fictional television spaceship, but it was also
the name of the NASA space shuttle that could never fly. Neither can Hoagland's
theories.
I find it absolutely astonishing that so many people are utterly unable
to distinguish between a symbol (the US flag) and what it represents
(the freedom to express unpopular opinions, among many other freedoms).
And it is downright scary to see so many legislators ready to burn the
Constitutional safety net that has successfully protected us from their
demagogic excesses for over 200 years. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
I found this one through the New York Times on 20 Feb 1998. It's an excellent
collection of the urban legends, myths and hoaxes that can spread so rapidly
on the Internet.
If you're really into the guts of GPS (instead of just using it as a black
box), this is the page for you. There are detailed descriptions of the
GPS navigation messages plus reference code for computing satellite and
user positions.
This is a page I wish I'd known about when a religious fundamentalist wrote
me to seriously argue that the First Amendment only prohibits the state
from controlling religion, not the other way around. These pages are chock-full
of useful resources for refuting the members of the Religious Right who
would end the 200+ years of religious peace and freedom we've enjoyed in
this country and turn the US into another Israel, Iran, or Northern Ireland.
I don't generally waste my time on newsgroups like talk.origins, but I'm
glad to see that one of the participants has put together what looks like
a very methodical and thorough rebuttal of all the usual bogus arguments
of the creationists.
Way back in 1983, Paul Rinaldo (W4RI) published a wonderful collection
of "laws" based on personal experience and observations of the engineering
profession. Paul's observations have a certain timelessness to them. They
clearly anticipated the now-popular Dilbert comic strip by almost a decade.
The problem of reliable communication with spacecraft at interplanetary
distances has prompted the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to pioneer much
of the advanced modulation and error control coding techniques that are
now finding widespread use in the commercial world. For many years JPL's
progress reports have been a treasure trove of detailed technical information,
and they have finally switched to publication on the Web.
This is a page of links to a variety of amateur space-related sites, including
various AMSAT organizations. AMSAT is the group of radio amateurs that
build and operate their own communication and scientific satellites.
If you're like me, you're frequently appalled by the widespread scientific
illiteracy in the regular news media. So it's really nice to see some science-related
news stories presented by knowledgeable people with clarity, intelligence
and wit. This page really shows the enormous power of the Web to bypass
the "dumb-down" power of the traditional news media.
What a gem. I discovered this one when somebody used it to generate a flame
on USENET, followed by a very subtle link to this page. I must have been
the only one to follow it, as several responders thought the poster actually
typed it himself. I guess this means that at least as far as USENET flaming
is concerned, the Turing Test has been met.
Mike is an avid EMEer, a radio amateur who specializes in using the moon
as a passive radio reflector. EME is perhaps the most challenging aspect
of amateur radio. Those who can do it are an elite minority. Unlike many
amateurs who are content simply to do things by brute force, Mike has been
applying digital signal processing methods to obtain a better understanding
of the EME channel and how more efficient modulation and coding schemes
might be devised.
My friend Patty's home page.
This is a truly remarkable work. Author Eric Jones has put together one
of the most detailed histories of the Apollo lunar missions I've seen anywhere,
on or off the net. Much of the material consists of meticulously annotated
transcripts of the space/earth communication circuits during the missions,
augmented by the author's extensive interviews with all of the surviving
astronauts. More recently he has been adding photos, drawings and audio
clips.
This work is clearly a labor of love, and not just because he's chosen
to make it freely available to the net.
This is the web site for the book by Tsutomu Shimomura and John Markoff
about the hunting and capture of Kevin Mitnick. Lots of interesting audio
recordings, including the famous "tweedledee" and "tweedledum" messages
put on the net. In ham terms, the ultimate "foxhunt".
Jonathan Littman is the author of a second new book on Kevin Mitnick,
The
Fugitive Game. While he was a fugitive, Mitnick called Littman on numerous
occasions and as a result this book is full of interesting insights into
Mitnick and his pals that are lacking from the Shimomura/Markoff book.
Littman has also set up
his
own web site.
And there's a third book, The Cyberthief and the Samurai
by Jeff Goodell. This subject is rapidly spawning a cottage industry!
To really get the whole story, you should probably read
all three
books.
This one is so popular on the net I hardly have to include it here. It's
truly uncanny how Scott Adams methodically selects and hits each new target
in such a timely and deadly accurate manner. The average member of the
public might not have heard of ISO 9000. But to those of us working for
companies who had to go through that foolishness, Dilbert's experiences
helped make it a little more bearable for the rest of us. Also, Dilbert's
mom's views on ISDN, Linux and Microsoft are right on the mark.
In my opinion,
The
Simpsons is
the greatest TV show of all time -- and yes, I've
been a
Star
Trek fan since 1966. The Simpsons was inspired by and is often
compared to
Rocky
& Bullwinkle, which was certainly a great show for its day. But
I think The Simpsons is even better. The show lampoons many different
things, but it's really all about authority. More precisely, the show satirizes
authority in the hands of those who don't deserve it. As in real life,
sheer incompetence is usually the operative factor, be it Clancy Wiggum
as Police Chief, or Homer Simpson as a nuclear power plant operator. Only
on rare occasions (again as in real life) is there dark-hearted and sadistic
malevolence e.g., Monty Burns.
The Simpsons is what satire is all about. I wonder if the small-minded
teachers, principals and nuclear industry officials who expressed offense
at the show ever realized how their complaints only underscored the show's
message. They certainly helped make it even funnier. Hell, I actually
support
nuclear power and I still laugh at shots of glowing rats and three-eyed
fish.
What a blast from the past! My very first calculator was the HP-45, which
I bought as a high school senior in 1974 with $395 of my hard-earned money
from repairing guitar amplifiers at a local musical instrument store. The
display drivers failed a long time ago; I still have the disassembled parts
in a bag around here somewhere. When I moved from New Jersey to California
in 1991, I sorrowfully tossed out my homebuilt S-100 system from my college
days. But I haven't had the heart to do the same thing with the (much smaller)
bag of HP-45 parts. Anybody know where I can get a new set of display drivers?
This guy is clearly insane. Hey, I liked to burn up, blow up and launch
up stuff as much as any other male kid my age, but at least I had
my limits. And I grew out of it as I got older and less invulnerable. That's
probably why I still have ten fingers, ten toes, two arms, two legs and
two eyes...
This is an excellent example of the power of the Net. What this service
lacks in professional movie reviews (presumably because Bill Gates bought
up all the rights for Cinemania) it makes up by being continually updated
with the most minor details. I guess that's to be expected with millions
of us geeks making contributions. My own include a long list of all the
technical goofs I spotted in the otherwise excellent Apollo 13,
and a few guest star appearances in Classic Star Trek.
I haven't subscribed to a physical newspaper in years. Back at Bell Labs
and Bellcore we had access to an Associated Press newswire, but I lost
that when I moved to San Diego. Then the Web happened. This is the best
of the free online newspapers I've seen.
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Last updated: 9 March 2008
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