When a new writing technology develops, we tend to romanticize the older one. The supplanted technology is vaunted as more authentic because it is no longer ubiquitous or official. Thus for monks, print was capricious and script reliable. So too today: Conventional wisdom holds that computers are devoid of emotion and personality, and handwriting is the province of intimacy, originality and authenticity.

Ich wage eine Prognose: Die Zeit von 1985 bis 201x, die wir vielleicht nur als leidlich aufregend empfanden bzw. empfinden werden, wird in den nur noch elektronisch abrufbaren Geschichtsbüchern künftiger Generationen einen ebenso großen Platz einnehmen wie das Römische Reich oder die Industrialisierung. Und zwar nicht in erster Linie wegen 09/11, sondern weil sich in dieser Zeitspanne der Herzschlag der Welt umstellte – von analog auf digital.

Yes, it’s true that I have dumped a good number of social software tools out there on the Social Web in favour of G+ itself, or, at least, thanks to it I have reduced my involvement with those social tools quite a bit. But there are two of them that I am not ready, just yet, to kiss good-bye and move them into SNS. One of them is my Flickr account and the other one, of course, is my blog. This blog. And Hugh explains it very very well how I, too, feel about it overall on why I still think there is a place and a time for blogging out there on the Internet, as well as the Intranet, by the way. Here are a couple of noteworthy quotes from his blog entry I thought were worth while sharing across:

“The content on your blog, however, belongs to you, and you alone. People come to your online home, to hear what you have to say, not to hear what everybody else has to say. This sense of personal sovereignty is important.” [Emphasis mine]

So why would anyone learn this stuff, anyway? Well, there are several reasons which come to mind:

* Your major requires a course in assembly language; i.e., you're here against your will.
* A programmer where you work quit. Most of the source code left behind was written in assembly language and you were elected to maintain it.
* Your boss has the audacity to insist that you write your code in assembly against your strongest wishes.
* Your programs run just a little too slow, or are a little too large and you think assembly language might help you get your project under control.
* You want to understand how computers actually work.
* You're interested in learning how to write efficient code.
* You want to try something new.

Fast jeder fünfte Versicherte wurde gemahnt und knapp jeder zehnte exekutiert. Das System trifft die Wenigverdiener am härtesten, jetzt formiert sich Widerstand

Let's say you were given a year to kill Hewlett-Packard. Here's how you do it ...

A data repository almost 10 times bigger than any made before is being built by researchers at IBM's Almaden, California, research lab. The 120 petabyte "drive"—that's 120 million gigabytes—is made up of 200,000 conventional hard disk drives working together. The giant data container is expected to store around one trillion files and should provide the space needed to allow more powerful simulations of complex systems, like those used to model weather and climate.

A 120 petabyte drive could hold 24 billion typical five-megabyte MP3 files or comfortably swallow 60 copies of the biggest backup of the Web, the 150 billion pages that make up the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine.

First, an IP address doesn't automatically identify a criminal suspect. It's just a unique address for a device connected to the Internet, much like a street address identifies a building. In most cases, an IP address will identify a router that one or more computers use to connect to the Internet.

But in many situations, an IP address isn't personally identifying at all. When it traces back to a router that connects to many computers at a library, cafe, university, or to an open wireless network, VPN or Tor exit relay used by any number of people, an IP address alone doesn't identify the sender of a specific message. And because of pervasive problems like botnets and malware, suspect IP addresses increasingly turn out to be mere stepping stones for the person actually "using" the computer—a person who is nowhere nearby.

Encrypted email should be the norm, not the once-in-a-lifetime event. We all know that we should use it. Haven't we all been schooled that sending emails is like having a post card plastered to the wall of your local coffee bar? Haven't all the various exploits with stolen credit cards and easily guessed passwords of Sarah Palin's Yahoo account been warning enough? Apparently not.

Douglas Adams obviously knew what makes an IT shop tick. In Life, the Universe, and Everything, he identified the Somebody Else’s Problem (SEP) field, which renders some things not so much invisible as unnoticeable.

IT departments are littered with SEPs because they make the whole tangled mess the average beleaguered IT manager has to deal with more workable. The politically astute sometimes call them “knowledge domains”, or “fields of expertise”, otherwise known as silos.

Remember Places, the Facebook Foursquare clone feature you probably didn't use? I say probably, because Facebook just axed it entirely, BI reports, admitting inevitable defeat in the check-in war. It's about time!

Nun, zunächst ist klar, dass Blog eine Abkürzung von Weblog ist, und darin ist das Wort log enthalten. Die deutsche Entsprechung Log(buch) ist ein Neutrum, und als das Wort (We)blog vor noch nicht allzulanger Zeit ins Deutsche entlehnt wurde, war es deshalb auch ein Neutrum.

Aber woher kommt dieser Trend zum Maskulinum? Nun, die semantisch motivierte Genuswahl, bei der einem Lehnwort das Genus der deutschen Entsprechung (oder des am nächsten verwandten deutschen Wortes) verpasst wird, ist nur eine von zwei Strategien. Die andere ist phonologisch: Das Lehnwort erhält das Genus eines lautlich verwandten Wortes. Das Wort Blog ist nun lautlich identisch mit dem Wort Block, beide werden [blɔk] ausgesprochen. Und Block ist ein Maskulinum. Je stärker die ursprüngliche semantische Verwandschaft zwischen Blog und Logbuch also in Vergessenheit gerät, desto mehr setzt sich die phonologisch motivierte Genuszuweisung durch.

Every time transistors shrink, they get closer to the point where they can shrink no further—for if the law continues on its merry way, transistors will be the size of individual silicon atoms within two decades.

More to the point, they have already shrunk to a size where every atom counts. Too few atoms can cause their insulation to break down, or allow current to leak to places it is not supposed to be because of a phenomenon called quantum tunnelling, in which electrons vanish spontaneously and reappear elsewhere. Too many atoms of the wrong sort, though, can be equally bad, interfering with a transistor’s conductivity. Engineers are therefore endeavouring to redesign transistors yet again, so that Dr Moore’s prediction can remain true a little longer.

The Chinese government may have accidentally revealed how it secretly engages in cyber warfare.

Despite the fact that it denies that it does launch cyber attacks, a somewhat dull piece of military propaganda was screened on television which showed a Chinese military university engaged in cyberwarfare against the United States.

Samsung is claiming that Apple's insistence that Steve Jobs invented the iPad is overturned by science fiction.

According to a new filing, Samsung has opposed the preliminary injunction Apple filed for in early July. It claims that Stanley Kubrick's 1968 flick "2001: A Space Odyssey" and episodes of the British kids show "The Tomorrow People" both have designs similar to the iPad. The 2001 clip looks like it is running Android.

Kojo is a desktop application that runs on Windows, Linux, and the Mac. It is a Learning Environment - with many different features that help with the exploration, learning, and teaching of concepts in the areas of:

* Computer Programming and Critical Thinking.
* Math and Science.
* Art, Music, and Creative Thinking.
* Computer and Internet Literacy.

There is a technique known as the ``Clockwise/Spiral Rule'' which enables any C programmer to parse in their head any C declaration!

Officially known as Java Platform Standard Edition 7, Java SE 7 is the first big release of Java in more than five years and the first under Oracle's stewardship. It offers improvements for running dynamic languages, programming, and file systems.

Carly Fiorina, who swept Compaq under HP's rug, is something of a crystal ball. Having her on your side, some in the industry would argue, is a sure fire sign that there is a wrong decision being made. Giving Apotheker her full backing doesn't bode well.

A play in 4 acts. Please feel free to exit along with the stage character that best represents you. Take intermissions as you see fit. Click on the stage if you have a hard time seeing it. If you get bored, you can jump to the code. Most importantly, enjoy the show!