In the future world when computation and the things which can be constructed from it become freed how does that really change how things work? That’s a future challenge to figure out.
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
“The Internet has had an enormous effect on my work and on my life. I am able to communicate nearly instantly with people all over the world and the access to information [it provides] enables me to find out what I need to know much more rapidly and efficiently than I ever could by going to a library.”
[The Internet] It’s multiplied my productivity by a factor of about five…
Computers are so good at the manipulation of symbols that we are all under pressure to reduce all human knowledge and experience to symbolic form.
I really didn’t foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course - the computer industry didn’t even foresee that the century was going to end.
I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word processor.
IT? I’ve always used IT as a shorthand for “corporate information systems,” or “the stuff that a nerd wouldn’t voluntarily touch with a ten-foot pole”. ‘IT’ means ‘TPS reports.’ ‘IT’ means ‘9-to-5, Monday through Friday.’ I’m surprised that a pair of CS profs would lament the lack of “IT researchers and educators” — isn’t more CS researchers and educators what they want? If we’re to point fingers, it was corporate IT that sucked the ‘thrill’ out of computer science’s reputation among undergrads. (That, or Scott Adams. )If there’s anything truly opposed to the “hacker” philosophy that makes CS thrilling, it’s the reputation of corporate information technology.
Just because you’re a programmer doesn’t mean you have to be the help desk for a dozen friends, relatives, and the people in the apartment next door. Does it?
The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.
There is unexpected beauty hidden everywhere in this world — one just has to be open to seeing it. Remember that the next time you sneeze on your monitor.