Did tonight's PBS NOVA Sputnik show have a glaring tech error?

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 16:21:23 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Greg D.
Moore \(Strider\)" made the phosphor
on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

"OM" wrote in message
. ..
On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:29:21 GMT, David Spain
wrote:

The Val Halen Belts? Is that where the XM-Rock or XM-Roll Satellite
orbits?

...Both, actuall :-)

I wish Henry were back, he'd at least give us a rim-shot off the
snare drum!

...Last Pat and I heard from Henry, he was still having time
constraint problems that were keeping him from getting his server up
and running. I'm halfway tempted to call for someone to donate a
pre-assembled box for him, but considering that Henry *created* half
of Unix and Usenet, that would be akin to giving Jack Daniels a
distiller.

I'm tempted to be mean and give him an old Windows box I have. ;-)

It wouldn't stay a Windows box for long.

Yeah, but unlike his current hardware.. it works ;-)




--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:21:26 -0500, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

I'm tempted to be mean and give him an old Windows box I have. ;-)

It wouldn't stay a Windows box for long.

Yeah, but unlike his current hardware.. it works ;-)

....Agreed. The odd thing is that I've got an old 700MHz Dell box I'd
give him if I could simply just drop it off on his doorstep. I'd even
toss in a pair of 40GB HD's, although he'd have to accept Seagate
drives, which means he'll be back where he started in about a year
considering their failure rate.

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [
]=====================================[

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
...Last Pat and I heard from Henry, he was still having time
constraint problems that were keeping him from getting his server up
and running. I'm halfway tempted to call for someone to donate a
pre-assembled box for him, but considering that Henry *created* half
of Unix and Usenet, that would be akin to giving Jack Daniels a
distiller.


I'm tempted to be mean and give him an old Windows box I have. ;-)


What? And take away from him the fun of replacing the vacuum tubes on
his ENIAC when they went bad?
Here, a young Henry Spencer gets ready to contact a proto-newsgroup via
a keyboard and Morse translator:
http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2001...e/mau0-1a.jpeg
Mind you, keyboards were a bit larger back then....
A few months back, I was talking to a younger friend who knows a _lot_
about computers, and indeed writes code for programs, and sets up
websites...I mentioned the old memory frames with the ferrite donuts on
the intermeshed wires that replaced tape-driven memories and computer
cards.
He didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He'd never heard of such
a thing:
http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2001...e/1951core.jpg
Which reminded me of the story of the young girl in the CD shop actually
going to the tiny vinyl LP section of the store in the late 1980's and
stating: "Look! I didn't know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings!".
(later, retro-computer fans learned how to buy these cheap, manufacture
suits of chainmail armor out of the donuts, and wear them to meetings of
"The Society For Creative Computive Anachronism". Known as "Knights of
the Kilobyte", each member was rated by how many total K his or her
armor had in memory. Mind you, occasionally two would get stuck
together, but that merely showed that opposites attract). ;-)

Pat

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
I'm tempted to be mean and give him an old Windows box I have. ;-)

It wouldn't stay a Windows box for long.


Yeah, but unlike his current hardware.. it works ;-)


Seriously...with today's nanotechnology and single molecular assembly of
things....just how small _could_ you make a magnetic ferrite ring memory?
We know you can make a toilet a virus would have a very hard time
balancing on:
http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images...est-toilet.jpg

Pat

OM wrote:
:
:... but considering that Henry *created* half
f Unix ...
:

I think you're a little confused. Regex is hardly "half of Unix".

:
:... and Usenet, ...
:

But is anyone but Henry still running C News? :-)


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"OM" wrote in message
...Last Pat and I heard from Henry..........

Yeah, right, like he would even choose to talk to you potty mouthed
lowlifes. He has more class in his little finger than you've had in
your entire life.

Take your name-dropping somewhere else.

Nothing to see here kids, move along.

Justa Lurker wrote:
"OM" wrote in message
...Last Pat and I heard from Henry..........

Yeah, right, like he would even choose to talk to you potty mouthed
lowlifes. He has more class in his little finger than you've had in
your entire life.

I beg your pardon! I am not potty mouthed!
You know what that makes you, don't you?
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
So go to the killfile, you...you...BOOGER! :-)

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


Mind you, keyboards were a bit larger back then.... A few months back, I
was talking to a younger friend who knows a _lot_ about computers, and
indeed writes code for programs, and sets up websites...I mentioned the
old memory frames with the ferrite donuts on the intermeshed wires that
replaced tape-driven memories and computer cards.
He didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He'd never heard of such a
thing:
http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2001...e/1951core.jpg


Give him this story.

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html

--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Give him this story.

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html


Thanks! I will forward that to him. :-)

Pat

On Nov 24, 10:33 pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
OM wrote:

:
:... but considering that Henry *created* half
f Unix ...
:

I think you're a little confused. Regex is hardly "half of Unix".

Yes, sort of minimizes Thomson's and Ritchie's contribution to Unix.


:
:... and Usenet, ...
:

But is anyone but Henry still running C News? :-)

Probably. C'mon, his 10 Commandments for C Programmers is still
classic.
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/The10.html


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson