You’ve got to hand it to Rick Astley, the guy has a great sense of humour!
You’ve got to hand it to Rick Astley, the guy has a great sense of humour!
I’ve been reading the reviews of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book Outliers. I’ve read his other books and enjoyed them. They’re light reading and provide some quick and insightful information on a variety of topics I wouldn’t have the time to discover on my own via a literature search. It’s not that I’m not interested in a given area, but life makes me busy and thus I have to focus on work at work and home life at home and the few free hours I might get I typically spend with friends or wandering the local Chapters. Gladwell takes interesting topics — such as the notion of a tipping point — and presents them in an accessible manner. Some bemoan him his ability to get these topics, created by academics, out the door in readable prose. However, to me that’s talent. There’s nothing harder than explaining a complex idea in an accessible manner. It’s why I’ll be picking up a copy of Outlier. I’m sure it’ll explain a lot of different ideas succinctly and provide me with the relevant links to the original science. I can’t see how this is a lose for anyone. I find it a definite win since
I’m quite proud of the folks at the NRC here in Canada. They became the first to capture images of three planets circling a star other than our Sun.
India made it to the moon! Excellent news. Hopefully this will inspire a bit more rivalry in the world. I assume China will be next up to drop something on the moon. I do wonder who’ll be next to actually walk on it?
This story brings back some memories from a few years ago. When we first got a digital camera I wondered about how long these formats would be readable. Today I see so many different card formats for cameras it’s silly. Then I think back to floppy disks and hard disks and all the different formats used for them. I recall my time when I worked at a large telecomm and had to write device drivers to read 8″ floppy disks. Then, we “upgraded” to 5.25″ disks. Obviously, you can’t read the 8″ disks in the 5.25″ drives, so we had to have a bunch of systems lying about with both types of drives. And, the 5.25″ disks didn’t store as much as the 8″ disks. Joy. Yes most of us used floppy disks for backup. I’m sure if I look around the house I’ll find 8″, 5.25″ and 3.5″ floppy disks. Problem is, do I have a drive for any of those? What about all those old tape formats? DAT? Exabyte? 9 track? If I had any of those I’d not have any kind of device to read them. Oh, and ZIP disks. Man. It’s just sad to think about
For those not aware, that building with the big “S” on it is the Bank of Nova Scotia. And we all know what we find at the rainbow’s end!
Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner have done it again with Juggler of Worlds. Although the book is more an amalgamation of various pieces from Niven’s repertoire the tapestry within which those stories are superimposed is most excellent and better fill in the Known Space history many of us have come to know and love. Lerner has done an amazing job in refocusing Niven on Known Space and fans of that universe are the happier for it. I’m hoping they write more books together as I feel there is a lot that remains unwritten in the Known Space Universe.
Recently it was the 20th Anniversary of the Morris Worm. A number of articles have appeared discussing the worm. It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years. But the articles tweaked my memory and I remember quite vividly aspects in and around the release of the worm. And I remember quite well talking to Bob Morris Sr. after his son was arrested on charges pertaining to the worm. When I asked what advice you gave him he said, in his usual dry style: Buy a suit and hire a good lawyer. Many of us figured Bob Jr. would be hung out to dry simply because of who his father was. That was partially true, but since then Morris Jr. has done quite well. Kudos to him.
I tend to love reading history and occasionally I come across a great quote. I’ve been reading about the early US off-and-on of late, mostly due to a fantastic biography of Teddy Roosevelt, and came across this quote of John Adams’: In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a Congress.