Welcome to another edition of TGIF. Here’s hoping that you’ve had some unexpected good things come your way this week, be it chocolate, a visit, or some other good news. At my end it has been one of the busiest weeks I have had in a long long time. Then again I haven’t written a paper for a year so revisiting the experience is a bit of a shock! In other news I hear that that most of you are starting to see the beginning of spring at long last – enjoy.
Without further ado…
Stuff I really liked this week…
Mendeley desktop software
that backs up all my PDFs online too and allows me to connect with people researching the same things
Do’s and don’t with babies – very funny pictures showing new parents how (not) to handle their little sprogs
Home decor for absolute geeks – very cool indeed, waffle keyboards should be standard in every kitchen
The excellent geeky t-shits from Jinx – “I’m only here because my server is down”, classic.
10 weird handbags for the manly man – very very odd.
Facts…
Thomas Watson Jr., speaking to an IBM sales meeting, predicted all moving parts in machines would be replaced by electronics within a decade (1949)
Marvin Minsky developed the Tentacle Arm, which moved like an octopus. It could lift the weight of a person (1968)
Texas Instruments Inc. introduced Speak & Spell, a talking learning aid for ages 7 and up.(1978)
David Packard and Bill Hewlett founded Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto, California garage.(1939)
LISP made its debut as the first computer language designed for writing artificial intelligence programs ((((1960)))))))
Quotes…
Technical skill is mastery of complexity, while creativity is mastery of simplicity.(E.C.Zeeman)
Premature optimization is the root of all evil in programming.(C.A.R Hoare)
The standard definition of AI is that which we don’t understand. (B.Joy)
I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone (Bjarne Stroustrup)
A problem well stated is a problem half solved (C. Kettering)
Tune of the week…
Ghetto Pickney – Mr Vegas (told you we’d have a variety of styles)
Cool video footage of the week…
A big wave surfer on the biggest wave you ever seen…it’s a few years old but still gives me goosebumps.
CJ I just wanted to comment and say that I love your TGIF posts. It’s a nice break when going through all my search related blogs and then come to these posts.
Thank you Mike, much appreciated.