One for the AI Phobic

Here’s one for all the people that think AI is some kind of threat or fad. I’ve heard uninformed and uninspired people say this my whole life about every step of computing. So far the world hasn’t ended and the sky hasn’t fallen in. “But this time is different” – yeah they always said that too.

Literally some people said that libraries moving from physical card based catalogues, in wooden cabinets, to searchable computer based catalogues, would be the end of decent research. Then the personal computer, then the Internet, then search engines. Blah Blah, makes you almost wish computers would hurry up then, and end humanity for real!

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Apple IIc in Film

Apple IIc in the 1984 adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s “2010 – The Year We Make Contact” – Roy Schneider playing Heywood Floyd preparing to go to Jupiter, using an Apple IIc with a portable screen on the beach.

Note computers had neither portable screens, nor batteries in the 80s, and really wouldn’t like damp sand, however it’s a good example of how futuristic they seemed – this was “40 years into the future”. In retrospect it’s rather huge for a portable computer of 2010!

It’s also a great example of how good Steve Jobs was at marketing. It was only Apple’s second commercial model and it got product placement in a major hollywood film!

Also note we haven’t gone to Jupiter ye…
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All The Laws

Computing has certainly created a lot of “laws”. Unlike the laws of physics, remember they are up for debate. I find it annoying that very few people ask “why” regarding Moores Law for example. Just because Moores Law holds true for now, doesn’t mean in a million years it will be true. Gravity will be though.

Whether these things pass scientific scrutiny aside, most of them hold true and are pretty useful. Here they are in one place.

https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws

Nice work Dave Kerr 🙂

Why can’t computers use registers as RAM?

I’ve always asked this, and still need to remind myself why every now and then, so I’m posting this link to save myself the hassle of looking it up again in ten years haha.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3798730/can-we-have-a-computer-with-just-registers-as-memory

Telstra During Lockdown

This is a typical floor at Telstra’s Exhibition Street Headquaters.

Usually it’s hard to find a desk here, the lunchrooms, meeting rooms and lobby are all full, there’s a bit of a wait for one of the twenty lifts and there is a constant stream of people going through the gates. It’s not even this empty in the middle of the night!

There are 45 floors just like this. Instead of thousands of people at “242”, there were like 10 – 20 max, probably the time I most felt alone during lockdown, it was weird because it’s usually a really active, chatty place

Free Space Error – MacOS

May 1st, 2019

Every now and then I’ll move some huge file, a 40GB VM or something and various programs don’t show the space it was in as free.  Confusingly some do.  df -h shows the wrong free space while “About This Mac” is right.

Apparently, this is a TimeMachine problem!

This command fixed it for me as per the article below.

sudo tmutil thinLocalSnapshots / 10000000000 4

Thanks, Digital Trauma: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/323455

IBM Z

z14

The dual frame z14, launched in July 2017, and the single frame z14, launched in April 2018, are based on the z14 chip, a 10-core processor running at 5.2 GHz. A z14 system can have a maximum of 240 Processing Unit (PU) cores, 170 of which can be configured to the customer’s specification to run applications and operating systems, and up to 32 TB usable redundant array of independent memory (RAIM), some of which can be configured as Virtual Flash Memory (VFM). Each PU can be characterized as a Central Processor (CP), Integrated Firmware Processor (IFP), Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processor, Integrated Information Processor (zIIP), Internal Coupling Facility (ICF) processor…
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Home Office, Eastwood