The Towers of Utopia

In this 1975 novel Mack Reynolds equipped every resident of Skyler Deme with a "TV Phone" that was also a "Universal Credit Card", and was routinely used to query "the computers" as well as being a RFID-like access card.

I last read this about 20 years ago. Re-reading it now - this is probably the best depiction of a "smart phone" in pre-web science fiction that I can think of.

Just dropping this here for convenient reference.

Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!hydra!klaava!torvalds
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Subject: Re: 386BSD vs Linux: major differences?
Message-ID: <1992Dec20.115036.7197@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Organization: University of Helsinki
References:
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 11:50:36 GMT
Lines: 17

In article davis@csrg2.ee.iastate.edu(Jim Davis) writes:
> But I have wondered
>why there are two efforts to provide a free UNIX...is it just coincidence
>that two groups developed a distribution at about the same time? or did
>they have different goals? or is this a BSD vs. System-V thing?

It's just coincidence: I knew about 386bsd through DDJ, but it obviously
wasn't ready when I would have wanted it, so I just started on my own.
If 386bsd had been ready one year earlier, I'd probably not have started
on linux at all, but used bsd instead - although I'm very happy with how
it all turned out.

As to bsd vs sysv - no, nothing like that. Linux isn't exactly sysv,
but has a lot of features from both camps, and looks a bit more like
sysv simply because POSIX generally leans in that direction.

Linus

A comment found in an old eBook

"1. [ur] 26Aug1990 02:39:58pm [2:44] I'm done! Ha Ha, I'M DONE! hahahahahahahahahah Hooray, I'm done I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. Heheheheheheheheh ha argle gobble gobblelskd adj kjkjoiqu.joij!" -- final Author's Note in the annotated edition of A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge.

First use of "pirates" in the "copyright" sense - 1703

"As to Answers, Banters, True-English Billinsgate, I expect them till no body will buy, and then the Shop will be shut. Had I wrote it for the Gain of the Press, I should have been concern’d at its being Printed again and again, by Pyrates, as they call them, and Paragraph-Men: But would they but do it Justice, and print it True, according to the Copy, they are welcome to sell it for a Penny, if they please." - D. Defoe "The True Born Englishman" (1703)

Yes, I was surprised too.

Thinking about Google+ and the #nymwars...

Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your 'nym,
they don't know you're a her or him.
You wanna be where you're not seen,
'cos everyone looks the same.
You wanna be where nobody knows
your name.

Incredible movies that will never get made...

There is occasionally discussion of a movie version of Ender's Game. I don't think that the novel would work well on the big screen, though it might make a cable TV series.

The short story, however, is a different matter. I think it would make an excellent movie...

...if it was produced by Miyazaki.

Unthink Direct Marketing

If you've been following my Google Plus stream, I've been poking around "Unthink", the new social network that claims that they're "not Facebook".

It seems to me that they're being a whole lot more Facebook than Facebook dares to be. With a dash of OKCupid...

 ...and a pinch of LinkedIn...

...and a big heaping spoonful of direct marketing...

... oh maybe there's a reason for that!