Prof. Bell

I read Professor Bell's article (cited above) until he started to rhapsodise about "forgotten treasures tucked amid the pages". University staff have to justify their comfortable positions. Reading a PDF is not so very different from reading a book, in my experience. Books have survived the onslaught of television and they will continue alongside the various types of ireader. Maybe this is not always a good thing: I'm not sure that time wasted on CSI New York (or Silent Witness) is better spent on the works, for example, of Stieg Larsson. (I once visited Reading Reading Centre.)

@Qneiform

The Lord Cthulhu is displeased: he does not have a nose to blow. Check your insurance policy is valid NOW.

@Bload

Thanks, Bload. As an agnostic, I admit I have occasionally wondered where all this stuff came from - and why. So that was it! It came from two fundamentalist fermions having a split-up. Whew, that's that then. Still, can't help wondering why they bothered. I guess they couldn't have stayed together for the sake of the kids. Just thinking of the whole affair drains me of all my dark energy.

I enjoyed

Andromeda Strain, Westworld, Jurassic Park, 13th Warrior (be quiet, Omar). Thanks, Michael.

@Simon Ward

Simon Ward, PhD in combustion processes says: "if you do manage to destroy the entire universe then I for one won't miss it much".

Scientists - what's not to love?

@A W Rateliff

I agree that Cobol has its attractions: close to natural language, no recursion etc. (thank you, Jim Inglis, Birkbeck '91) but I really want to add part of your comment to my collection of English "howlers": "It is a robust and sturdy language, point obvious by the shear (sic) number of applications which still run today". Thanks.

Earliest copywrite infringement?

http://netmedia.co.uk/history/week-11/

wannabe Canutes

This page doesn't seem to lack "wannabe Canutes", if you drop a couple of letters. (And he was actually also called Cnut and even Knut.)

I remember RM

The Inner London Education Authority (RIP) supported RM when most educational authorities used Acorn (BBC and, later, Archimedes). Macs were for those who had money to burn. I had a C64. The Nimbus used the Intel 80186 chip, which was, I heard, intended as a maths co-processor. The Nimbus had superior graphics to most (all?) fully IBM-compatible PCs at the time. Using an emulator, it could run many DOS and (early) Windows programs like Turbo Pascal, Quattro and Aldus Pagemaker.

Some schools stopped buying from RM because their prices were high (£40 for a mouse) but the firm survived despite competition from dozens of cheaper suppliers. This was probably because they provided schools with systems that were easy to administer, though expensive. Meanwhile, it has not been a pretty sight to watch Commodore, Acorn, Evesham, Escom, etc. go to the wall.

More recently, they had the contract for the aborted Government plan to test all Year 9 pupils online in IT (or ICT, as they call it). This was scheduled to happen this year but proved an expensive shot-in-the-foot.

@ Steve Rochford: I have a feeling you remember all this better than I.

Re Ms Access

If there is anyone out there who feels they can, without using Ms Access, successfully teach the A2 Edexcel ICT unit that is assessed by means of a ten-hour practical exam based on developing a database application, I would like to hear from them.

Physicists

Robert Oppenheimer:

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed... A few people cried... Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form, and says, "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."

(July 16, 1945)

@PJ Isserlis

Thanks for an excellent posting; wish I could put it so well.

Re "language Nazis": can it be so very wrong to use piano wire on those who use "disinterested" when they mean "uninterested"?

correction

Make that "aviation history".

Software

Current issue of Private Eye raises issues about the "132,000 lines of software code, unprecedented in software history".

I think I had a scarf as well.

@oldfogey

I used to read - and enjoy - SF by James Blish and Frd Pohl. Not L. Ron's rubbish, though.

M$ Office Rules!

When I was an IT teacher (recently retired) I found that M$ Office was required by A-level exam. boards. For example, students might be asked to customise Word menus, create macros or use VBA in Excel, or use related tables, forms and menus in Access. I don't think Open Office would have been up to it. Also, Media Studies (and perhaps IT) need to edit video using some fairly user-friendly software like Pinnacle Studio (some prefer to go Apple). Those requirements would make an open-source solution unfeasible, I think, in such situations.

TOS

TOS retains its power; Voyager tried to emulate it - and it had Seven of Nine! Picard and Data could not save NG from it's verbosity and touchy-feeliness.

After TOS, I'd rate the original Outer Limits, Lexx and Red Dwarf.

Shatner inhabits Mt Olympus. His enemies will be crushed and put to flight like the cattle they are.

@ PT

Isn't The Scorpion King in the frame for that one?

@ matthew smith

The Barbarians as promoters of science and free-thinking humanism - now why didn't I see that before?

@matthew smith

"Well, maybe it's because Christianity is widely considered to be responsible for the Dark Ages in the first place."

Barbarian invasions, old boy, leading to fall of Rome - didn't help?

@michael

Well, Mike, whatever you believe/don't believe in seems to have influenced you into being a really nice person...

Re Copyright for dummies

In the paragraph re Leo and Mike: would it not be stupid to pay a large sum for a work of art and not obtain the right to make copies? The analogy with a film would be where you buy the actual film and all rights to it.

I think nearly everyone knows that when you buy a DVD, you are just getting some kind of licence to view it - and even that is restricted to private viewing (in one part of the world!). Despite this, I have noticed some advertisements telling us: "Own it now on DVD".

Use of the words "steal" and "theft" is inappropriate here because they normally describe an action that deprives an owner of his property, not just a copy of it.

US law appears to favour money-makers: the length of time after which copyright for books expires was lenghtened in the US - so you can find works in Australa's Project Gutenberg that would be "theft" in the US.

Logic?

Sensing some hostility here: time to move on?

Not a contradiction: they voted against the Governments's proposal - not one of their own. Comprehension level: 2?

Most school networks have Youtube, Myspace etc. etc. filtered out.

Wifi and scrambled brains? Hm, judging by these comments...