🚀 go-pugleaf

On 2018-08-03, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>
> David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> writes:
>
>> On 30/07/2018 23:25, Quadibloc wrote:
>>
>>> I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
>>> - Attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Sr.), but likely spurious
>> 
>> That was supposed to be in 1943 when no one had built a computer that 
>> stored its program in RAM.
>
> I love the scene in Cryptonomicon, circa 1944, in which Lawrence
> Waterhouse is contemplating the problem of "bury" & "disinter" while
> playing the great organ in the Qwlgmian church, all stops out and the
> air full of dust from decades-disused pipes, envisions mercury tube
> [1] RAM [2] in much the same way as Tesla claimed to have imagined the
> alternating current motor, tears out of the church barefoot in
> mid-arpeggio, love and lust forgotten in his wild enthusiasm to build
> it *now*.
>
> Totally hilarious.  I can ony imagine that kind of brilliance and envy
> it.
>
> [1] Someone will surely correct my choice of technical terms. Y'all
>     are career hackers; I'm just a blacksmith with pretentions to
>     technology. 
>
> [2] Or SAM.  See [1].
>  
>

I also love Stephenson. He seems to have access to a lot of info
that is not easily found.

There was a story once about someone who time-travelled to Iceland
of the Middle ages. The locals, when he arrived, tried to find something
useful he could do, including smithing. They had come to the conclusion
that he was so useless  at anything, they decided to castrate him to stop
the breed from multiplying, at which time, the hero discovered the way of
 returning to the present.


-- 
Ma...@ireland.com
Will Rant For Food