via one of my students: Chris - Software Bugs - Software Glitches

A nice collection of links to software-related disasters.

Thanks Chris

Today's the last day of teaching in this academic year. The exams start in a week's time. Looks like I'll be busy with coursework assessments until mid-May. The marks from these courseworks count towards the overall result. Then a two-week gap before my students sit the exams for my classes on May 30 and June 6. The exam marks are due in mid-June which doesn't leave a lot of time for me to mark more than 250 exam scripts - approximately 1000 individual exam questions. Which means that the the first two weeks in June are going to be hectic too. I promised myself that I'd tidy out my office too. I have junk in there that's decades old - as anyine who's visited me in my office can attest ;-)

Murphy's Law indicates that all sorts of interesting other things will crop up to coincide with these periods of intense activity. I really must plan my time carefully for the next 6 weeks so that I don't burn-out. Must also give some thought to vacation plans.

Also via Chris - The Register: Storage benchmarkers push the envelope

The preliminary results of the storage industry's first-ever benchmark tests show that suppliers are treating them just like any other benchmark - a contest in which vendors play the rules to the limit in order to squeeze out maximum performance, resulting in a standard benchmark test being completed on a very non-standard spread of hardware configurations...

As Chris points out, this is very germane to the David Patterson "Terabytes >> Teraflops (Or Why Work on Processors When I/O Is Where the Action Is?)" video-tape presentation that I used in the lecture last week.

[UVC (http://www.uvc.com) seem to have been assimilated into the Computer History Museum site but a judicious Google search found it.]

Assorted gaming statistics

This page contains a selection of statistics concerning video games and gaming consoles. References are given where possible; many other statistics are available via searching on systems such as Google. A few statistics are contradictory, but the overall picture is blatantly obvious: games are very popular, and a main part of contemporary culture...

The Register: MS' MIT prof witness gets toasted over KDE, GNOME

Some reports today suggest that Microsoft witness Stuart E Madnick, a computer science professor at MIT, might have made desperate claims in court that KDE and GNOME were operating systems. This, fortunately for the good prof's career, is not true, but he most certainly had a desperate and unsuccessful struggle with States' attorney Kevin Hodges, and it's worth reporting in some detail...

As Jim [hbwt] comments, it's entertaining stuff.

Interesting news - The Register: AMD Licenses 64-bit MIPS architecture. MIPS is my favourite architecture and one which I use in my 1st and 2nd year computer organisation/architecture classes.

Disinfotainment(tm) makes an interesting read at the moment.

via vfth - Brainstorms and Raves, web log, blog, weblog about web design, development, typography, Web, Internet, music, by Shirley Kaiser, SKDesigns, WebsiteTips.com.

Tuesday's Why Do Some Beautiful Fonts in Print Look Horrible on the Web? is particularly good.

Radio Poster Home

Radio Poster is a tool for posting messages to a weblog. Radio Poster currently supports Radio UserLand weblogs (http://radio.userland.com), Movable Type weblogs (http://movabletype.org), and Blogger weblogs (http://blogger.com).

It should also work with Conversant. When I get the time I'll give it a shot.

This is not a new joke but I recently received it by e-mail. I thought I'd share it with you ;-)

I'm not sure of the original source but a Google Search: Administratium: a New Element may dig it up!

Administratium: a New Element

Investigators at a major research institution recently discovered the heaviest element known to science and have tentatively named it Administratium.

Administratium has no protons or electrons, thus having an atomic number of 0. It has, however, 1 neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice neutrons and 111 assistant vice neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange of a meson-like particle called morons. It is also surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since it has no electrons, Administratium is inert. However, it can be detected chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes into contact with.

According to the discoverers, a minute amount of Administratium caused one reaction to take over four days to complete when it would have normally occurred in less than a second.

Administratium has a half-life of approximately three years. It does not decay but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons, vice neutrons and assistant vice neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Administratium's mass will actually increase over time, since with each reorganization some of the morons inevitably become neutrons forming new isotopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Administratium is spontaneously formed whenever moron concentration reaches a certain level. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as the Critical Morass.

I happened to be in Borders bookshop in Glasgow earlier today. I've been on the lookout for the Mac OS X: The Missing Manual for a while and they had one copy just in. I snapped it up on the spot since it's got really good reviews. I'm impressed - every page yields new insights.

via hbwt - Apple's new eMac sports 17-inch screen - Tech News - CNET.com

Aiming to boost its fortunes in the education market, Apple Computer on Monday plans to unveil the eMac, an all-in-one computer similar to the original iMac, but built around a 17-inch flat-screen monitor...

Also, the new Apple PowerBook looks fabulous!

Lots of good stuff in Jesse Shanks' Studio Log: Articles: if you're interested in {Java,Apple}Script for Mac OS X.

Seth has a great explanation of Optimal String Concatenation in UserTalk

UserTalk scripts often need to build large strings from smaller ones, such as when assembling a web page or RSS feed in Conversant, Manila, or even in the old static site engine. In order to optimize this process as much as possible, there are two things the scripter needs to remember: "Avoid copying large strings whenever possible," and "trigger the secret in-place append." [more]...

via hbwt - BBC News | TV AND RADIO | Simpsons creator predicts show's end

The creator of The Simpsons has dropped the first hint that the hit cartoon series may soon be coming to an end.