In the comments of a review of a book about Turing… I guess it’s probably fitting that so many computers have been used to tell strangers “Haha u r so gay”.

After reading a biography of Einstein, I became convinced that Einstein was not an atheist but a deist. He was offended when atheists claimed him as one of their own. But I am offended on Einstein’s behalf when religious people … Continue reading →

Just read Alan Kay’s Early History of Smalltalk. It was timely for me because Brian Marick’s mention of the New Math put me in auto-rant mode on how schools optimize for students who are unlikely to excel in the subjects … Continue reading →

I think I blogged before about how I am going to have a wall of heroes ifnwhen I get my own study ifnwhen we get our nice house. I started planning this about twenty years ago. I am gonna have … Continue reading →

When I said that Crick was a flawed, flamboyant genius, I was guessing really. Pretty good guess, it turns out, as Matt Ridley’s fascinating mini-biography makes vividly clear. Let’s get the flaws out of the way first. What I had … Continue reading →

The NY Times reviewed Matt Ridley’s biography of Francis Crick today. He is an interesting character. Crick refused to meet the queen when she visited Cambridge’s new Laboratory of Molecular Biology because he disapproved of royalty, and he declined a … Continue reading →

A couple of years of ago, Beckham left ManU for Real Madrid and, a few days later someone new showed up wearing the No7 shirt. “Who is that?”, I wondered. Within about 3 minutes, I said “I think we got … Continue reading →