Technology
From crispyneurons
Technology, specifically software, has long been a compelling interest for me. My main platform interests are operating systems of the Unix heritage, such as Linux and Mac OS X. My software engineering specialty is the Java programming language.
Linux mostly follows the System V style of Unix. It is provided by all sorts of people and runs on just about anything that has a chip. I use the Fedora distro, which benefits from excellent community support via Fedora Forum. Linux Today is a useful, if tacky, source of Linux news. Slashdot is important discussion pit for new technology, especially if it's open source. In many ways, Digg is better; both have idiotic user comments. Unix people have to choose between emacs and vi; I've made my choice. Another useful tool, Whois Source, tells you all about domains.
Linux is open source, and open source software is generally more attractive to me than closed software. Proprietary software is routinely burdened with 'features' that benefit only the makers, not the users. They tend to be buggier, less secure, and more hidebound than their open equivalents. (See my paper on the open model if you want to understand why this is so.) Not to mention, closed software costs a whole lot more to legally obtain. Mozilla's Firefox is the cross-platform, open-source browser of choice, and MozillaZine has news about all the Mozilla-based projects. NetCraft gives you an idea of what software runs the Web.
MacOS X is part of the BSD lineage of Unix. Apple provides OS X and the hardware that runs it. OS X is basically a port of NEXTSTEP to the Macintosh hardware architecture, combined with services that provide backward compatibility to the original MacOS platform. Stepwise remembers this. Rumor sites such as MacRumors and ThinkSecret feed the fanatic Mac urge to know what's around the corner. MacSlash functions as a forum to share news about OS X. Wired has always had a soft spot for Macs, and it shows in their reporting. MIT Technology Review keeps an eye on all emerging technologies.
Java is a programming language and a platform. The official Java site gives you a starting point to all the key APIs with a heavy dose of annoying Sun marketing. The Java Programmer's FAQ answers some common questions about programming in Java. I wrote a diatribe against the Java keyword 'final'. Freenet is a highly secure Java-based peer-to-peer information sharing system.
Artificial life, cellular automata, fractals, and other simple systems with unbelievably complex behavior intrigue me. Some think that these sort of systems model nature very capably. Others have speculated that nature literally is a system like these.
The history of computing, not counting crude precursors such as the abacus, is extremely brief: barely fifty years. (Also not counting Charles Babbage, the 19th century inventor of the Analytical Engine.) The computer (which I define as 'a machine that processes symbols') is one of the gifts of World War II. Alan Turing is key here. He proposed a special test for machine intelligence. Yet AOLiza shows that humans can lose the Turing test. The paper As We May Think presents Vannevar Bush's 1945 vision of the 'memex,' one of the earliest descriptions of the machine we now call a computer. The Baby is one of the world's first programmable computers. Things have really changed since those days; now, the most complicated machine ever created is a computer.
Richard Feynman makes the case for miniaturization and nanotechnology in the 1959 paper There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. Hardware obsolescence is a big problem, and VAXbar is one answer. These days, sites like CNet NEWS.COM provide news about computer technology.
