Tag Archives: Tech

Asynchronous Communication

Posted on 2019-10-21 by jcs

Amir Salihefendic of Doist notes that study after study have shown that remote workers are more productive and asks why that is. One thing that everyone cites is the time saved on commuting and to a lessor extent the lack … Continue reading →

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A Talk With Brian Kernighan

Posted on 2019-10-18 by jcs

Back in March, John Mashey interviewed Brian Kernighan at Princeton about his career and technical work. It’s a wonderful video that covers his career from his undergraduage years to his current position as a professor at Princeton. We’ve heard some … Continue reading →

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The Many Functions of a Smartphone

Posted on 2019-10-16 by jcs

Remember back in the original Star Trek series how Spock carried around a tricorder? I always wanted one of those. Now, of course, I have something even better: my iPhone. Smartphones are general purpose devices that perform many functions, certainly … Continue reading →

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Toasters, New and Old

Posted on 2019-10-12 by jcs

About a year ago, ESR wrote a post on consumer grade toasters and how, regardless of price, they are all essentially the same, suffer from identical problems, and are basically junk. It’s hard not to sympathize. Here at Irreal headquarters … Continue reading →

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Ken Thompson’s Password

Posted on 2019-10-10 by jcs

Many years ago, (the old) SCO released the source for some “ancient” versions of Unix. They did that by releasing a tape dump of the file system. Included in the image was a copy of the password file. The file … Continue reading →

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Obsolete Tech That Refuses to Die

Posted on 2019-10-07 by jcs

In my The Times They Are A-changin’ post, I passed on the news that the last pager service in Japan was quitting operations. The BBC picked up the same news and decided to look at obsolete technology that is refusing … Continue reading →

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More on the 737 MAX

Posted on 2019-10-06 by jcs

In my What Happened at Boeing? post, I recounted some of the disturbing tales told by Matt Stoller of how a dysfunctional management team of Boeing succeeded in taking what was arguably the world’s foremost aircraft design and manufacturing company … Continue reading →

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Uses This Interview with Chris Wellons

Posted on 2019-10-04 by jcs

Uses This has an interview with Chris Wellons. I’ve written about Wellons many many times and consider him an outstanding engineer. I especially liked his post on Mutable String and Emacs Buffer Passing Style, which explains a method of dealing … Continue reading →

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The Times They Are A-changin’

Posted on 2019-10-02 by jcs

Except for you young guys for whom they’re pretty much the same: “Japan’s sole pager provider will end its services Tuesday, with the device, first introduced in the country half a century ago, made redundant by mobile phones.” (Are we … Continue reading →

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Dark Mode

Posted on 2019-09-30 by jcs

Back in June, I wrote about the light-mode/dark-mode controversy and the article by Adam Engst claiming—and citing substantiating research—that all the claims of dark mode’s superiority are nonsense and, in fact, the opposite of the truth. In particular, dark mode … Continue reading →

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