Nov 12
Sid Meier is responsible for hours of my life disappearing. No, this has nothing to do with alien abductions. Sid Meier writes games. Moreover Sid is thee author of several games that I have spent many hours on. Among the many games are Railroad Tycoon and Civilization. Civilization is probably the game that I have spent more time playing than any other. It has kept me up until 3am to 4am because I was going to play “just a little more”. I upgraded to Mac OS X years ago, but the only system 9 application that I still run sometimes is Civilization.
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Nov 09
There are bad software bugs and then there are very bad software bugs. Wired has put together a list of 10 bugs of the kind that caused things to blow up or people to die. Among their list:
1982 — Soviet gas pipeline. Operatives working for the Central Intelligence Agency allegedly (.pdf) plant a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased to control the trans-Siberian gas pipeline. The Soviets had obtained the system as part of a wide-ranging effort to covertly purchase or steal sensitive U.S. technology. The CIA reportedly found out about the program and decided to make it backfire with equipment that would pass Soviet inspection and then fail once in operation. The resulting event is reportedly the largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet’s history.
1985-1987 — Therac-25 medical accelerator. A radiation therapy device malfunctions and delivers lethal radiation doses at several medical facilities. Based upon a previous design, the Therac-25 was an “improved” therapy system that could deliver two different kinds of radiation: either a low-power electron beam (beta particles) or X-rays. The Therac-25’s X-rays were generated by smashing high-power electrons into a metal target positioned between the electron gun and the patient. A second “improvement” was the replacement of the older Therac-20’s electromechanical safety interlocks with software control, a decision made because software was perceived to be more reliable.
What engineers didn’t know was that both the 20 and the 25 were built upon an operating system that had been kludged together by a programmer with no formal training. Because of a subtle bug called a “race condition,” a quick-fingered typist could accidentally configure the Therac-25 so the electron beam would fire in high-power mode but with the metal X-ray target out of position. At least five patients die; others are seriously injured.
Here is another list of Software Horor Stories.
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Oct 25
I have heard that Ruby On Rails is an interesting technology for making internet front ends for databases but I would have to say I was still pretty impressed after reading Rolling with Ruby on Rails from the O’Reilly site. I may have to learn yet one more programming language.
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Oct 23
If you are a fan of government conspiracies about big brother watching you then you should read one of the recent posts on John Dvorak’s blog
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a consumer privacy and digital rights organization, alleged Tuesday that there are codes embedded in printouts made by some color laser printers that can be used to track the origin of a printed document.
The codes are ostensibly a part of anti-counterfeiting measures developed by government agencies to curb the creation of fake currency but could have serious implications for consumer privacy, according to privacy advocates.
A research team led by the EFF said that it has broken the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document.
“We’ve found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer,” said Seth David Schoen, staff technologist at EFF.
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Oct 18
I was interested to see that WallMart is selling “the first pentop computer”. I would be curious if anyone has tried this device. The idea is that you can draw a calculator, write a problem and it will detect what you wrote and calculate the answer. The Walmart link says:
- Built-in optical sensor reads and remembers whatever you write on special FLY Paper
- Internal computer figures math problems, remembers dates, records notes and much more
- Create music by drawing an instrument and using FLY to “play” it
- Growing library of FLYware games and educational software provides endless interactive fun
The name is interesting because back in 1991 I worked for Momenta which launched the M1 computer which sued handwriting recognition and was also dubbed a “pentop”.
Popularity: 2% [?]
