5 ms·

Adams' thoughts on computers and technology are gold. He was also the first person in the UK to buy an Apple Mac, Stephen Fry being a close second. "I didn't r

Adams' thoughts on computers and technology are gold. He was also the first person in the UK to buy an Apple Mac, Stephen Fry being a close second. "I didn't really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course – the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end." "First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realised it's a brochure." "A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of it about." "I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things." "I am rarely happier than when spending entire day programming my computer to perform automatically a task that it would otherwise take me a good ten seconds to do by hand."

woopwoop 7y ago
From Dirk Gently: “What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn’t that true?”
- rcarmo 7y ago
  I keep waiting for someone to implement Anthem as an Excel plugin.
throwaway_law 7y ago
>2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. What's scary is my mind continues to change the word "career" to "cancer" here, and it seems equally true
flyinghamster 7y ago
> "I didn't really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course – the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end." LOOOOOOL! My high school CS teacher, in 1982, was warning the class about the Year 2000 problem even then. The school had a PDP-11/34 running RSTS/E 7.0, quite the setup for its day. Back about 2005, when I discovered SIMH, I set up a RSTS/E 7.0 system to revisit old times. I broke out laughing when I found out that 7.0 was not at all Y2K-compliant! It wouldn't even boot if I tried to set the year to 05.
- celticninja 7y ago
  Not sure we need the "LOOOOL"

woopwoop 7y ago

From Dirk Gently: “What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn’t that true?”

rcarmo 7y ago
I keep waiting for someone to implement Anthem as an Excel plugin.

throwaway_law 7y ago

>2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. What's scary is my mind continues to change the word "career" to "cancer" here, and it seems equally true

flyinghamster 7y ago

> "I didn't really didn't foresee the Internet. But then, neither did the computer industry. Not that that tells us very much of course – the computer industry didn't even foresee that the century was going to end." LOOOOOOL! My high school CS teacher, in 1982, was warning the class about the Year 2000 problem even then. The school had a PDP-11/34 running RSTS/E 7.0, quite the setup for its day. Back about 2005, when I discovered SIMH, I set up a RSTS/E 7.0 system to revisit old times. I broke out laughing when I found out that 7.0 was not at all Y2K-compliant! It wouldn't even boot if I tried to set the year to 05.

celticninja 7y ago
Not sure we need the "LOOOOL"