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A while ago I mentioned a book I was reading called The Laws of Simplicity, by John Maeda. Forgive me if I return to this topic, but it seems too important to ignore. With all the fuss about the products coming from Apple, and the Amazon Kindle, it is time to revisit the topic. I have resisted getting any of these devices, because they do not satisfy what  are very reasonable standards of "simple" design, which we  have a right to demand from those who would supply us with electronic gadgets.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the 1911 formation of the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation through the merger of the International Time Recording Company, the Computing Scale Company and the Tabulating Machine Company.

1.  The venerable Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mt View, CA recently launched a multimedia blog, with contributors from their seasoned staff of curators and subject matter experts.  

CHM Prez John Hollar told me,  "This has been one of the most important initiatives CHM has taken in the area of digital content and distribution.  It is and will continue to be a window into the museum's work by publishing different types of content on a variety of interesting topics."

@CHM is the blog name.  Check it our here:  http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/

By now you must know that I am fond of historic plaques, especially ones that have to do with the District of Columbia or Northern Virginia. Here's another one, from Arlington:The full text reads:

As of this morning, the LHC is shut down again. By now you've probably heard the reason being floated: the LHC is so powerful it reaches into the future. There, some entity recognizes that generating such energies by Earthlings is dangerous, given our level of expertise. So he or she or it travels back in time periodically to shut the machine down.

On October 16th, Rick Rashid, Microsoft Research's first employee and now its Chief Research Officer, engaged in a spirited conversation with NY Times science & technology journalist John Markoff at the Computer History (CHM) museum in Mt View, CA.  The discussion was part of the museum’s “Revolutionaries” series, which is not to be confused with the "Revolutions exhibit."  The  former is a luminary lecture series sponsored by Intel.  The latter is the museum's marque exhibit, which cost millions of dollars to develop and several years to put together.  

The other day, after being asked to contribute as a tutor for freshers, I had a nosey sneak through the faculty freshers' handbook.

Ken Olsen, co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, died Feb. 6. While most millennials would say “who?” those with a little more perspective will remember him as one of the most significant business leaders and entrepreneurs of 20th century computer history.

A couple of weeks ago, Evan Koblentz, president of MARCH, non-profit user group for vintage computer collectors, asked the SIGCIS members' opinion as regards to E.C. Berkeley's paternity of the expression 'Giant Brains'.

Maybe this post ought have come first before my comment on the Three Societies Meeting just up the blog. Still as it was more about me I have preferred leaving it out as second. I hope not being murdered for that.

By now you've all heard about the Microsoft Zune bug that was caused by its software having difficulty dealing with a leap year. On at least one other post I talked about the problems the Gregorian calendar gives computer programmers (actually it was Church officials, which is sort of the same thing).

All three of my kids have I-Pods. One of them has a model that holds 10,000 songs. If each song were, on average, about three minutes long, it would two months to get through them all, if you listened to the gadget for 8 hours a day. What’s the point?

By now you have probably heard that Yahoo! is shutting down its Geocities site. There has been a lot of coverage in the press about this, usually relating to two themes. The first is that it illustrates the worst of the dot.com bubble, as Yahoo!

As part of a search for material for an animation for the local popular science festival, I went back looking out for videos and films usable for computing history. Returning, hopeful, to the on-line prelinger Internet Archive, three videos emerged out, one was On Guard!