Was up Mount Brandon yesterday, Ireland’s second highest mountain, with my friend Maurice. A temperature inversion held the clouds close to the earth, with just the peaks rising above. An island archipelago in a sea of white.
Articles with Computers
Red-tailed hawk • Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash
The Apple PowerBook G4 from 2003 • Photo by David Hepworth on Unsplash
Ignoring the voice, indulging the vice
OK, I’ll admit it. I didn’t need a new laptop.
Statue honoring Charles Darwin at the Natural History Museum, London • Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash
Evolution was, and is, a great notion
What was the greatest scientific idea of all time?
Photo by Slejven Djurakovic on Unsplash
Will evolution leave humanity behind?
History is not the same old same old, nor is it just one darn thing after another. History — cosmic and human — has a direction, and the direction can be quantitatively defined.
Image by Daderot (CC0)
Software, ratware, and catware
The invasion of the roborats! From the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena come reports of the first silicon chips that incorporate living brain cells.
Detail from “Road with Cypress and Star” by Vincent van Gogh
Firing up the time machine
A lifelong sky watcher, I recently had the opportunity to watch the sky on the day of my birth, September 17, 1936, at the place of my birth, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash
Dying for freedom, PINned to the spot
There is a story by D. H. Lawrence about a man who buys an island in order to escape the pandemonium of city life.
The Apple Newton (left) and an Apple iPhone (right) • Photo by Blake Patterson (CC BY 2.0)
Computers learn to get personal
A young Russian student came to my college to study computers. We became friends. When he returned to Russia we exchanged letters.
NASA astronaut repairing the Hubble in December 1993 • NASA (Public Domain)
Too big, too pricey, too late
The Hubble is out of trouble, NASA assures us.
C. Raymo Sr.'s slide rule • Photo by Tom Raymo
The passing of the venerable slide rule
My father’s slide rule. I found it at the back of a bureau drawer during a recent visit to my mother’s home in Tennessee.