Since I came across it in its very early days, for nearly three decades the fourmilab.ch site has been the one constant in my weblife. Treasure trove of projects and ideas and book suggestions. Eclectic is the word which pops up in my head right now and insists on being used.
Had a few email exchanges with the man himself. On randomness, on English grammar, on Swedish adventures in The Thirty Years' War, on certain politics (where we didn't necessarily see eye to eye but where there was plenty of room for civilised discussion). Unfailingly polite, informative, entertaining, and of course with cognitive ressources most of us can only dream of.
John Walker, thanks for all the effort and the inspiration. I shall miss your presence.
So what? This crazy thing runs fine, albeit slowly, on my 12 year old ThinkPad. It's actually digesting an image of an anteater while I write this. Because of course it plays nicely and doesn't hog the hardware.
> A German general decorating with the Iron Cross some soldiers of the Expeditionary Force and two soldiers of the SS, in Denmark, April 1940
Norwegian writing on Norwegian houses in Norwegian town with Norwegian trees in background. So a slight Gell-Mann effect creeps in, although the general outline of Bohr's escape seems well enough aligned with the facts as known.
Ha, I remember that news item, although from the other end of the world, and not really sure where I read it. The gist was that the first email had been sent to Australia, and I do distinctly remember that Melbourne was the endpoint.
If, at some point in the future, we get small, handy, cheap, good quality cameras that people make a habit of always carrying around, then surely the nature of these phenomena will easily be determined.
More so. Mid-nineties web static images were either jpg og gif. Preferably gifs, which mostly compressed way better for anything but photos. With proper indexing, color limitation, dithering, bitcount, and vigilant observance of proper websafe color palette you could shave amazing extra kilobytes off precious bandwith. Animations were for Geocities.
That was my thought, too. Day to day, my phone alarm is fine (and I damn well tested it thoroughly before actually relying on it), but if anything life-and-death is scheduled, I'll use at least one independent extra device. And all this even though I always wake up on time and never am late.
Likewise, the phone call problem has an easy solution: Assign different sounds to different callers; low and unobtrusive to the unwanted ones.
And the delivery: Never trust such a thing without sufficient fallbacks. If you want safety and full control, organise the thing yourself.
All in all, I get a vibe that the poster may be a wonderful coder, but really hasn't got the paranoid mindset required for mission critical work.
Had a few email exchanges with the man himself. On randomness, on English grammar, on Swedish adventures in The Thirty Years' War, on certain politics (where we didn't necessarily see eye to eye but where there was plenty of room for civilised discussion). Unfailingly polite, informative, entertaining, and of course with cognitive ressources most of us can only dream of.
John Walker, thanks for all the effort and the inspiration. I shall miss your presence.