Whoa there, none of this modern OS stuff. Plan 9 first. Walk before you run!

One of the frequent concerns I remember from my days in physics (where Mathematica was frequently and heavily used) was the question of how scientists could trust the results of the program. To the best of my knowledge, (although I must concede my knowledge is some years out of date) no computer algebra system is currently regarded as being bug free. There is always the question: "how do I know that I got the right answer *this* time?"

While auditing the logic of one of the open source systems (Axiom, Maxima, Reduce, etc.) is at least theoretically possible, in practice the challenge is sufficiently difficult that anyone other than a dedicated specialist is unlikely to tackle it. The problem is compounded in cases like Mathematica and Maple, which are proprietary and closed source - even the theoretical opportunity for an in-depth audit is lacking.

The most promising approaches I have head put forth to address these sorts of problems are to add the ability to generate a “formal proof” transcript (targeting something like ACL2 or COQ) as a byproduct of the standard computer algebra system calculations, which can in turn be verified by a much simpler proof checker (or a very determined human.) What are your thoughts on the question of producing trustworthy answers to complex mathematical problems via computer? Is leveraging formal proof techniques a good way forward, or should we be looking in other directions?

I still use an Ipod Gen5 with RockBox, because a) it works and b) I get to use an open source firmware, which means I don't have to worry about whether $BIG_VENDOR has bothered to support OGG/FLAC/etc files.

Admittedly technology is moving on, but from the standpoint of a device that does one thing and does it well the older Ipods with RockBox do just fine. Why upgrade just for the heck of it?

Heck, i've still got an old iRiver T30 tucked away somewhere that takes AA batteries, which I'm not inclined to get rid of either... small, functional, and does the job.

As computer technology matures, hopefully we'll start to see at least some boutique shops crop up whose goal is to make the IBM Model M keyboard equivalent of things like music players - I'd gladly pay a premium for a device engineered to last 30 years instead of 3.

Weird as it sounds with all the electronic label printers you can get today, there's just something about the old style "punch the label as a 3D letter into tape" approach that I prefer. Especially when the tape punch is a serious tool, not those cheap plastic versions:

http://makezine.com/review/too...

Perfection in engineering... it not only solves the problem of creating the perfect typing experience, it's also tough enough to use as your own personal Hammer of Thor when your office mates storm your cubicle trying to stop the noise.

Let me guess - are you a Cubs fan?

IRC is still used as a major form of (semi) real time collaborative tool in free software development. Freenode remains hard to beat for this purpose, and I don't really see it changing anytime soon. It's not so much a question of not giving it up as seeing no compelling reason to replace a (very nicely) working solution to the problem.

I am intrigued by these statements:

"Within Google we use a custom build system with a custom build file format."

"...at Google there is no distinction between "builds on my machine" and "builds on someone else's machine."

I'd be curious (if you can say much about it in a public forum) how your build system compares to the approachs used by tools such as CMake and Autotools in terms of introspecting into systems to determine what headers, functions, etc. are available. We use CMake and try to detect all of the characteristics we need to know about the host operating system environment at configure time. How does Google's system tackle the problem of cross operating system portability? Say, for example, someone needs to add Haiku to the operating system targets for their project? What is the process?

I still remember the fascination from when I first watched The KGB, the Computer, and Me. It was many years later that I finally read The Cuckoos Egg, and I found that even more enjoyable - a fascinating story, well told. I still have it on my bookshelves today.

I also have one of the Klein bottles - a very nifty product, entertaining and educational at the same time.

Thank you for making such rich contributions to the world.

Thank you for that article - awesome and interesting reading.

Well, we're talking types who think they absolutely need a loaded gun everywhere they might be in the house, including racks by the bed and whatnot. And that their life WILL depend on it any day now, when squads of evil government black muslim communist ninjas will burst into their home to confiscate their bible and replace their medicare with an evil socialized one. And their kids who think that playing cops and robbers with daddy's gun, presumbaly in between eating paint chips and being homeschooled in how many dinosaurs fit on Noah's arc, is a good idea.

I dunno, it certainly is tragic, but their noble sacrifice to improve the species' gene pool will be remembered.

Actually, you probably don't want an appliance powered by a black hole, because those convert matter into energy via Hawking radiation and the energy output actually ramps UP as the size decreases. A very small black hole, say, 1 kg in weight (a little over 2 pounds) would convert itself into energy in about 84 attoseconds and release the same energy as a 21 megaton nuke or so.

You'd need a pretty big one for it to be stable, and I doubt you really want a vacuum cleaner weighing as much as the Everest :p

On the other hand, if we ever tame one, it would make an awesome source of energy for something that needs a lot more energy. Such as a continent. Or a warp-capable ship. Hmm, the Romulans were up to something.

Of course, it would still be a Tamagochi that blows up with the fury of a supernova if you forget to "feed" it, but, hey, it's all good as long as we call it a warp core breach. Right?

Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned Romulan singularity warp cores though... I hear the Tal'Shiar are nastier than the NSA and CIA put together ;)

True story, at some point in the past I had to work on a company's internal application for data entry. Well, it was a lot of data and, as requested by the PHBs, pretty much half the fields were needlessly mandatory. (Which brings us of the fear of working for incompetent people;))

Most of them were pretty much impossible to validate too, because they were stuff like city or street names, and even in telephone numbers people tend to use letters. So the only real restrictions were field lengths and that they're mandatory.

So then comes the request to basically make reports and searches on that data.

And I kid you not, half the records had stuff like "n.a.", "I don't know", "no idea", etc in at least one of those fields.

And these were internal users, not some 6 year old over the internet.

Well, duh, they'll just run an electroplasma manifold between it and the warp core ;)