Month: January 2004

Three Finger Salute

Ctrl-Alt-Del Inventor To Retire From IBM (Slashdot)

Dr. David Bradley, leader of the original IBM PC engineering team and creator of the “CTRL-ALT-DEL” interrupt key combo, is retiring from IBM to teach. He didn’t really place much importance to CTRL-ALT-DEL, thinking that only programmers would have any real need to use it. Little did he know that it would become ubiquious (for better or worse) in operating Microsoft products. It’s used for getting out of stuck or “blue screen” situations, logging into a multiple users system, and showing active programs and CPU usage. The technical and historical reasons for the key combo’s versatility are at this web site, but basically it’s the only keypress that can’t be paused or interrupted by something else the computer’s doing (although in practice, I’ve managed some real doozies ).

Snowy day where nothing’s closed after all

NY Times’ Quotation of the day:

“We are about to embark on what is arguably the coolest geologic field trip in history.”
DR. STEVEN W. SQUYRES, the Mars mission’s principal science investigator.

See also corresponding article. I wouldn’t think that the words “cool” and “geologic field trip” would go together, but Mars is a different world, after all.

I was actually watching a little “Smallville” tonight. Could it be – a hint of Batman – is the character making an appearance? (my favorite superhero anyway)….

The NYC snow texture was something like those Dunkin’ Donut white powder doughnut – fluffy and crumbly. On unshoveled sidewalks in Brooklyn this morning, it was ankle deep. Not that bad a commute though. In Manhattan, it’s slushy muck, with the sidewalks looking nothing like it is in Brooklyn.