Tom Jennings

The Last Martian

Thu, 09/11/2003 - 12:05 — deadprogrammer

Dr. Ede Teller is dead.

Just a few days ago I was reading an article in the Bulletin which badmouthed Teller and praised Ulam as the true inventor of the Big One. I hope the author feels bad now.

Tom Jennings, the inventor of Fidonet, drew this great portrait of Dr. Teller.

"He is rendered here in materials befitting his life; water color on lead; ground electron tubes frame and pockmark his face, the whole embalmed in layers and layers of yellowing shellac. The materials used should last 10,000 years, hopefully longer than his effects. "

Avoiding the cliché of mentioning Dr. Strangelove, Jennings compared him to Dr. William Haber of "Lathe of Heaven" and Thufir Hawat of "Dune".

I always liked both of these characters, and thought that I would have tried to do what they did in their position. Even if the odds are bad and your actions might make the situation even worse, something needs to be done.

Now, may I point your attention to an article by "Democrats = mediocrity; Republicans = lottery ticket". It seems to me that Democrats favor a tactic used by Pirx the Pilot in "Pilot Pirx Tested " - inaction for the fear that all actions will only make the matters worse. They always assume that it's a Zugzwang.

Oooh, I want this poster.
.

My Money and My Sanity Went To Miskatonic University

Tue, 05/13/2003 - 11:18 — deadprogrammer

Visited good old Miskatonic U (also known as Brooklyn College) today. I needed to beg for a stupid requirement waiver. I hate organized education.

Some professor at the CS department threw out a bunch of old computer books from the departmental library. I picked up some, among them "System/360-370 Assembler Language (DOS)" by Kevin McQuillen. Among other coolness, every chapter in the book was illuminated by a photograph of a programmer or a group of programmers.

See, in 1978 programmers always looked cool.

Even just repairing perforated tape, Tom Jennings' favorite medium.

Or sitting at a terminal and not even looking at the blinkenlights.

I Am the Lowest of the Low

Tue, 01/21/2003 - 01:55 — deadprogrammer

I am a fanboy. There are these people on the Internet whose web pages I stalk. I don't stalk the people themselves, of course. Otherwise I would have been a raging fanboy. And I am not. And never will be. I just read most of the stuff that these people write. And learn things from them.

Here's the list (in alphabetical order):

Philip Greenspun
site: http://philip.greenspun.com/
for : for creating an amazing company and for clarity of thinking

Tom Jennings
site: http://www.wps.com
for: his amazing art

Tema Lebedev
site: http://www.design.ru http://www.tema.ru
reason : for creating an amazing company and for clarity of thinking

Dan Maynes-Aminzade
site: http://www.monzy.com http://www.monzy.org
reason: being funny

Jesse Reclaw
site: http://www.slowwave.com
reson: for his amazing dream comics

Joel Spolsky
site: http://www.joelonsoftware.com
reason : for creating an amazing company and for clarity of thinking

Matthias Wandel
site: http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/index.html
reason : for the gadgets that he made

John C Wright, Esq
site: http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/index.html
reason : for proving that there are still good science fiction authors around

Jamie Zawinski
site: http://www.jwz.org
reason: for brilliant use of hypertext


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What's All this Then?

My name is Michael Krakovskiy, and this is my blog.

Here's what you might find interesting:
100 Views of the Empire State Building project: I try to take 100 interesting photos of Manhattan's (sadly) tallest building.

My Gastronomic Adventures: I eat weird food - from 13 year old New Coke to Durian and parasitic fungi.

My attempts to grow exotic plants: pineapples, coconuts, etc.

My photos, mostly of New York City.

My musings about architecture mostly illustrated with my own photos. Would you like to learn about a mental patient who died at 103 who served as a model for some very famous sculptures? How about Brooklyn's ugliest building? How about a wooden skyscraper?

I find myself frequently writing about logos. The most popular article I ever wrote is about the redesigns of the Starbucks logo.

I wrote a series of "Best Sci-Fi You Haven't Read" posts:

Psywarrior
Yes, Virginia There Is Synergy
Call Time Police - We've Got a Time Traveler

Other topics that interest me include NYPD, New York City subway system, Japan, and things made out of titanium. On top of all of that, I seem to be interested in pigeions and Rupert Murdoch.

Dear reader, please browse around. You are sure to find something interesting. I could really use some help in bringing in readership: subscribe to the rss feed, digg the stories (there's a convenient button at the bottom of every article), link to my blog from yours, write some comments. I put in a lot of effort into writing, and I really appreciate your attention.

If you don't want all this pseudo-intellectual bullshit and want some lolcats? Please don't go away. Here, I have that stuff too. Here, here's another. And another. And another. I lied about not posting cat pictures.

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