Posts by Juan Llodra

Suprise at spelling snafu sanctions

I'm no teacher...

...but would it not make sense to focus a little on the tricky aspects of our wonderful language during kid's early years in school? Just getting homonyms and apostrophes right will take care of half the mistakes. Reading books across a wide range of subjects, learning to infer what others are implying and standing by one's principal principles are all part of what I reckon could be done in one academic year to improve a student's lifetime English.

Sh*t. I forgot, alright? The little scrotes have to be in school to begin with. My mistake...

Paris because I bet she'll have her speech carefully proofread when she addresses the nation as the next US President. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/06/paris_runs/

Alan Sugar leaves Amstrad

PCW & PCs

Folks,

Sir Alan was responsible for the real start in personal computing at home and work in the UK. Apple, CBM, etc. were popular with enthusiasts but when vicars, plumbers and wannabe authors could walk into Dixons, hand over £458.85 (VAT @ 15% then) and walk out with *one* box containing all they needed to discover the wonders of purposeful PC use, it was time to pay attention. Using 3" disks, which were cheap and rugged and CPM, leading to a great number of third party applications, made many people's lives better. Oh, as a salesman flogging this kit at the time, I can vouch for its reliability, too.

If that wasn't enough, he did it again with his first proper PCs. What spoiled their success was Seagate's sh**ty hard disks, which need parking if you as much as coughed within a foot of the base unit or you risked shredding the platters. Amstrad eventually got several £M compensation but it was too late by then.

As for all those picking on his flops, consider this dodgy - very dodgy - analogy:

Edison failed many times before coming up with a working lamp. Alan's hit to flop ratio is slightly better. (Told you it was dodgy.)

http://ezinearticles.com/?Thousands-of-Failures,-but-Thousands-of-Patents&id=20906 (out of respect for an infinitely greater achievement)

Paris because her keyboard must be clogged with lost false nails...

Babbage's Difference Engine hits Silicon Valley

"On the shoulders of Giants" and great Architects.

Newton aside, I recall reading about Gaudi making similar observations about his Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. He reckoned there could be over one hundred years of additional work beyond his time, by many different architects, before his original idea was completed. He allowed for this, opening up his plans and inviting new contributions. Charles Babbage and Antoni Gaudi would have become good mates... (Only included their surnames as a concession to the less educated and Google unaware masses.)

Paris because she will half-smile whatever you say to her and she'd never question this thread, right? Right?...