Peter J Denning on Locality of Reference

There's usually at least one cool thing in CACM. This month it is this wonderful history of Locality of reference in computing.

What Creation Records band am I?

No cheating, this was my first result. You Are...My Bloody Valentine. You tend to be a bit distant and reclusive. You are a leader as opposed to being a follower. You are a perfectionist and pay very close attention to detail. You have the tendency to be lazy, which sometimes get's in the way of you achieving whatever it is you may be trying to perfect. You don't really care about what's typically looked upon as the norm. You really don't care about what people think about you at all, or at least so you try and make it seem. You care most about just being yourself. what Creation Records band are you? (complete with text and images) brought to you by Quizilla

Peets

I don't drink coffee much nowadays, but Peets is cool

Poor Freddy Adu

In this week's New Yorker there's an article by Ben McGrath on teen-age soccer prodigy Freddy Adu.

[Adu and friends] play FIFA soccer, which presents the odd existential challenge for Adu of playing a game in which he is an official character. “The first time I was like, ‘Wow, this is unbelievable’ – and you’re a little biased too, because every time you get the ball you try to give it to yourself, try to score every goal” he said. (Adu objects to the way he was rated by the game’s designers, however: “I’m faster than they said I am.”) Nick Scrivens [a friend] described one game in which Freddy opted to control England’s national team and Scrivens chose D.C. United – a mismatch if ever there was one. Unsurprisingly England won, but “Freddy Adu” starred in the losing effort. “Yeah, he” – the virtual Freddy Adu – kept scoring every goal for Nick, and I was getting pissed off at myself in the game,” Adu said.

The horrible thing for Adu is that the hype is killing him. And he knows the England team, so he knows about Wayne Rooney, who doesn’t seem to benefit from the “positive affirmations” that Adu is learning. But Rooney really is playing at the top level, unlike poor Freddy.

Quote of the day

"Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn't try it on," -- Billy Connolly.

How to create a South Park portrait

My South Park self portrait.

How to create memory leaks

My one regret about working at Sun is that I never got to meet Kelly O'Hair, who is my wifes 23rd cousin (or something). The common relative is Michael O'Hair. Kelly has written found a funny paper about the Art of leaking memory.

Can I see your papers?

This is how a national id card is introduced: with no debate or dicussion.

The power of modern computers

Jim Gray conjectured that a year 2003 PC could do ALL the 1970 U.S. banking transactions and store all the 1970 US bank accounts.