Archive for the 'Leaping' Category

How compassion saved and broke the internet

March 19th, 2008

Jon Postel, the late computer science guru pictured above, is widely credited with the following dictum:
Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.
This has come to be known as Postel’s Law, and it’s not explicitly about how people should treat one another.
Instead, Dr. Postel was talking about the problem […]

Dissertations, $12.75.

September 29th, 2007

While working on my dissertation, AdSense thought my needs might be met by a certain company that specializes in writing term papers for lazy students. “No plagiarism” and “EXPERT writers” the ad promised.
How could I not investigate further? Here’s a screenshot.

E-mail: “But in reality, can it really work? Yes it can.”

July 23rd, 2007

Here’s a story from ‘89 about one of the first public demonstrations of the x.400 e-mail standard, which helped e-mail move across platforms. As with all old tech articles, the beauty is in the enthusiastic descriptions of what the new technology will bring.
[I]n a series of tests between Hughes Aircraft Company in Los Angeles, […]

Go west, young psychologists…

July 10th, 2007

Being from an east coast psychology program with deep–no, really deep–ties to Washington, D.C., I’m always saddened to see otherwise strong human factors students complaining about having to take internships at less-than-stellar Beltway companies.
No, people. Go west.