A segunda vinda

David Gelernter escreveu The Second Coming - A Manifesto apresentando as falhas atuais da forma como enxergamos os computadores (área de trabalho? arquivos e pastas?) e sugerindo um novo modelo, baseado em lifestreams:

38. A "lifestream" organizes information not as a file cabinet does but roughly as a mind does.

39. A lifestream is a sequence of all kinds of documents — all the electronic documents, digital photos, applications, Web bookmarks, rolodex cards, email messages and every other digital information chunk in your life — arranged from oldest to youngest, constantly growing as new documents arrive, easy to browse and search, with a past, present and future, appearing on your screen as a receding parade of index cards. Documents have no names and there are no directories; you retrieve elements by content: "Fifth Avenue" yields a sub-stream of every document that mentions Fifth Avenue.

Vale a leitura, pode haver algo realmente importante aí.

Amor à arte

Dedicatória de Donald Knuth, um dos maiores cientistas de computação da história, em sua obra definitiva, The Art of Computer Programming:

"This series of books is affectionately dedicated to the Type 650 computer once installed at Case Institute of Technology, in remembrance of many pleasant evenings."