2002-06-08»
Sat Jun 8 18:01:00 2002»
So I’m late up writing the dumb jokes that I’ll use to cover up our usual poorly planned, dazzlingly executed (or vice versa) Happening, The Festival of Extreme Computing. As usual, Dave explains it all much better than I ever will, in this terrifying Guardian dump of his current mindstate:
It is forward-looking too, but focusing on innovative uses of existing technologies instead of just “buy another upgrade and your life will be better”. As Orwell put it, “he who controls the past, controls the future” – clearly a big fan of the Terminator films.
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oooh, i’m very ill, you see»
Sorry about the interruption in services. I’m currently recovering from one of those nasty bacteria-laden infection things that killed off all the martians in War of the Worlds, but has so far left me with merely an ongoing fever, an inability to concentrate for more than thirty seconds, and a strong tendency to begin every conversation with “Oooh, I’m very ill, you see”.
It was worth the wait though. Look! Picture of a really old TV licence!
We stumbled on this because Cory was chortling at the modern equivalent sitting on Manar’s desk we’re both staying at for XCOM. You need to pay a small annual tax to own a TV in the UK, a fact which most North Americans generally find terribly amusing. The tax goes to fund the BBC, which is free for all, has no advertising and charges no subscription.
Actually, this older forebear is not a licence for owning a TV, it’s a licence for building one. Which makes me think of my father, who built his neighbourhood their first television, and put it in an box that used to hold oranges. And built me my first computer when I was eight, and put it a cardboard box, with a hole cut out for the keyboard, and plugged it into a ready-made television, and lifted me up onto his shoulders and carried me into a new world.
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