Luca Zappa Web Corner

Il 22 Giugno è morto Bob Bemer l’inventore del codice ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), il codice convenzionale usato dai computer per rappresentare le lettere, i numero, i segni di punteggiature …

Ha inoltre introdotto il backslash ” e le sequenze formate con il tasto Escape.

Curiosa la targa della sua macchina dello stato del Texas: “ASCII. Yes, I am the father of ASCII.”

Ecco una lista delle citazioni che mi piacciono di più:

• Watts Wacker, Home is no longer a location, home is a concept. I want the feelings of home wherever I am.
• A.C. Clarke, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
• Genesereth, L’intelligenza sembra essere un fenomeno che trascende l’implementazione tecnologica.
• Elim Garak, The truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination.
• Albert Einstein, Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
• Albert Einstein, The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
• Albert Einstein, Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
• Albert Einstein, I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
• Albert Einstein, Example isn’t another way to teach, it is the only way to teach.
• Albert Einstein, Try not to be a person of success, but rather a person of virtue.
• Albert Einstein, Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
• Albert Einstein, Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.
• Albert Einstein, I love to travel, but hate to arrive.
• Albert Einstein, A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?
• Albert Einstein, The most aggravating thing about the younger generation is that I no longer belong to it.
• Albert Einstein, Imagination is more important than knowledge.
• Albert Einstein, There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
• Pablo Picasso, Give me a museum and I’ll fill it.
• Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut, In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
• George Burns, Don’t stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.
• Bjarne Stroustrup, C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg.
• Mark Garcia, Steps are good, too many steps are bad. Elevators are better.
• Bill Gates, 640K ought to be enough for anybody.
• Marvin Minsky, Societies need rules that make no sense for individuals. For example, it makes no difference whether a single car drives on the left or on the right. But it makes all the difference when there are many cars!
• Brian Fitzpatrick on CVS, I can’t imagine programming without it… that would be like parachuting without a parachute!
• Dean Smith, What to do with a mistake: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it.
• Basketball coach after losing in a humiliating defeat, The only difference between me and General Custer is that he didn’t have to watch the game films the next day.
• Bill Russell, The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.
• Bob Knight, Everyone wants to win, but not everyone is willing to prepare to win.

That’s All Folks!

Google può essere usato anche come calcolatrice, ecco alcuni esempi:

• 5+2*3
• 2^20
• sqrt(16)
• sqrt(-4)
• 5!

Inoltre si possono fare anche le conversioni:

• 100 miles in kilometers
• 14 cm in inches
• 5 liters in gallons

Poi ci si può sbizzarrire con calcoli e conversioni:

• 5 cm + 16 m in feet
• (5 liters * 2) + 4 US gallons in UK gallons

Google non finisce mai di stupire!!!

Oggi (10 giugno 2004) alle ore 19:59 ho ricevuto un SMS che ricorda orari e modalità per le imminenti elezioni europee, ecco il testo:

Elezioni 2004.
Si vota sabato 12 dalle 15 alle 22 e domenica 13 dalle 7 alle 22. Necessari documento e tessera elettorale.
Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri

Insomma anche la Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri pratica lo spamming! Quello che più mi piacerebbe sapere è però chi ha pagato questi SMS. Non era mica stata introdotta la tessera elettorale personale valida per 18 volte, in modo da eliminare i costi della consegna dei certificati elettorali ad ogni elezioni?