#2363 06.11.2023 02:24 AP

Wired: The Greatest OS That (N)ever Was (1997)

Linux was started six years ago as a typical programming lark: written to run on a PC with 4 Mbytes of RAM as a free version of the costly commercial Unix operating system. Today, Linux has an installed base conservatively estimated at around 3 million users. And they're not just spotty adolescents playing in their bedrooms: Linux vendors say that most of the top companies in the US have bought the OS - but that few will readily admit to running their multimillion-dollar corporations on code put together by a band of software idealists.


#2290 08.10.2023 00:26 AP

RealClear Science: The Smartest Person Who Ever Lived

Nobody doubts that Isaac Newton was an intelligent man, but he also exhibited in spades the two other characteristics outlined above: knowledge and creativity.

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Sadly, despite his fame, Isaac Newton led a very lonely life. His incomparable brilliance came at a hefty cost; his reclusive and anti-social nature strongly suggest that he was autistic, and his obsessive and disagreeable nature suggest mental illness, perhaps obsessive-compulsive disorder.


#2264 26.09.2023 00:05 AP

Grammarphobia: Is this ‘which’ dead?

“For uræ Drihten on larspelle þuss cweþ, Gestrynaþ eow sylfum mid ælmesdædum madme hord on heofonan and wunnunge mid ænglum. For hwilcæ neodlicum þingan icc cyþe eow eallum þæt icc ann mid fulre unne þæt þa ilce gyfe þæt Leofric eorl 7 Godgyfu habbað gegiuen Criste.”


#2263 25.09.2023 23:50 AP

Smithsonian Magazine: Why the Tomato Was Feared in Europe for More Than 200 Years

A nickname for the fruit was the “poison apple” because it was thought that aristocrats got sick and died after eating them, but the truth of the matter was that wealthy Europeans used pewter plates, which were high in lead content. Because tomatoes are so high in acidity, when placed on this particular tableware, the fruit would leach lead from the plate, resulting in many deaths from lead poisoning. No one made this connection between plate and poison at the time; the tomato was picked as the culprit.