Category History

Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle

I got to know of Neal Stephenson from a good friend in the winter of 1999, some months after Cryptonomicon was published. He used to read it during the long boring lecture days at Imperial and over the course of a couple of weeks I got to catch a glimpse of the interweaved stories Stephenson […]

On Missile Defence

Missile Defence is a controversial issue that has troubled diplomats and military leaders alike for more than forty years. Ever since Ronald Reagan proposed the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), later nicknamed ‘Star Wars’ after the synonymous film and due to its alleged inclusion of Space-Based Interceptors, Missile Defence has largely become a popular term, even […]

The Secret Government

It's fascinating to see how public tolerance of government abuses and downright violation of the law and constitution has increased over the years. Follow the link for the 90 minute PBS documentary from 1987 that deals with how the U.S. sold weapons to Iran, despite its embargo and used the funds to support the 'contras' in Nicaragua (the Iran-Contra Affair) before going over the history of U.S. government abuses and illegal clandestine operations in the name of national security post WWII. Now, compare this to the relatively low public reaction to legislation such as the PATRIOT law (and its equivalents in Europe), the reaction to the Iraq war and the minimal buzz in the European press on the matter of the alleged CIA flights transporting illegally detained muslims post the 11th of September of 2001 from Europe to places where they could be interrogated and indeed tortured. No matter what you think of Moyers and PBS, Reagan and US policy in the 1980s and the 2003 Iraq war one thing is clear: people today seem much more apathetic to the abuses by the 'secret' governments in both the United States and Europe, even when these affect their own rights, privacy and freedoms, not 'just' the fate of some other country or people.

Gag order.

The Armenian Genocide is a controversial issue. I’ve written before about its historical value and how it has been manipulated, both by Turkey and its commercial partners to improve relations at the expense of historical fact. I’ve applauded France for standing up to the Turkish threats and acknowledging a fact that has been long ignored […]

Mel didn't approve of compilers…

I remember reading this in my first year at university. 'Lest a Whole New Generation of programmers Grow up in Ignorance of this Glorious Past...'

The Archimedes Palimpsest

Back in March I mentioned Google Techtalks (now split into multiple series, engEDU, authors@google etc.). Well, back then I watched a video about how a team was using technology to restore an Archimedes Palimsest, an old parchment with some of the great mathematician’s writings that had been overwritten several times throughout the previous two millenia. […]

Inflaming the Middle East

The Israeli-Palæstinian conflict is now more than sixty years old. It’s clear to all, but the most extreme nationalists (of both involved nations) or naïve idealists (globally) that the only viable solution, at least for the coming decades, would be a two-state division of what is currently Israel and its occupied territories. That is the […]

The Monroe Doctrine.

In 1823, the United States issued what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. The Doctrine is interesting (and important) for two reasons: first, it is the first post-establishment diplomatic expression of independence and a loud demand for acknowledgement of U.S. (increasing) power and, second, it is disguised under a thin veil of moral […]

The Armenian Genocide.

The EUObserver has an article on yet another clash between France and Turkey over the Armenian Genocide. The two countries clashed again over the same issue in the early months of 2001, when the French Parliament officially recognised the Armenian Genocide, joining a host of other European countries and institutions, 39 of the 50 U.S. […]

Computer History Museum on Google Video

I’ve written before about academic/technical/educational video content online, (MURL, Google Techtalks). Here’s some more. There are several interesting lectures by prominent figures from the industry, academia and research in a series of videos by the Computer History Museum available on Google Video. Some are more technical than others, but many cover well-known products, technologies and […]