kshitijsharma.com

the first ever computer

Prologue:

A famous quote from a Professor Emeritus, Robert Wilensky, goes like this…

“We have heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know it is not true.”

I loved my 286. I grew up with it way back in 1986-87, and then came the 486 and then the Pentium II, III and then I lost the count. These days computer surprise me to the CORE and sometimes with the DUO.

fat32

I was 32 when I heard the term FAT 32. I thought somebody took a snipe for my size. It was in December 1994 when I couldn’t get to sleep thinking how a computer can access memory randomly while I forget to flush my own toilet. One day a friend of mine while working on my old computer told me without any provocation that my drive has a very low capacity. What type of friend was he to make a remark like that on my enthusiasm was my immediate thought?

These days, computers have evolved from big machines to miniaturised net books. People suggest me to keep my entire private life in a safe heaven of cloud space. Now you can virtually force people to remember you even after your death. Today I am sending 10 emails using futureMe to friends who borrowed money and never returned. In all probability they will outlive me. They will receive these emails after 25 years. These emails are full with profanity and the “I Love You” virus.

I am also sending 5 more emails using futureMe to the people from whom I borrowed money and never returned it. They too will outlive me, I think. I am apologising in these emails for my act. So will I be absolved of my sins in the fire of hell after 25 years, when they will receive these emails?

Long back someone told me that the power of intention is very strong as it brews the power of will (will power). Now I understand that man can keep on working for good causes (and bad ones too) after his death, thus improving his after life or next life.

My last thought of today is on information. I grew up thinking that information is power, now suddenly that is not true. Have you heard a new word called “ human intelligence” (quite common in military and intelligence circles) and “human information” i.e. information gathered by humans and not collected from search engines (mostly local gossips in small groups)?

Epilogue:

A friend of mine just applied for a patent of new software. This software gathers information from the websites indicated by search engines on the basis of some keywords. The software then re-arranges the gathered information in very coherent paragraphs. These reprocessed and re-engineered articles’ core ideas or gist depends upon few seed words. Now you can programme your research papers, opinions and even ideas in a few minutes!

Do you get a doubt about who has written this article?

Tags: evolution of COMPUTING, leisure

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 4:44 pm and is filed under leisure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.