http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040429/D82885100.html
Short article celebrating the 40th anniversary of the BASIC computer language created by Kemeny and Kurtz. In fact an interesting phenomenon is recorded here: the Kemeny/Kurtz creation went hand in hand with the microcomputer -- both were liberating instruments which put power in the hands of nonspecialists in a way which is difficult to imagine nowadays.
And there is just the rub -- in the quest for more power, our systems and their supporting programming languages have become so complex that they are now the domain of technical professionals. The wheel has come full circle in a sense, and there is something sad as well as good about it all.
But BASIC was one of the foundations on which the IT revolution was built, and is worth remembering for this very fact.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,62988,00.html
Before there was the Web, there was gopher, a simple visual interface for InterNet navigation and file access. It was once an essential part of the data diver's toolkit, and now is almost a fond memory. But as this article notes, gopher servers still exist, and there are a variety of ways of accessing them.
While primarily of nostalgic interest, one is tempted to question whether using gopher might avoid some of the major issues currentlyarising with widespread Internet Explorer use.
http://www.itworld.com/itwhirled/
Given the date of the posting, it seems entirely apropriate to remark upon this ste, which offers strange and amusing takes on IT and the wider world, along with less-than-earth-shattering polls, games, books, software, and interesting URLs. All of this seems suitable for classroom use, if you want to use humour to make a point -- but there is no restriction on just using this site for frivolous amusement!
http://www.macobserver.com/appledeathknell/
I had not realized what a spectator sport unsuccessfully predicting the demise of Apple Computers has become. This site provides links to over 30 such pronouncements over the years [or a bit more than 1/year of Apple existence], along with commentaries.
Of course, probably by blogging this site, I have ensured that Apple will go belly-up tomorrow.....
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/30/33967.html
If you do multiple-choice quizzes in your classroom, and you have been doing it for a few years, you may find your test banks, your imagination, and your patience all running out at the same time. Here is a tongue-in-cheek MCQ series which will certainly demonstrate IT competence in the real world, so you might consider slipping one of these in from time to time....
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1540478,00.asp
Find that beige tower to really be less rather than more? This Web page will show you that you have computer case alternatives of which you never dreamed, and each case specification leads to a review of the case in question. The idea of spending several hundred dollars on a distinctive components enclosure appeals to me, if I could just figure out what to do with one of the two identical beige boxes I already possess....
http://www.nothingbutsoftware.com/prms/kt/2289.asp?ai=1467
I have staged the sackcloth-and-ashes routine in relation to the InterNet's troubles at great length in previous blog posts. I am concerned about this personally, because I value the Net highly as an intellectual companion, but it is also the case that we cannot contemplate a resource of the reach, power, mutability, and potential of the Net being simply trashed by the electronic equivalent of Alaric and his Hunnish horde.
A number of the 'solutions' offered beg the question of the relative pain of cure and disease, because they strike at the open connectivity which is the heart of the Net. The indexed article suggests a different approach, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, using the resources and attributes that the Net possesses in abundance.
Selecting the most serious of these, and evaluating their potential and how they might be applied, could form the basis of an interesting student exercise.
http://www.rogerdarlington.co.uk/FFF.html
Although there are a number of quibbles I can make in regards to this site [e.g. 'bps' and 'baud' are not identical concepts], this site still presents a large number of arresting and amusing facts which show the history and development of information technology in many aspects of life. Apart from its intrinsic interest, it also could be a good source of 'prove it!' type exercises.
http://personalpages.tds.net/~slambo/acronym.htm
Nothing wrong with a canonical list which fires puffed wheat meanings for common comuter acronyms [along with the real meaning of the acronym/initialism], so here is a cleanly laid out site with no advertising or popups which presents just that. I never knew so many alternative meanings were possible....
http://searchwin2000.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid1_gci942843,00.html
The top 10 just plain whacked-out IT stories of the year. These incidents show that you don't have to have a computer to make a fool out of yourself, but it really does help!
http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf
Links to a downloadable .PDF file containing The UNIX Hater's Handbook which exposes the seamy underbelly of the UNIX (and by extension Linux) OS environment. While intended to be humourous, there were times when I found myslef nodding in agreement, particularly when the authors savage the ungainly C syntax.
http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/computer.html
A page of links to computer and science jokes taken from rec.humor.funny, at least one of which may make you smile.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1672/
A lengthy and somewhat tongue-in-cheek article about the wrong ways to handle newly-purchased computer hardware. As well as being a good source of Dreadful Warnings, it could also be used as the source for troublehshooting scenario deveopment, so it has a serious side as well.
Here is another take on the same subject:
http://www.dansdata.com/sbs3.htm
Both authors claim complete independence in devloping their particular screeds.
http://ftp.qbss.com/ftp/info/pricelist200309121000.txt
The 404 error message explanation to beat all 404 error message explanations. Well worth a long look -- I watched for 5 minutes, and there were no repeats.
Of course, chillingly, someday this may actually be a real response., and not just a canned script.
http://www.unbehagen.com/wifism/
I have great difficulty in believing this site is serious -- a site selling a wireless device which detects news source keywords and shocks you as a result, so you are no longer a disinterested observer.
But joke or not, it does point to the potential for IT to generate human responses which simply could never be predicted in advance.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/Sterling1003.asp?p=0
Although this goes wide afield of IT issues, anything by Bruce Sterling is worth an eyeball. He here inveighs against a set of technologies he thinks we would all be better off without:
Nuclear Weapons
Coal-Based Power
The Internal-Combustion Engine
Incandescent Light Bulbs
Land Mines
Manned Spaceflight
Prisons
Cosmetic Implants
Lie Detectors
DVDs
I expect I disagree with him on the majority of these, which I suspect is highly salutary, though I do think him particularly on the mark in regard to prisons. I feel quite strongly we should punish people for their crimes, but there are lots of ways which are much less expensive, and more satisfying to contemplate, than the conventional prison system.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3144704.stm
Only in Ukraine, you say? Pity! Report on a competition which drew more than 300 partitipants; the objective being to demonstrate the most outlandish way to destroy your computer. As someone who has had considerable success with this, even without being in a competition, I can see how this might be an attractive event.
The fact that the winners got totally new computer systems says it all about this event.
http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i5/murphy/murphy0.html
A 4-part article from the Journal of Improbable Research about the origins of one of the major laws affecting everything, not just IT: Murphy's Law. It seems entirely appropriate that at the time I visited it, one of the four parts in the series had not been posted.
While not directly concerned with IT per se, this blog covering all sorts of gadgets strikes deep into the heart of ultimate geekiness. As someone who fervently that "less is more" [except, of course, when it really is less] and who cannot find any of his cameras, only a couple of which work anyway, this site is not to my particular taste. But lots of IT professionals are interested in this sort of thing, and here is a good way to keep up with the silicon flood.
The point being: "Everyone to his own!" as the old lady said when she kissed the cow.
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~geoffo/humour/flattery.html
The main purpose of this site is just to make you smile -- you go there, enter your name in the dialog box, and the Web page proceeds to flatter you with uplifting comments. This is sufficiently amusing in itself to be diverting, but [as is often the case with this sort of thing] it represents the still surface water over a roiling point -- the degree to which software and hardware can mimic human responses when we interact with them.
http://www.bernardbelanger.com/computing/NaDa/index.html
The nature of the Zen experience has, I think, not been applied with sufficient rigour [which of course begs the question whether "Zen" and "rigour" are at all compatible, in, say, the way in which "pasta" and "rigour" are compatible] to the computing world. Where, oh where, is the computing equivalent of Robert Pirseg's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
If the answer to this is "We doan' need no steenkin' manuals" then I think, without let or hindrance, that the point I have been endeavouring to make here emerges from the foam of fractious disputation like the peak of Mount Fuji poking through the overcast on a sunny Friday morning.
Well, then, it may be objected, surely it is appropriate to request some automated aids towards this end. Surely it it, and just as shurely, Shirly, the download at this site will prove as elegant as it does functional in such realization.
Like the Big Red Button Which Does Nothing, you really have to see this for yourself. And that, or its converse, is the essence of the Zen experience, to the extent to which I can claim that the essence of the Zen experience can be understood.
http://www.savetheservers.com/
Man's inhumanity to man is, perhaps, only exceeded by man's inhumanity to servers. Graphic pictures which one cannot view with a stable stomach, no matter how hard one might try.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/04/1062548967124.html
Physical security is sometimes neglected in discussions of computer security; this article shows why it should receive some emphasis. The idea of someone stealing an entire mainframe is like something out of a movie [except that I don't think I have ever seen this particular stunt in anything I have seen].
http://www.dansdata.com/sbs3.htm
If you want to reduce your computer to a heap of junk [something I can sometimes do simply by looking at it], this article will give all the gory details. While part of a site generally devoted to computer humour, a discussion like this can be useful to reference for troubleshooting or "what not to do".
http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/
While not directly related to IT [it deals with physics as handled in the movies], this is an amusing site to visit, and does discuss some general educational issues. An equivalent site for computer hardware might be a useful effort, though some errors relating to computers are also handled at standard general blooper sites.
http://www.scotsnewsletter.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=376&hl=&s=
Well, if you want some really bad advice, here's the place from which to get it. Brought to you by Scot Finnie's excellent newsletter, which is well worth checking out, subscribing to, and actually paying for.
http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/
WHile this is not directly related to Information Technology or teaching, many of those who are interested in computers are also interested in mathematical recreations, of which number sequences is an excellent example, and here is a site which deals with this topic.