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• In many ways Donald Knuth is held up as the standard for the “mythical mega-hacker” and while his contributions to computer science cannot be denied, the fact is that he approached programming in ways that many could identify with. Looking at the source listing for a compiler written when he was in his early 20s we can see that Knuth is in fact a mortal¹. The PDF is a fascinating document in many ways, the least of which it highlights Knuth’s propensity to plot out the logic of his program, writing, erasing, and rewriting again. This was not the work of a “cinematic Mozart” writing out his works in a continuous perfectly-formed flow. It was a person sitting with pencil and paper and using straightforward techniques to painstakingly discover a solution to a hard programming problem.

• While watching a recent episode of “Halt and Catch Fire” I learned that a system in the show was written using the PL/M programming language. I immediately hit pause and looked it up and found an interesting PL/M-86 programming guide.

• Indie Crossword Puzzlers Are Shaking Up A Very Square World

• 106 years after tragic crash, locomotive located in Lake Superior

• PC-BSD Evolves into TrueOS

• Slides for Peter Alvaro’s fascinating talk “Orchestrated Chaos” — I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard very good things about his talk.

• Encyclopedia of World Problems

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