First and Last Lines

Contrary to current popular opinion, for most of its storied existence the United States Postal Service has been a hub of disruptive innovation.

The regulation of our technological future will be its next defining challenge.

In essence, the task of the programmer is: Given a specification, develop a program that satisfies the specification.

Formally specify, and then develop, a program that determines when all processes are idle.

Jamilah Fenstra and Robert Horton met at a farmer’s market street-fair in Santa Monica on a cloudless Tuesday afternoon.

“Let’s go home, son.”

The story begins with a sudden fit of rage.

His and Linda’s, his and Klara’s; nobody else’s.

When the little boy said the emperor was naked, he wasn’t telling anyone anything that didn’t already know.

It’s what’s most special about our kind: we not only have thoughts, but have thoughts about our thoughts, and thoughts about our thoughts about our thoughts.

My beloved aunt, I am as innocent and forged in the image and likeness of God as any other, as every other, though I have been a cabin boy, shopkeeper, and soldier, and before then, long before, a small girl at your skirts.

She laughs.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

So our true last prayer is this: Rise to the occasion, humanity, and win.

Forget for a while about computers and computer programming, and think instead about objects in the world around us, which act and interact with us and with each other in accordance with some characteristic pattern of behaviour.

The two approaches share their most important characteristic, namely a sound mathematical basis for reasoning about specifications, designs and implementations; and either of them can be used for both theoretical investigations and for practical applications.

His thoughts were like a shower of red-hot glowing needles, causing an almost unbearable pain.

Winter had arrived in Skåne.

The note arrived sometime around midnight, with no letterhead and no address line.

But since then, both Trump and Xi have defined the app’s future.

The subway car gobbled the track, lurching, shrieking.

White and red.

The wind died down toward evening, then stopped completely.

But no one ever managed to answer the most important question: What was it that had set the process in motion?

‘Informatics’ is the name used since 1968 in non-Anglo-Saxon countries for the subject called ‘computer science’ in the USA and Great Britain.

In this respect the series of exercises below, whether deliberately or not, forms an unusual exercise in mathematical style.

William F. Buckley, Jr., the intellectual leader of the modern conservative movement, rightly saw himself less as founder than heir.

A founder of our world, he speaks to us from a different one, beyond our reach but hovering near, if only we can discover in ourselves the imagination and generosity, the kindness and warmth, that Bill Buckley demonstrated time and again in his long and singular life.

The IBM System/360 is a solid-state, program compatible, data processing system providing the speed, precision, and data manipulating versatility demanded by the challenge of commerce, science, and industry.

This section of the system control panel contains controls intended only for customer-engineering use.

When trouble comes to town, it usually takes the North Shore Line.

Best pal always, Skeet

The rain stopped shortly after 5 p.m.

For the first time in a long while, he could relax.