#IBM Convention

[scottwellsmagic]

895: Lady Sarah and Keith Fields - and the Winner is...

Keith Fields and his wife, The Lady Sarah, are award-winning performers, each in their own right. They co-chair the Contest Committee for the I.B. M. and also host their own weekly productions of “The Magic Soiree” that features not only their magic, but that of local magicians as well.

As we enter the season of magic conventions, it is not too late to consider preparing an act for competition. This week Keith Fields and Lady Sarah offer great ideas, tips, advice, and perspectives on getting your act together for a contest. Keith also shares ideas from his own award-winning act on the reasons that you should consider competing. Keith and Sarah also perform their own weekly show, “The Magic Soiree” near Detroit, Michigan, and share ideas on how you can find venues to present your act on a regular basis in your own town.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Pandora and SiriusXM (formerly Stitcher) by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here. If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. You can also listen through your Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here.

[frewtart]

FEAR FACTORY: The True Story of The Infamous Bondage Murders.

(inside booklet taken from my IBM dvd. none of it is mine except for a single note, credits at the end. typed this around like 4am without my glasses so i apologize for any issues, feel free to tell me if you see any)

- Below Cut. -

Shocking and repulsive. Darkly funny and genuinely frightening. Badly paced and overly obvious. Entirely unpredictable and really, really fuckin’ nasty. The videos created by Bill Hellfire under the Factory 2000 logo from 1997-2002 are nothing if not schizophrenic: they're fetish porn dressed up as demented horror. The most extreme of their work is The Infamous Bondage Murders (1998), a shot-on-video feature that's kinky but not sexy, and will without a doubt disturb more viewers than it scares or turns on.

The man who led the Factory 2000 ensemble, filmmaker Bill Hellfire, is very honest about the group's intentions. He notes with glee with which they threw a monkey a wrench into the viewing habits of the average fetish fan. “We were saying, if you want to go jerk off to this stuff…you don't get what you want, you get what you deserve.” The result surely found many hard-on'd fetishists scrambling for the fast forward and stop buttons on their remote. They wouldn't soon forget what they'd seen- and that one comely teen victim who suffered with such style. And that, in essence, is why Factory 2000’s acts of provocation are still being talked about nearly two decades later.

The catalyst for the provacation was, what else, rock ‘n roll. Hellfire and pal “Mikey Ovum” (yes, some of the nicknames came before the VHS started rolling) were in a band called King Ghidorah!. They and their friends made horror movies for their own amusement. “We made the movies for ourselves at first,” says Bill. “Someone would have an idea, we'd grab a video camera and shoot a movie…It was kind of a hobby.”

That hobby turned into Factory 2000 when Bill began working with the NJ independent firm, Alternative Cinema (AC), and began to notice the success of fetish tapes from companies like W.A.V.E, which was distributed through AC. “I was doing packing and sales at Alternative, and definitely knew about the fetish audience. We all knew what was going on in the underbelly of these really low-budget movies, why people were buying them.”

And so he made his first Factory 2000 feature, I Was a Teenage Strangler, in 1997, with his friends in the leads. When that sold decently at fan conventions and through Alternative's print catalog, The Infamous Bondage Murders came into being. At this point, “making movies was still meant to fund small tours for some of the bands on our label, Severed Lips Recordings.” (Thus, the odd direction credit on this film to “The People of Severed Lips”). Where Teenage Strangler was mostly horror, Infamous Bondage, was equal parts fetish and frightfest.

The impetus to make horror pictures was the group's love of 1970s exploitation, in particular Last House on the Left, which is the main influence on Infamous Bondage. “We absolutely adored the villains in Last,” says Bill. “They were very personable villains, you really ended up liking them and feeling for them. Especially when they're about to kill Mari, and she gets sick and walks off, and they all look like they're remorseful for what they've done…and then they kill her. We just thought they were great characters.”

The kink aspect manifests itself when cast member Lindsay Love is tied up and writhes on the floor for quite a while, surely satisfying the viewers enticed by the word “bondage” in the title. Bill remarks, “We basically shot as much fetish stuff as we could. In the scene where Lindsay was writhing around, we tied her in between a bunch of chairs, and she just did the scene, the rest of us went outside and smoked a cigarette. We came back inside and just said, “let's move on and do the next scene.” The parallel to the Warhol films of the 1960s is right there - of course, Andy's superstars might've done the leather-and-whips bit, but they were never quite as tormented as the Factory 2000 babes.

Speaking of Warhol, it's time to clarify exactly where the “Factory” label came from. Seduction Cinema founder, pres(ident) and owner of Alternative Cinema, Micheal Raso says he and Seduction Cinema founder Zach Snygg came up with the moniker. “Zach and I were at a screening we had for Bill's Caress of the Vampire 2 (aka Teenage Ghoul-Girl-A-Go-Go) made for the pre-seduction label El Cinema in 1996, and Bill showed up with all of his cohorts. They drifted in like the Groovy Ghoulies: one guy waltzed in the room, another floated in…They reminded Zach and I of Warhol's Factory, and soon after that, each one of them adopted a nickname, which cemented the connection.”

The plot of IBM is straightforward as hell. The feature opens with scuzzball slacker Stanley (Bill Hellfire) accosting a college girl (Lindsay Love), who successfully escapes from him. Stanley and his gay friend Travoy (Mikey Ovum) find a way to make sorely-needed cash when they talk to Travoy's boyfriend Cleo (Dallas Scarlett) about his profession. He is a “collector” of bondage and snuff photos. Stanley, Travoy, and their nasty-babe friend Shapirio (Amanda Applecore, better known as Lily Tiger) arrange to help him out…for a price.

Thus begins the mayhem. Sweet young stoner Sandra (Misty Mundae, billed here as “Lil’ Erwin DeWright”) comes over to the trio's cash pad to score some pot. The cold-blooded group truss her up, and then burn, photograph, cut, and kill her. The trio's utterly drugged-out friend Armond (Joey Smack) is so out of it he misses out on all the evil festivities. Our makeshift Mansons next travel to the local mall where they abduct another damsel (Daisy DeWright, better known to Seduction fans as Chelsea Mudae). Stanley and Travoy dance (endlessly) with her while she is naked and unconscious. She is then used as a “puppet”, photographed, and you guessed it, killed.

Our protags then search for a burial site in a scene that is severely improvised to the point of, well, pointlessness. Wanting more thrills and extra cash, Stanley decides to entrap the college girl who got away from him earlier. Once caught, she is bound and gagged, and thus begins the aforementioned 100% pure writhing around fetish scene, which provides ample time for “study” by those who are so inclined. Armond, feeling neglected, *finally gets to participate in one of the group's crimes when he has a little post-mortem sex with the girl. The Infamous Bondage crew's adventures conclude as abruptly as they began, but the gang did return in Infamous Bondage Murders 2.

*Frewtart Note: technically Armond did get a little action with Chelsea's character when he strangled her…

From the above synopsis, it's apparent that Factory 2k flicks weren't the product of storyboarding. “They weren't scripted at all,” Bill reflects. “It was real wild, stoned improv.” The onscreen and offscreen presence of substances stronger than beer of course distinguishes Factory fetish from that produced by the folks at W.A.V.E. The pacing is also unconventional, to say the least. The burial ground search sequence is a perfect example of a scene that goes nowhere fast. Bill again, “We were trying to make an 85 minute film, so we put our own in-joke humor into certain scenes. That was the way we would speak to each other off-camera, but the movies would turn into total trainwrecks because of it, Infamous just stops dead for those insane conversations…”

Bizarre dialogue aside, the element that truly reflects the no-budget status of the Factory productions is the look. The “rainbows” that used to signify VHS recording is apparent throughout this feature and the Factory films that followed it. The actual equipment used for the productions? An RCA full-size VHS camcorder and two super-VHS VCRs (sans flying heads, thus the rainbows). Oh, and the tape used to hold the Infamous Bondage master? “We taped over a recording from TV of Son of Kong (1933).”

The locations are nothing if not genuine. Standing in for suburban houses were the cast's own abodes. “Most of the film was shot in my house in Ringwood, NJ,” Bill remembers. “Other scenes were shot in Joey and Amanda's houses, and the living room was set up at Mikey Ovum's.” No word on who owned the feature's creepiest touch: those ultra-wholesome oil paintings of children that are cut to as the victims are being set up for slaughter. When it works, IBM is indeed a very scary little opus, and this is due in no small way to the authenticity (and innocence) of the characters’ surroundings.

The key element to the Factory formula would have to be the cast members. Hellfire, who was 22 when he directed IBM, used his friends from school, bandmates, neighbors and friends of friends to populate the videos. One suburban NJ troublemaker who appeared in Infamous Bondage actually went on to become a mainstream TV and Internet sensation: the mannequin-looking “Dallas Scarlett” who serves as the motor for the entire plotline (but tortures no one) became a fan-favorite fashion designer on the first season of the Bravo reality series Project Runway. Autsin Scarlett, as he's known now, doesn't mention his Factory 2000 experience in interviews or on his official website, but he did recount, to the website gay.com, the story of his junior prom. it seems that the already stylist Austin and his female friend were crowned King and Queen of the prom, but underwent what he describes as a Carrie-like incident in which they were stripped of their crowns and kicked off the stage by angry Senior classmates. The prom queen in question? None other than “Lil’ Erin” herself, Misty Mundae!

Misty is most certainly the reason that many fans have been clicking into the Factory videos. In Infamous she is just a sweet young victim, a short-haired wannabe hipster looking for pot who suffers a ghastly fate. She wound up in the Factory circle by sheer chance; Bill recollects that, although he had known her since she was 8 years old, the two became artistic partners in crime when she and her sis Daisy/Chelsea started coming to Bill's band gigs and hanging out at the house.

Game from the start, she had no hesitation about doing a topless scene (or two, in fact) and, Bill says, she had no trouble with full nudity (and neither did anyone else, since she had just turned 18 and was of legal age). “We decided to do a little homage to Last House and have her character piss her pants. Misty tried to one-up us and say she'd do it for real. I remember feeding her water and saying, ‘You have officially entered the realm of weirdo now.’ She couldn't pee in time, though, so we just rigged up half a soda bottle filled with water with a little tube down the back of her panties. That's how we did that scene.”

By the next Factory feature, Infamous Bondage Murders 2, Misty and Bill were an offscreen couple, her professional name had gone from “Lil’ Erin” to Misty Mundae, and she was now one of two stars - alone with W.A.V.E vet Tina Krause - in the Factory firmament. Thus, although she had made her (totally clothed) debut in Teenage Strangler, IBM is the first film that started Misty on the road to her current genre-pic cult icon status. Her grisly killing may be a massive turn-off for those who've enjoyed her softer turns for the Seduction and Shock-O-Rama labels, but here is qhere her career as a genre actress began in earnest. Given her current desire to leave softcore but continue to pursue roles in horror features as Erin Brown, it qualifies as an intriguing (albeit ultra-extreme) glimpse of possible things to come.

As a final note, it's important to mention Infamous Bondage Murders has been remastered but not “restored” for release on DVD. Alternative honcho Mike Raso outlines the reasons why. “Everytime we release a title on DVD, we go back and find the most pristine source materials. The initial Factory 2000 features were shot directly on to VHS, and those are the masters we have, tape glitches and all. The way we look at it is that the editing and look of these features are part of the experience…part of the ‘Factory 2000 experience.’”

IBM is not indicative of the later work done by Hellfire, Mundae, and crew. Their later efforts to retain the “real” edge, but focus more squarely on the fetish aspect, and some are indeed even��positively (gasp) erotic. However you describe it, this early work is regional, ‘burban guerilla filmmaking at its most basic and powerful. The results may not be pretty, but as I've already said, you won't be forgetting it anytime soon…

Ed Grant

Media Funhouse

This was taken from the insert of my IBM booklet. None of what I put here is my direct work, except for the single note.

[pwlanier]

MARSHALL, Jay (James Ward Marshall, 1919 - 2005). Jay Marshall’s “Lefty” Glove Puppet. Glove puppet rabbit crafted from two white dress gloves by Jay Marshall himself, with black buttons sewn in place for eyes, black lips drawn in by hand, and a stiff cardboard form in a second glove to simulate the look of the rabbit’s ears. Accompanied by an ANS in Marshall’s hand to Eddie Dawes stating, “Dr. Dawes, This is the Lefty made and used at the IBM 1975 convention in Southport. Betty Davenport Roy sewed on the buttons. [signed] Jay Marshall.” A photograph of Marshall and Dawes in the Dawes library is also included, with Marshall displaying the Lefty puppet on his hand and Dr. Dawes looking on.

During World War II, Jay Marshall entered the special services, entertaining troops in the Pacific Theater. It was then that he realized a full-size vent dummy “wouldn’t carry a suitcase,” so he replaced his full-size puppet with a khaki army glove decorated with eyes and lips. After the war, a fellow entertainer suggested Marshall change the single glove into a white one, and add ears to approximate the look of a rabbit. And so “Lefty” was born. He would travel the world with Marshall for decades thereafter, playing nearly every major theater on nearly every continent, from New York’s Palace to the Palladium in London and as the opening act for Frank Sinatra. Marshall starred on almost every major television variety show in America (performing on Ed Sullivan’s show some 14 times), and too many conventions, private functions, and tradeshows to count. While a magician first and foremost, it was, ultimately, the song Jay sang with Lefty, combined with jokes and asides, of course – the act was really a seamless feat of acting, with Marshall talking to his own left hand – that put the pair in the spotlight over and over again. Jay and Lefty became an institution of sorts, and in point of fact, one of Marshall’s puppets is now enshrined in the permanent collection of a famous American institution as well: the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

Potter and Potter

[scotianostra]

Scottish magician John Ramsay died 19th January 1962

Ramsay, was born in Ayr’s Bogha’ Row (now Victoria Street) and began his working life as a grocers boy, earning just 3 shillings a week.

As he progressed through the ranks of shop assistant and manager to eventually own the George Street business, he also developed interests in running and draughts: he once held world champion Richard Jordan to a draw. But it was talents in the conjuring field which went on to earn him the name of Scotland’s grand old man of magic.

Showing an early interest in conjuring from the age of seven, he was encouraged by his family and spent much of his pocket money on tricks and penny puzzles. He went on to enthral customers at his shop - and audiences the world over - with his sleight of hand and ready patter.

As his abilities grew, he became associated with the London Magic Circle and the Inner Magic Circle, going on to win the British Ring Shield when it was presented for the first time at the International Brotherhood Convention in 1939.

Ramsay performed at the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) convention in Batavia, New York and Chicago, in 1950. In 1955, he won the micromagic category at the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (FISM), held in Amsterdam. He also served as president of the British Ring of the IBM.

In 1960, he was honoured in a special dinner by the Scottish Conjurors Association, of whom he was a life member and honorary president for many years.

Seven months before his death, the Scottish Association of Magical Societies met in Ayr and presented John Ramsay with a bound volume containing messages and tributes from magicians all over the world.

John Ramsay is the only magician in the world with a garden named after him; Ramsay Gardens, in his native town of Ayr was opened in 1955 to honour his accomplishments, which also included opening his own garden at home to raise money for charity. The Ramsay Gardens were situated only a few yards from John’s Grocery. The Gardens were re-designed in 1979, and are a fitting memorial to a world class conjurer.

[jcmarchi]

Unlock the other 99% of your data - now ready for AI

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/unlock-the-other-99-of-your-data-now-ready-for-ai/

Unlock the other 99% of your data - now ready for AI

For decades, companies of all sizes have recognized that the data available to them holds significant value, for improving user and customer experiences and for developing strategic plans based on empirical evidence.

As AI becomes increasingly accessible and practical for real-world business applications, the potential value of available data has grown exponentially. Successfully adopting AI requires significant effort in data collection, curation, and preprocessing. Moreover, important aspects such as data governance, privacy, anonymization, regulatory compliance, and security must be addressed carefully from the outset.

In a conversation with Henrique Lemes, Americas Data Platform Leader at IBM, we explored the challenges enterprises face in implementing practical AI in a range of use cases. We began by examining the nature of data itself, its various types, and its role in enabling effective AI-powered applications.

Henrique highlighted that referring to all enterprise information simply as ‘data’ understates its complexity. The modern enterprise navigates a fragmented landscape of diverse data types and inconsistent quality, particularly between structured and unstructured sources.

In simple terms, structured data refers to information that is organized in a standardized and easily searchable format, one that enables efficient processing and analysis by software systems.

Unstructured data is information that does not follow a predefined format nor organizational model, making it more complex to process and analyze. Unlike structured data, it includes diverse formats like emails, social media posts, videos, images, documents, and audio files. While it lacks the clear organization of structured data, unstructured data holds valuable insights that, when effectively managed through advanced analytics and AI, can drive innovation and inform strategic business decisions.

Henrique stated, “Currently, less than 1% of enterprise data is utilized by generative AI, and over 90% of that data is unstructured, which directly affects trust and quality”.

The element of trust in terms of data is an important one. Decision-makers in an organization need firm belief (trust) that the information at their fingertips is complete, reliable, and properly obtained. But there is evidence that states less than half of data available to businesses is used for AI, with unstructured data often going ignored or sidelined due to the complexity of processing it and examining it for compliance – especially at scale.

To open the way to better decisions that are based on a fuller set of empirical data, the trickle of easily consumed information needs to be turned into a firehose. Automated ingestion is the answer in this respect, Henrique said, but the governance rules and data policies still must be applied – to unstructured and structured data alike.

Henrique set out the three processes that let enterprises leverage the inherent value of their data. “Firstly, ingestion at scale. It’s important to automate this process. Second, curation and data governance. And the third [is when] you make this available for generative AI. We achieve over 40% of ROI over any conventional RAG use-case.”

IBM provides a unified strategy, rooted in a deep understanding of the enterprise’s AI journey, combined with advanced software solutions and domain expertise. This enables organizations to efficiently and securely transform both structured and unstructured data into AI-ready assets, all within the boundaries of existing governance and compliance frameworks.

“We bring together the people, processes, and tools. It’s not inherently simple, but we simplify it by aligning all the essential resources,” he said.

As businesses scale and transform, the diversity and volume of their data increase. To keep up, AI data ingestion process must be both scalable and flexible.

“[Companies] encounter difficulties when scaling because their AI solutions were initially built for specific tasks. When they attempt to broaden their scope, they often aren’t ready, the data pipelines grow more complex, and managing unstructured data becomes essential. This drives an increased demand for effective data governance,” he said.

IBM’s approach is to thoroughly understand each client’s AI journey, creating a clear roadmap to achieve ROI through effective AI implementation. “We prioritize data accuracy, whether structured or unstructured, along with data ingestion, lineage, governance, compliance with industry-specific regulations, and the necessary observability. These capabilities enable our clients to scale across multiple use cases and fully capitalize on the value of their data,” Henrique said.

Like anything worthwhile in technology implementation, it takes time to put the right processes in place, gravitate to the right tools, and have the necessary vision of how any data solution might need to evolve.

IBM offers enterprises a range of options and tooling to enable AI workloads in even the most regulated industries, at any scale. With international banks, finance houses, and global multinationals among its client roster, there are few substitutes for Big Blue in this context.

To find out more about enabling data pipelines for AI that drive business and offer fast, significant ROI, head over to this page.

[ui-alcoholic]

Sinclair QL (1984)

The Sinclair QL (for Quantum Leap) is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum.

Based on a Motorola 68008 processor clocked at 7.5 MHz, the QL included 128 KiB of RAM, which is officially expandable to 640 KiB and in practice, 896 KB.

It can be connected to a monitor or TV for display. Sinclair recommended the "SINCLAIR VISION-QL" RGB monitor for usage with the QL. When connected to a normally-adjusted TV or monitor, the QL's video output overscans horizontally. This is reputed to have been due to the timing constants in the ZX8301 chip being optimised for the flat-screen CRT display originally intended for the QL.

Two video modes are available, 256 × 256 pixels with 8 primary RGB colours and per-pixel flashing, or 512 × 256 pixels with four colours: black, red, green and white.

Development

The QL was conceived in 1981 under the code name ZX83 as a portable computer for business users. It had a built-in ultra-thin flat-screen CRT display similar to the later TV80 pocket TV, printer, and modem. As development progressed, it eventually became clear that the portability features were overambitious, and the specification was reduced to a conventional desktop configuration.

The electronics were primarily designed by David Karlin, who joined Sinclair Research in summer 1982. The industrial design was done by Rick Dickinson, who already designed the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum range of products.

The QL was designed to be more powerful than the IBM Personal Computer, and comparable to Apple's Macintosh. While the CPU clock speed is similar to that of the Macintosh, and the later Atari ST and Amiga, the 8-bit databus and cycle stealing of the ZX8301 gate array limit the QL's performance.

Sinclair had commissioned GST Computer Systems to produce the operating system for the machine, but switched to QDOS, developed by Tony Tebby as an in-house alternative, before launch. GST's OS, designed by Tim Ward, was later made available as 68K/OS, in the form of an add-on ROM card. The tools developed by GST for the QL would later be used on the Atari ST, where GST object format became standard.

[govindhtech]

IBM Analog AI: Revolutionizing The Future Of Technology

What Is Analog AI?

The process of encoding information as a physical quantity and doing calculations utilizing the physical characteristics of memory devices is known as Analog AI, or analog in-memory computing. It is a training and inference method for deep learning that uses less energy.

Features of analog AI

Non-volatile memory

Non-volatile memory devices, which can retain data for up to ten years without power, are used in analog AI.

In-memory computing

The von Neumann bottleneck, which restricts calculation speed and efficiency, is removed by analog AI, which stores and processes data in the same location.

Analog representation

Analog AI performs matrix multiplications in an analog fashion by utilizing the physical characteristics of memory devices.

Crossbar arrays

Synaptic weights are locally stored in the conductance values of nanoscale resistive memory devices in analog AI.

Low energy consumption

Energy use may be decreased via analog AI

Analog AI Overview

Enhancing the functionality and energy efficiency of Deep Neural Network systems.

Training and inference are two distinct deep learning tasks that may be accomplished using analog in-memory computing. Training the models on a commonly labeled dataset is the initial stage. For example, you would supply a collection of labeled photographs for the training exercise if you want your model to recognize various images. The model may be utilized for inference once it has been trained.

Training AI models is a digital process carried out on conventional computers with conventional architectures, much like the majority of computing nowadays. These systems transfer data to the CPU for processing after first passing it from memory onto a queue.

Large volumes of data may be needed for AI training, and when the data is sent to the CPU, it must all pass through the queue. This may significantly reduce compute speed and efficiency and causes what is known as “the von Neumann bottleneck.” Without the bottleneck caused by data queuing, IBM Research is investigating solutions that can train AI models more quickly and with less energy.

These technologies are analog, meaning they capture information as a changeable physical entity, such as the wiggles in vinyl record grooves. Its are investigating two different kinds of training devices: electrochemical random-access memory (ECRAM) and resistive random-access memory (RRAM). Both gadgets are capable of processing and storing data. Now that data is not being sent from memory to the CPU via a queue, jobs may be completed in a fraction of the time and with a lot less energy.

The process of drawing a conclusion from known information is called inference. Humans can conduct this procedure with ease, but inference is costly and sluggish when done by a machine. IBM Research is employing an analog method to tackle that difficulty. Analog may recall vinyl LPs and Polaroid Instant cameras.

Long sequences of 1s and 0s indicate digital data. Analog information is represented by a shifting physical quantity like record grooves. The core of it analog AI inference processors is phase-change memory (PCM). It is a highly adjustable analog technology that uses electrical pulses to calculate and store information. As a result, the chip is significantly more energy-efficient.

As an AI word for a single unit of weight or information, its are utilizing PCM as a synaptic cell. More than 13 million of these PCM synaptic cells are placed in an architecture on the analog AI inference chips, which enables us to construct a sizable physical neural network that is filled with pretrained data that is, ready to jam and infer on your AI workloads.

FAQs

What is the difference between analog AI and digital AI?

Analog AI mimics brain function by employing continuous signals and analog components, as opposed to typical digital AI, which analyzes data using discrete binary values (0s and 1s).

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[krjpalmer]

ROM December 1977

A DEC LSI-11 being installed on an America's Cup-defending yacht (where it both had to be sealed against salt water and set up so that it could still radiate its waste heat out from its sealed compartment) provided the cover story for this issue. Ted Nelson's regular column looked ahead to a "Personal Computing 1982" convention in Atlantic City; his light humour on the topic didn't quite anticipate the well-known microcomputer companies of 1977 not building themselves into corporate colossi (nor absorbing pieces of IBM). The regular two-page colour centrefold wasn't of silicon chips this month, but of R2-D2, "considered by many Star Wars' real hero."

[tonto-splace]

14.02.2024 | 16:12

I have been reading ‘Hackers & Painters’ by Paul Graham recently. Paul is a hacker who gets pretty rich after his company which uses Lisp for development and one of the first companies used server based programs with lots of releases instead of a Desktop app. I really enjoyed this book. Even tho some parts were outdated, it makes you think about certain topics. It was more excited at start but gets kinda boring and unnecessarily longer in the end. I wanted to quote some parts i chose from the book:

While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please. (p.4)

hackers start original, and get good, and scientists start good, and get original. (p.26)

People in past times were much like us. Not heroes, not barbarians. Whatever their ideas were, they were ideas reasonable people could believe. (p.38)

scientists, or at least of the good ones, is precisely that: look for places where conventional wisdom is broken, and then try to pry apart the cracks and see what’s underneath. That’s where new theories come from. A good scientist, in other words, does not merely ignore conventional wisdom, but makes a special effort to break it. Training yourself to think unthinkable thoughts has advan- tages beyond the thoughts themselves. It’s like stretching. When you stretch before running, you put your body into positions much more extreme than any it will assume during the run. If you can think things so outside the box that they’d make people’s hair stand on end, you’ll have no trouble with the small trips outside the box that people call innovative. (p.39)

How are we to develop new technology if we can’t study current technology to figure out how to improve it? (this IBM having patent and abandoning to open their products are mentioned in the tv serie named Halt and Catch Fire too)

Authoritarian countries become corrupt; corrupt coun- tries become poor; and poor countries are weak. (p.43)

since you don’t understand the code as well, you’re more likely to fix it in an ugly way, or even introduce more bugs. (p.65, this is also what I hated on people I worked with, also please don't forget to clean the code after deletions)

It works a lot better for a small team of good, trusted programmers than it would for a big company of mediocre ones, where bad ideas are caught by committees instead of the people who had them. (p.69)

Wealth is stuff we want: food, clothes, houses, cars, gadgets, travel to interesting places, and so on. You can have wealth without having money. Money is a way of moving wealth, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. What most businesses really do is make wealth. They do something people want. (p.90)

Many employees would work harder if they could get paid for it. (p.97. I would)

Steve Jobs once said that the success or failure of a startup depends on the first ten employees. I agree. If anything, it’s more like the first five. Being small is not, in itself, what makes startups kick butt, but rather that small groups can be select. You don’t want small in the sense of a village, but small in the sense of an all-star team. (p.100)

Norbert Wiener said if you compete with slaves you become a slave. (p.124)

Great work usually seems to happen because someone sees something and thinks, I could do better than that. (p.145)

The word “essay” comes from the French verb “essayer,” which means “to try.” An essay, in the original sense, is something you write to try to figure something out. (p.160)

In OO languages, you can, to a limited extent, simulate a closure (a function that refers to variables defined in surrounding code) by defining a class with one method and a field to replace each variable from an enclosing scope. This makes the programmer do the kind of code analysis that would be done by the compiler in a language with full support for lexical scope, and it won’t work if more than one function refers to the same variable, but it is enough in simple cases like this. (p.197)

You can find my Goodreads account -> here

[niconiconwo]

The latest quantum computing news is funny as hell, and mirrors the fiasco with Google's claim a few years ago. They claimed to have done a calculation that would've taken 10K years on a conventional processor, then maybe a few months later a Chinese group proved it was doable in five minutes on silicon. IBM's recent claim has already been refuted, with a research group making a better accurate calculation in only several minutes.

I'm all for quantum optimism, but it is not the era-changer that their marketing makes it out to be. It's also not even useful for anything yet and given the immense cost it's kind of silly. I don't particularly care for investment grifts but I also don't like false information.

[euanpc]

why did no one tell me quantum computers looked like that

[ascendient-learning]

6 IT Certifications That Don’t Require Exams (But Still Boost Your Career) 

You don’t always need to pass a tough exam to prove your skills in tech. Some IT certifications are designed with hands-on learning, real-world assessments, or project-based evaluations instead of traditional tests. These can be a smart way to validate your expertise and stand out to employers without the stress of a formal exam room. 

If you’re looking to grow in your IT career but want to skip the standard certification exam route, here are six lesser-known yet valuable options that can help you move forward. 

1. Google IT Support Professional Certificate (Coursera) 

While not a traditional certification in the strictest sense, this Google-backed program offers a recognized credential upon completion and doesn't require any exam. Instead, you're assessed through practical labs and projects. It's aimed at beginners, especially those looking to break into helpdesk or support roles. Hiring managers at companies like Google and Walmart have noted this certification in candidate profiles. 

2. IBM Data Science Professional Certificate 

This certification focuses on real-world projects rather than a single pass/fail exam. It includes modules on Python, data visualization, and machine learning, with hands-on labs and assignments graded as part of the course. By the end of the program, you’ll have a portfolio of projects you can show to employers. It’s a great route if you're targeting a data science role without diving into certification test prep. 

3. LinkedIn Learning Certificates of Completion 

While not industry-standard certifications, many employers now recognize these as evidence of ongoing skills development—especially when they appear alongside practical work experience. Several IT certifications from LinkedIn Learning cover niche tools, frameworks, or concepts that aren't always addressed in major programs. There’s no exam; just complete the video-based coursework and assessments. 

4. HubSpot CMS for Developers Certification 

If you’re working in web development or content management, HubSpot’s CMS developer certification is a hidden gem. It's entirely project-based and focuses on building templates, themes, and custom modules. You’ll submit real work for review rather than sit through a timed exam. This can be a standout item in your portfolio, especially if you're freelancing or applying to small or mid-sized businesses. 

5. Microsoft Learn Skill Badges 

Microsoft Learn offers micro-certifications known as Skill Badges. You earn them by completing learning modules and interactive exercises—no exam involved. These badges show up on your Microsoft profile and can be linked to platforms like LinkedIn. They’re especially helpful for showing competence in Azure, Power Platform, or Microsoft 365 when you don’t yet have the time or resources for full certification. 

6. Adobe Certified Professional: Adobe After Effects 

Here’s a curveball: if you’re in IT roles that intersect with creative or digital production—like video engineering or UI/UX design—Adobe’s Certified Professional route can be a career booster. For certain tracks like After Effects, you can complete the certification through coursework and project submission without a formal exam. While Adobe does have exam-based paths, some partners offer alternative routes that focus on real use cases instead of a test score. 

Conclusion  

While these alternatives may not always carry the same weight as conventional IT certifications from giants like AWS and IBM, they still add value to your resume. They show initiative, practical ability, and ongoing learning, all things employers look for.  

So yes, not all IT certifications have to come from a test center. Sometimes, a portfolio filled with project-based credentials or verified course completions speaks louder than a perfect exam score. If you're building skills, switching careers, or just looking to round out your knowledge, these no-exam certifications can be a smart way to move ahead. 

For more information visit: https://www.ascendientlearning.com/certification

[scotianostra]

Scottish magician John Ramsay died 19th January 1962

Ramsay, was born in Ayr’s Bogha’ Row (now Victoria Street) and began his working life as a grocers boy, earning just 3 shillings a week.

As he progressed through the ranks of shop assistant and manager to eventually own the George Street business, he also developed interests in running and draughts: he once held world champion Richard Jordan to a draw. But it was talents in the conjuring field which went on to earn him the name of Scotland’s grand old man of magic.

Showing an early interest in conjuring from the age of seven, he was encouraged by his family and spent much of his pocket money on tricks and penny puzzles. He went on to enthral customers at his shop - and audiences the world over - with his sleight of hand and ready patter.

As his abilities grew, he became associated with the London Magic Circle and the Inner Magic Circle, going on to win the British Ring Shield when it was presented for the first time at the International Brotherhood Convention in 1939.

Ramsay performed at the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) convention in Batavia, New York and Chicago, in 1950. In 1955, he won the micromagic category at the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (FISM), held in Amsterdam. He also served as president of the British Ring of the IBM.

In 1960, he was honoured in a special dinner by the Scottish Conjurors Association, of whom he was a life member and honorary president for many years.

Seven months before his death, the Scottish Association of Magical Societies met in Ayr and presented John Ramsay with a bound volume containing messages and tributes from magicians all over the world.

John Ramsay is the only magician in the world with a garden named after him; Ramsay Gardens, in his native town of Ayr.

[niconiconwo]

Why learn an ecosystem that sucks tho?

For tech literacy all you need is to learn how to use Windows. They have tech classes in college you have to pass to get even a two-year. They use Windows and MS Office. Most average people and businesses use Windows with the exception of technical fields and backend services.

Trying to push FLOSS in this particular issue only makes it worse because now you are suggesting people who are tech illiterate learn something that is a niche and does not translate to most work environments at all.

FLOSSies have a hammer and to them every problem is a fucking nail. Besides that, it doesn't even help tech illiteracy because the prevailing distributions are all lowest-common denominator dumbed down nonsense anyways. Someone who doesn't understand what a directory is, is not going to install Arch or Gentoo.

The truth of the situation is, the majority of people don't care. They want something that works and has a low effort expenditure to use. That's why the walled-gardens ever managed to take off; that's why Ubuntu, Debian, etc are all install and forget and literally have curated "software centers" and have adopted the Flatpak mentality; that's why Windows won the desktop market and continues to maintain dominance in business; that's why Apple can sell you a cheap shitbox that overheats constantly for as much as a used car.

FLOSSies continue to have zero awareness and no grasp on reality outside their bubble. I'm no stranger to FLOSS either, I've run some form of linux or BSD for twenty years, and develop on both linux and Windows. Tech illiteracy in younger cohorts is not gonna be fixed by proselytising the gospel of Stallman. It's a hard filter that selects for the tech literate and enthusiasts.

What will fix it is changing the rhetoric around "high technology" that's used to push awful systems that are designed as appliances instead of tools; less latest and greatest and more computing fundamentals, less there is an app for that and more returning focus on using conventional PCs. Anyone with a reasonable grasp on literacy knows this has been the case since the microcomputing revolution; the most powerful home computers were marketed as game stations first and foremost. The late 90s is the only time that PC tech literacy saw a huge bump in the marketing blitz to sell hardware by convincing people they could become printshop masters or start a business with just their IBM PC and a few cheap software suites, or if you want to be a creative wiz go get an Amiga etc. Notice that it's the marketing rhetoric that shapes tech literacy, literally what OP was asserting to begin with.

As far as most people are concerned, the PC is for using a browser to pay bills and read emails. Everything else is "an app" they use on their phone. Or it's for playing games between school essays. FLOSS will not change that, in fact it's a hindrance when you need to interact with the rest of the world that uses Windows and Office and you like playing Sims 4 without having to go through a long process of WINE wrappers and terminal shenanigans to make it not crash.

We need to lay more blame for "Kids don't know how computers work" at the feet of the people responsible: Google.

Google set out about a decade ago to push their (relatively unpopular) chromebooks by supplying them below-cost to schools for students, explicitly marketing them as being easy to restrict to certain activities, and in the offing, kids have now grown up in walled gardens, on glorified tablets that are designed to monetize and restrict every movement to maximize profit for one of the biggest companies in the world.

Tech literacy didn't mysteriously vanish, it was fucking murdered for profit.

[unicausnews]

Is this 12 months the start of the top of smartphones?

Is this 12 months the start of the top of smartphones? Last month, a curious partnership within the Valley made me marvel on the way forward for sensible gadgets and the way in which we entry our digital universe. In a somewhat whimsical weblog publish, OpenAI introduced the acquisition of Jony Ive’s studio startup io for $6.5 billion. “We have the chance to utterly reimagine what it means to make use of a pc,” stated Altman, including that regardless of unprecedented functionality and new applied sciences like AI, the digital expertise is being formed by conventional merchandise and interfaces. A brand new know-how like AI, he defined, requires an entire rethink of instruments via which we work together with the digital universe. The first smartphone got here into being within the early 1993, when IBM’s Simon added electronic mail and fax to a cellphone’s functionality. (Representative photograph) This acquisition would’ve turn out to be one more company announcement, aside from the timing of it. In the final couple of years, there’s a sense throughout Silicon Valley that smartphone as a tool to work together with the digital world isn't sufficient. New applied sciences like AR/VR, robotics and now AI want new merchandise to discover them with. The new technology is approaching the digital world as an extension of themselves, via speech and never swiping or typing. As know-how turns into extra intuitive, we'd like new gadgets to replicate this alteration – extra immersive and aural, gadgets that increase the true world and never take you away from it. Tech corporations are placing their heads collectively to develop gadgets which might be extra immersive or strategy digital via different senses like aural and even neural. Legacy corporations like Meta, Apple and Google and startups like Neuralink are experimenting with sensible glasses, wearables, iOT gadgets, smartwatches, neural computer systems and even spatial computer systems (like Imaginative and prescientPro) the place digital media is built-in with our real-life expertise. So far, none of those gadgets have labored, however it does really feel like we’re at a cusp of dramatic change. A senior vp in Apple even acknowledged that in 10 years, iPhones might go the way in which of iPods - turn out to be irrelevant and retro. It’s time for this alteration, I might say. After all, our means of interacting with digital areas – via laptops, desktops and sensible gadgets - has been the identical for greater than 30 years now. The first smartphone got here into being within the early 1993, when IBM’s Simon added electronic mail and fax to a cellphone’s functionality. In Nineteen Nineties that there was a relentless feeling of experimentation as the hand held telephones and PDAs that would entry the web had been being performed with via product design. Companies internationally from USA to Japan wished to combine entry to web with a cellphone. The mid 2000s introduced smartphones like Blackberry with QWERTY keyboards, which shortly made tapping and emailing the accomplished factor to do. This modified dramatically when finger-operative touchscreen know-how got here out into the market. Within a few years in 2006, LG had used it to launch a touchscreen smartphone. And then Apple made it the brand new regular when it launched iPhones in 2007. Also Read: Do gaming smartphones actually make sense in 2025? Though there have been wonderful advances within the smartphone together with digicam capabilities, chip design and biometrics, the system design itself hasn’t modified the way in which we work together with the digital world. There’s a display screen we swipe, contact and pinch. We try social media, add our photographs on cloud and chat and electronic mail on the go. This staleness within the design was clear in Apple’s just lately concluded annual developer convention, WWDC 2025. The new iPhone 17 will probably be kind of the identical as iPhone 16 with a number of tiny tweaks. Jony Ive, whose firm OpenAI acquired

[govindhtech]

IBM Quantum System Two Co-Deploys with Fugaku Architecture

IBM and RIKEN launch the first IBM Quantum System Two in the US.

Researchers can now use quantum and classical supercomputing for challenging scientific advances with IBM Quantum System Two and Fugaku Architecture.

The first IBM Quantum System Two outside the U.S. marks a global milestone for quantum technology and promises to alter high-performance computing. RIKEN, Japan's foremost scientific organisation, and Kobe use highly powerful quantum computers. On June 24, 2025, the system debuted.

Initial IBM Quantum System Two installations outside a Quantum Data Centre are paired with RIKEN's Fugaku supercomputer, the most powerful conventional computer. Moving beyond “quantum-centric supercomputing,” these two massive computational powers are meant to boost computational power and precision.

Architecture Fugaku

The Japanese supercomputer Fugaku was built by RIKEN and Fujitsu using the Arm-based A64FX CPU. The first supercomputer with this architecture to top the world rankings. With almost 150,000 nodes, a 48-core processor, and tremendous memory bandwidth, its architecture prioritises high-performance computation. Fugaku's Tofu Interconnect D mesh network allows nodes to communicate smoothly, making it ideal for AI workloads and scientific simulations. Its well-balanced design produces outstanding computational and energy efficiency, making it crucial for drug discovery, climate modelling, and other fields requiring massive processing capacity.

Due to the complex relationship between quantum and classical devices, this co-location is crucial. A high-speed basic instruction network makes the systems a “proving ground for quantum-centric supercomputing”. This low-level integration allows RIKEN and IBM developers to create complex parallel workloads, low-latency classical-quantum communication protocols, and compilation passes and libraries.

This intricate link attempts to allow quantum and classical computing paradigms to effortlessly execute their optimal algorithm sections, maximising their performance. This hybrid method speeds up the understanding of complex algorithms, including basic chemistry algorithms.

The 156-qubit IBM Quantum Heron processor powers the new IBM Quantum System Two at RIKEN. Heron is the world's most performant quantum processor and IBM's best-performing quantum processor due to its high quality and speed.

The Heron processor achieves an astounding 3×10^-3 two-qubit error rate on a 100-qubit multilayer circuit. The best two-qubit error rate is 1×10^-3. This is ten times better than the IBM Quantum Eagle processor with 127 qubits.

The speed of Heron is 250,000 circuit layer operations per second. In the last year, this represents another ten-fold advance over the IBM Eagle CPU. Due to its 156-qubit scale and sophisticated requirements, the Heron processor can perform quantum circuits that even the most powerful classical computers cannot.

The strategic importance of this undertaking cannot be overstated. NEDO, a division of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), provides crucial support. This money comes from the “Development of Integrated Utilisation Technology for Quantum and Supercomputers” initiative, part of the “Project for Research and Development of Enhanced Infrastructures for Post 5G Information and Communications Systems.”

Financial analysts perceive this deployment as IBM's strategic investment to expand its global quantum computing capabilities. This measure is likely to generate new money and cooperation, especially in Asia where governments favour technology.

Market research analysts say the IBM Quantum System Two in Japan is a turning point in quantum computing and may increase acceptance and creativity in Asia.This boosts IBM's quantum computing supremacy, which may influence market dynamics and spur digital innovation.

The cooperation aims to accelerate the discovery of "quantum advantage," the moment at which a quantum computer can solve a problem better than any traditional approach. A Science Advances study by RIKEN and IBM showed promise in this area. Iron sulphides are complicated systems that were thought to require fault-tolerant quantum computers for meaningful modelling, yet their sample-based quantum diagonalisation (SQD) techniques accurately represent their electronic structure. When paired with solid classical infrastructure, near-term quantum computers can deliver significant scientific gains.

There are some obstacles ahead. Authorities say integrating quantum and classical systems is difficult and resource-intensive. Since quantum systems are still being researched, achieving a useful quantum advantage is a long-term goal.

CEOs from both firms remained optimistic despite these challenges. Jay Gambetta, IBM Quantum VP, said, “RIKEN collaborators are taking a huge step forward to make this vision a reality. Computing will be quantum-focused in the future. The new IBM Quantum System Two will allow engineers and scientists to push the limits by connecting to Fugaku and employing the latest Heron CPU.

RIKEN-CCS Quantum-HPC Hybrid Platform Division Director Dr. Mitsuhisa Sato said, “RIKEN hopes to guide Japan into a new age of high-performance computing by integrating Fugaku and the IBM Quantum System Two. Create and demonstrate quantum-HPC hybrid workflows for industry and academics to study. These two systems' interaction allows us take key steps towards this goal.

Japanese government support for IBM and RIKEN's quantum and high-performance computing collaboration indicates their dedication.