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Linux Journal Ceases Publication

These are some sad, sad news, folks – Linux Journal is closing down:

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It looks like we’re at the end, folks. If all goes according to a plan we’d rather not have, the November issue of Linux Journal was our last.

The simple fact is that we’ve run out of money, and options along with it. We never had a wealthy corporate parent or deep pockets of our own, and that made us an anomaly among publishers, from start to finish. While we got to be good at flying close to the ground for a long time, we lost what little elevation we had in November, when the scale finally tipped irrevocably to the negative.

I’ve been a subscriber of the Linux Journal for many years (just not the most recent ones), and I’ve learned a lot from it. It’s very sad to see it go, even though it’s been years since I read it last.

All 500 of the World’s Top 500 Supercomputers Are Running Linux

Slashdot shares the story:

Linux rules supercomputing. This day has been coming since 1998, when Linux first appeared on the TOP500 Supercomputer list. Today, it finally happened: All 500 of the world’s fastest supercomputers are running Linux. The last two non-Linux systems, a pair of Chinese IBM POWER computers running AIX, dropped off the November 2017 TOP500 Supercomputer list. When the first TOP500 supercomputer list was compiled in June 1993, Linux was barely more than a toy. It hadn’t even adopted Tux as its mascot yet. It didn’t take long for Linux to start its march on supercomputing.

From when it first appeared on the TOP500 in 1998, Linux was on its way to the top. Before Linux took the lead, Unix was supercomputing’s top operating system. Since 2003, the TOP500 was on its way to Linux domination. By 2004, Linux had taken the lead for good. This happened for two reasons: First, since most of the world’s top supercomputers are research machines built for specialized tasks, each machine is a standalone project with unique characteristics and optimization requirements. To save costs, no one wants to develop a custom operating system for each of these systems. With Linux, however, research teams can easily modify and optimize Linux’s open-source code to their one-off designs.

A Look Back at the History of CSS

“A Look Back at the History of CSS” is a nice trip down the history lane as to where and how CSS came about. It’s hard to imagine these days that CSS wasn’t always around and the web looked like whatever your browser decided to make it look like.

The Birth And Death Of Privacy: 3,000 Years of History Told Through 46 Images

“The Birth And Death Of Privacy: 3,000 Years of History Told Through 46 Images” is a rather extensive look at the history of privacy.

Privacy, as we understand it, is only about 150 years old. Humans do have an instinctual desire for privacy. However, for 3,000 years, cultures have nearly always prioritized convenience and wealth over privacy.

I said “there is no such thing as privacy, and there never was” way too many times. But I never had to go deep into the subject to defend it. This article, on the other hand, does a much better job defending the argument than I ever cared to.

UI Museum: Turbo Pascal 7.1

Ilya Birman continues his (now) series of the historical user interfaces with the post “UI Museum: Turbo Pascal 7.1“. (I’ve linked previously to his post about Norton Commander).

Turbo Pascal wasn’t my first programming language (some variation of BASIC was), but I’ve spent countless hours coding in Turbo Pascal, both for my studies and outside.

It’s interesting to see how different and, at the same time, similar those interfaces of the past are to those of today. Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) have gone a long way, but their basic principles, as well as some shortcuts and UI elements, are very similar to the 30-old tools.

One thing that I find in common with Ilya’s comments is that the teachers didn’t know or cover all the options. The information was scarce and Google wasn’t around. For many, there was also a language barrier, rendering even the available documentation useless.

Oh, good old times!