politics | beardy's

If a PDP-8 minicomputer can’t help with Greece, who can?

computer history, English, politics 1 Response »

Sep 262011

.BASIC NEW OR OLD--OLD FILE NAME--HELLO.BA

READY
RUN

HELLO BA 5A

HELLO, MY NAME IS PETEY P. EIGHT.

WHAT’S YOUR NAME ?BEARDY

HI THERE BEARDY. ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF HERE
IN THIS WONDERFUL PLACE?YES

OH, I’M GLAD TO HEAR THAT BEARDY

SAY, BEARDY, I CAN SOLVE ALL KINDS OF PROBLEMS
EXCEPT THOSE DEALING WITH GREECE. WHAT KIND OF
PROBLEMS DO YOU HAVE (ANSWER SEX, HEALTH, MONEY,
OR JOB)?

Not even a DEC PDP-8 (simulated in SIMH) running OS/8 and a BASIC program, HELLO.BA, can help with Greece!

Guess if I dropped my jaw in surprise and amusement when I read that, when playing around with a simulated historic computer just now. If not even that can help to solve the problems of/with Greece, I guess they’re doomed!

On another note, SIMH is a great thing, the DEC PDP-8 minicomputer (from 1965) seems to have been a nice machine in its days, and OS/8 quite a decent OS for its time and environment. Expect another post on SIMH and simulating/emulating old computers shortly.

Four years after The Pirate Bay raid

English, politics 1 Response »

Jun 012010

Apparently, yesterday it was exactly four years since (the) The Pirate Bay raid. Time really flies.. I remember it well. I think I probably still have the police lists of the confiscated computers in some dusty directory, they leaked, or was made available some time after, if I recall correctly that is.. (A few minutes later:) But I couldn’t find them now when looking, oh well.

TorrentFreak wrote:

After the raid it became clear that the US had threatened to put Sweden on the WTO’s black list if they refused to deal with the Pirate Bay problem. Even the MPAA was involved, with John Malcolm, Executive Vice President of the MPAA writing a letter to Sweden’s State Secretary in which he stated, “It is certainly not in Sweden’s best interests to earn a reputation among other nations and trading partners as a place where utter lawlessness with respect to intellectual property rights is tolerated.”

Exercising civil rights and duties

English, personal, politics No Responses »

Jun 072009

Today is the EU parliament election in Sweden. I have been exercising my civil right and duty, and voted. I think it’s important to do so, even if one isn’t very politically active otherwise, the least one can do is make an opinion and vote when there is an election.

I can report that things seemed to go well, all parties were represented in the box holding the ballots. Something slightly annoying was a person from one party standing outside of the house handing out ballots for his party. I guess that’s free for any party to do, but it only pisses me off, personally.

Conviction in The Pirate Bay trial, only a beginning

English, politics 2 Responses »

Apr 182009

Yesterday, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, were each sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay 30 million kronor in damages, by The Stockholm District Court. The four, who have denied any wrongdoing, are expected to appeal the verdict and have previously vowed to take the case as high as the Swedish Supreme Court if necessary. (Pirate Bay guilty)

Lew has written an insightful article on Kiwipolitico titled “Social, economic and political fallout of the Pirate Bay convictions”. Go read it.