Unsung heroes of IT: The story of Bill Tutte and Tommy Flowers - 2/1/2010 - Computer Weekly

2011-10-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

First class

2011-09-26T04:06:00.000-07:00

Phew! Nerves are receding and information is settling gradually into my brain. It's amazing how many things I'd thought I knew, but in fact I only had some superficial knowledge about. I realise that I use terms whose meanings I don't totally possess. So, this first class has brought awareness about this and focus on a smaller picture. Learning about bits and bytes and terabytes. I've never heard of terabytes, I must say. I've got this definition from TechTargetInc. :
"A terabyte (TB) is a measure of computer storage capacity that is 2 to the 40th power or approximately a trillion bytes (that is, a thousand gigabytes). The prefix tera is derived from the Greek word for monster."
And also an exabyte:
"An exabyte (EB) is a large unit of computer data storage, two to the sixtieth power bytes. The prefix exa means one billion billion, or one quintillion, which is a decimal term. Two to the sixtieth power is actually 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes in decimal, or somewhat over a quintillion (or ten to the eighteenth power) bytes. It is common to say that an exabyte is approximately one quintillion bytes. In decimal terms, an exabyte is a billion gigabytes.
An exabyte of storage could contain 50,000 years' worth of DVD-quality video." (from the same source TechTargetInc)
Another important thing, just to think of is the levels of data representation: bits, bytes, formats, files, documents. I work with them everyday, but I don't think of what they really mean. It was interesting to be reminded of the binary system; to think in zeros and ones and still to be able to represent anything one wants. I like the translation from the decimal system to the binary one and viceversa.
And then jump from the small picture to a bigger one, to von Neumann's architecture.
Now, trying to translate this into the existential world; the load of information we live in and the significance for our daily life. I will leave this for the next few days. At the moment, I'm overloaded.....

Welcome to my first blog post!

2011-09-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

Yes, my first time blogging and wonder how I can add a description under my blog title. This blog is intended to build on my thoughts of connecting existentialism to technology, especially information technologies. It's very exciting thinking that I could share ideas with lots of people, hopefully...

existentialize.net

Unsung heroes of IT: The story of Bill Tutte and Tommy Flowers - 2/1/2010 - Computer Weekly

First class

Welcome to my first blog post!