John McCarthy — Father of AI and Lisp — Dies at 84

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Douglas Stetner

Another icon of the computer family is gone.

John McCarthy — Father of AI and Lisp — Dies at 84.

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C and Unix pioneer Dennis Ritchie reported dead

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Douglas Stetner

C and Unix pioneer Dennis Ritchie reported dead • The Register.

With Bell’s Ken Thompson, Ritchie helped develop Unix and got it running on a DEC PDP-11, and released the first edition of the operating system in 1971.

I never met the man, but I have spent 25 years working on UNIX, the best OS in the world.  Still. I started working on UNIX on a PDP-11/45 with a 1 Megabyte RL01 disk pack.
I will be toasting Dennis with a stiff scotch this evening.
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Straddie SharkWatch weekend

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Douglas Stetner

Had a great weekend on Straddie again, (fairly) flat seas, sunshine and lots of grey nurse sharks! Lots of humpback whales too, one swam right behind the boat as we were preparing to go down for our second dive! (Couldn’t get a focus lock on it before it disappeared though, damn!)

Pictures here:

P.S. See Reef Check Australia for more information on SharkWatch.

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May 8th 2011 Unidive Flinders trip

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Douglas Stetner

We made the trip out to Flinders Reef on Sunday, nice flat seas and pretty good vis (even though there were lots of floaties to make back scatter and frustrate the photographers!).

My photos are here:

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I won a dive trip to Kavieng, Papua New Guinea !!!

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Douglas Stetner

Made it down to Go Dive today to pick up my ScubaPro snorkelling kit that I won in a draw for people who contributed to Cyclone Yasi. I also won a trip to LISSENUNG ISLAND RESORT, Kavieng I will be taking my trip in June around my 50th birthday. Should be a nice break!

I would like to thank the companies that donated to the prize (see below) and ask that you consider them first if you are planning a trip in the future or need some dive gear.

Including:

  • Holiday for 1 person at LISSENUNG ISLAND RESORT, Kavieng, Papua New Guinea
    • including 7 nights accommodation in a single room with ensuite, all meals, 5 dive days with 2 boat dives per day, tanks & weights, complimentary shore diving on our house reef in the afternoon, round trip airport transfers

    donated by LISSENUNG ISLAND RESORT, Kavieng

     LissAir  
     
  • Roundtrip airfare from Brisbane, Sydney or Cairns to Kavieng
    • incl. airtaxes, travel insurance and visa fees

    donated by Diversion Dive Travel

     Logo fir4 header top  
     
  • Set of snorkel gear
    • including Dry bag, torch, fins and booties and mask and snorkel

    donated by Scubapro-Uwatec

     IMG 7011 Version 2  
     
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