"A man using iOS Maps walks into a bar. Or maybe it's a church, or maybe a school, I'm not sure."

I bought a replacement Model M keyboard with USB from Unicomp. This is the original IBM keyboard, just newer. From their website: "The buckling spring “Model M” keyboard, invented by IBM in the 80’s; popularized by Lexmark in the early 90’s; and manufactured by Unicomp for the past 15 years is regaining its status as one of the best keyboards in the market."

Same original design. Very sturdy; you could probably cleave your way through the zombie apocalypse with this thing, and it would keep working. You can get them in either PS2 or USB. Mine's a USB version, and I love it.

It's interesting to draw a comparison between this guy making his own watch as an "art project" and Woz's Nixie tube watch which he says he has worn on flights. Did the TSA just let Woz through because he was Woz?

While not a perfect match to the above, I think the story of the king's toaster is a good example of the difference between an "engineer" and a "scientist". I originally saw this on USENET in the 1990s, so the technology is a little dated:

A great king summoned two of his advisors, and showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob and a lever. "What do you think this is?"

One adviser, an engineer, answered first: "It is a toaster," he said.

The king asked, "But how would you design an embedded computer for it?"

The engineer replied, "Using a 4-bit micro-controller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the toaster and start the timer. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working prototype."

The second adviser, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete."

The adviser suggested a future-oriented embedded computer innovation, with a forward-ready platform: "Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too.

"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't want the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface.

"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a 30MB hard disk and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap."

The king had the computer scientist thrown in the moat, and they all lived happily ever after.

I'm a long-time Doctor Who fan. I like the new series, but maybe not as much as the classic series. The actors are good, but I think the writing and stories aren't as strong. I've heard Lalla Ward mention in classic episode commentaries, for example, that it would do a world of good in the new series to cut their budget in half, so they learn to focus on making the stories tight (and not rely on special effects as much). The linked blog also mentions that some stories in the new series did really well because they had small budgets and had to keep the story tight and within that budget.

Now that we're coming up on the 50th anniversary season, I'd really like to see some hard references to the classic series. I came up with a great idea a few weeks ago that I'd love to see. With 7 Doctors in the original series, you can have 7 episodes to use as references. (Or 8 if you include McGann.) Imagine a series arc like this:

Story 1 : The episode starts with the Doctor, Clara (the new companion they'll introduce at the Christmas episode), and "Colin" (new companion .. see later) discovering a strangely quiet space museum on the planet Xeros. Exploring the museum, they discover themselves on display in the museum, with the TARDIS nearby! The Doctor realizes the TARDIS must have jumped a time track when they materalised. Thus they temporarily occupy a fourth dimension. This lets them be simultaneously in the cases in one reality and standing, looking at themselves in the fourth dimension. The Doctor adds that is why everything seems familiar, yet unfamiliar - for example, why he can remember meeting Clara but is fuzzy on meeting Colin - they're experiencing time out of order and things are all mixed up.

From there, the rest of the story is a one-hour version of 'The Space Museum' (1st Doctor). It was a good story, and would translate well to the current series, but needs editing down.

(The "Next Time on Doctor Who" trailer is not actually from the following story, but a re-cut trailer from a classic story. Same for the rest of the season.)

Story 2 : The TARDIS arrives on Earth in the year 3000 and the travellers quickly discover a base where scientists commanded by Leader Clent are using an ioniser device to combat the advance of a new Ice Age. The scientists uncover Martians (Ice Warriors) frozen in the glacier ice. The Doctor warns that the Ice Warriors are dangerous enemies. He also comments how similar this is to the first time he met them, also in Earth's future, but Colin suggests this is deja vu from jumping time tracks from the earlier episode.

This story re-introduces the Ice Warriors from the classic series, and in fact is a one-hour version of 'The Ice Warriors' (2nd Doctor).

Story 3 : The Doctor and his companions make a test flight in the TARDIS, trying to jump back to their original time track, and arrive on the planet Peladon. Seeking shelter, they enter the citadel of the soon-to-be-crowned King Peladon, where the Doctor is mistaken for an Earth dignitary (Clara and Colin as his aids) summoned to act as Chairman of a committee assessing an application by the planet to join the Galactic Federation.

The rest of the episode plays out similarly to 'Curse of Peladon' (3rd Doctor) but edited down to one hour. Sort of a cheesy episode, but can be improved through editing and some minor re-writes. I'd change the antagonist to one of the delegates, probably Alpha Centauri. The Doctor believes he knows who was causing trouble, but would end up being wrong. Instead, Colin and Clara ferret out the bad guys. The Doctor is really confused by now, especially since things seem familiar, yet unfamiliar (a theme repeated throughout this season).

Story 4 : The Doctor, Clara and Colin arrive on a desolate and apparently deserted Earth in our far future. They soon find a group of shipwrecked astronauts from a human colony in the Galactic Federation, lured there by a fake distress call. The astronauts suspect the Doctor of luring them. One of their number, Roth, tells Clara of an alien conducting gruesome experiments on his crewmates and him. The alien turns out to be a Sontaran (we've seen them in other seasons) compiling a report on human physical and mental capabilities as a prelude to an invasion of the galaxy.

It's a direct lift from 'The Sontaran Experiment' (4th Doctor). Not much editing required this time.

Story 5 : The Doctor, Clara and Colin arrive on Sea Base 4, a near-future nuclear missile station under the ocean. The Silurians (we've also seen them in other seasons in the new series) soon invade the base.

The rest of the episode is a one-hour version of 'Warriors of the Deep' (5th Doctor). Lots of things are changed, however. I'd lose the cheesy "neural implant" operator plot device from the original story. Colin plays a more "action" role in defending the base against the Sea Devil invasion. Why is Colin suddenly interested in getting a piece of the action? This causes the Doctor to wonder if they have really jumped time tracks, or if something more sinister is happening.

Story 6 : In the TARDIS console room, the Doctor decides to investigate further, and decides to retread his path, to backtrack and perhaps "reboot" the time line. He throws a switch ... The Doctor and his companions arrive on the Earth around the same time as story #4. Why is the Earth abandoned? They soon discover an underground colony, and learn from the people living there that the Sun became unstable (this sort of got mentioned in the Chris Eccleston season) and destroyed the surface, so they were forced underground. "The Earth has recovered, the surface is completely habitable now," insists the Doctor. But the colony is controlled by a service robot who was programmed to maintain an underground survival facility, so underground they will stay.

The story progresses more or less like 'The Mysterious Planet' (6th Doctor, 'Trial of a Time Lord'). It needs some editing to fit Colin into the story, with Colin taking on the role of Sabalom Glitz from the original story. But why is Colin becoming some kind of action hero?

Story 7 : The TARDIS materialises in Iceworld, a space trading colony on the dark side of the planet Svartos. The Doctor and Clara encounter Colin, a mercenary who has come here to search for a treasure guarded by a dragon. Also on Svartos is Kane, a literally cold-blooded criminal who has been imprisoned here. Wait, wasn't Colin a companion just a minute ago? This is left undefined for now, but the Doctor and Clara seem to recognize Colin from a previous encounter. The Doctor and Clara agree this seems weird ...

The story mostly follows 'Dragonfire' (7th Doctor) but with major changes. The Doctor suspects something is up ...

(The "Next Time on Doctor Who" trailer for this one needs to be lifted from 'Dalek Invasion of Earth'.)

Story 8 : Right away in story #8, show the classic clip from the end of 'Dalek Invasion of Earth'. Follow with an intense video clip montage of the Doctor saying (Hartnell) "I'm the Doctor" ... (Troughton) "The Doctor" ... etc... shown from all of the Doctors, in order, from Hartnell to Smith. The Doctor suddenly, unexpectedly wakes (shouting "I'm the Doctor!") to find himself in a dark chamber, with leads connected to his head. He finds Clara in a similar pod, and revives her. Colin is nowhere to be found. The Doctor realizes that they have been plugged into a virtual reality generator, drawing on the Doctor's own memories as some kind of entertainment. He wonders how long they've been in there. The emotion of seeing his granddaughter Susan's farewell woke him.

The story would uncover Colin is actually an Eternal. (You may remember the Eternals from 'Enlightenment' in the classic series ... they also got mentioned in spinoff media with Tennant's Doctor.) The Doctor reminds us that Eternals dwell in the domain of Eternity rather than the smaller one of Time. This meant they are unaffected by Time and thus unaging. But Eternals have no imagination, after so many millenia. They seek constant diversion. The Doctor refers to the Eternals as parasites for using Ephemerals (us regular folks who eventually die) for their creativity, as Eternals need the imagination of Ephemerals. Colin The Eternal used the Doctor's broad experience as a source for his own entertainment, inserting himself as a companion to join the adventures.

The rest of the story is a typical "end of season - the Doctor defeats the bad guys," possibly by trapping Colin The Eternal in his own device.

I know you asked for math-reads, but you also asked for books like Stephenson. I just finished reading Ready Player One which I found to be a lot like Gibson and Stephenson, but better. (For example, RPO actually has an ending.) It has a good cyberpunk feel, and a realistic world. The way he described the dystopian near-future society reminded me of Stephenson's Diamond Age or Snow Crash, or Gibson's Virtual Light trilogy.

While I always like to see people contribute their open source work such (bug fixes, enhancements) back to the community, it's important to realize this is not strictly required except for only a few licenses. With most licenses, you only need to provide a copy of the source code when you distribute the binary.

So a better way to market this might be "If we make changes to open source project X, you'll get a copy of the source code and our changes. You can use that to make changes on your own later - or hire us again to make further improvements." In my experience, companies like having the source IN CASE they need/want to make changes later, but will prefer to outsource that work to the person who did it the first time.

Bruce, I'm doing a study of usability in open source software - how user interfaces can be designed in Free / open source programs so the program is easy to use by real people. So my question is twofold:

What Free / open source program really got it right with usability? What qualities make for good usability in Free / open source software?

Agree, check the rules first. You don't want to get fired for doing the wrong thing. My understanding of lost property is that for values above a certain dollar amount, you need to return it or make reasonable assurances of being able to return it. (For items of low/no dollar value, I understand it is considered de minimis - but the TI-83 sells new for about $100, which I don't consider de minimis.) You said you "would feel wrong for selling them" so you seem to know there's an issue of proper ownership here.

I understand wanting to do something nerd-worthy with this old gear. And I'd bet that no one will come looking for them again anyway. But the right thing to do here is to hand them over to authorities. Start with your school administration, probably your campus police (if you have one) or whatever department seems connected with legal issues. Let them tell you what to do next.

Maybe you'll be lucky and they'll come back with "we don't consider this to be valuable property, do what you want". In that case, you can do nerd-worthy things with them, or donate them, or sell them. But you'll have someone in authority giving you permission to do so.

More likely is they'll take them and store them somewhere, and you'll never see them again. Which is too bad, but it's still the right thing to do.

At my previous job, I lived about 20 minutes away from the office by car, and about an hour by bus. So like you, I took the longer commute by bus. It was great! In the mornings, I used the extra hour to prep for meetings. In the afternoons, I listened to audiobooks and generally used the ride to leave work behind me.

I changed jobs two years ago, and moved to a small town. I specifically chose a house that was within walking distance to my office. My "commute" is very short (less than 10 minutes) but I love the opportunity to get out and walk. And I'm close enough that sometimes I go home for lunch.