2019.08.03 Claude Computing

If your life is somehow connected to what happens in computers, a visit to The Computer History Museum is a must.

By signing up to their newsletter you will weekly or biweekly receive an email telling you that for example this weekend, August 3-4, they will have 10 Apple 1 computers up and running.

They have many interesting talks - usually free if you are a member. At one such talk Stanford professor Ge Wang made music by blowing air into his iPhone mic. It takes some practice to play the Ocarina.

This Friday's event was a showing of the movie The Bit Player about Claude Shannon.

"Who was Claude Shannon?" you may ask - as did I, I am now embarrassed to admit.

If the idea of using binary numbers to represent information means anything to you, you can thank this gentleman. He was the first to get the idea. But he was not much into self-promoting; he was too busy experimenting with Artificial Intelligence, unicycles, and fire-blowing trumpets to become a household name.

Chance is that the movie will be screened in San Francisco in September. You can find showings on the movie website as they are listed.