The Glorious World of Software

A ways back, I was programming the simple time-and-date software for a standalone utility computer.  This was a one-program computer that did a  specific set of functions 24 hours a day, every day, without a human operator.  But it needed to synchronize with others like itself scattered across the earth, and so it needed to deal with local time, global time, timezones, daylight savings, and slightly broken clock circuits.  I got it running pretty quickly, but the thing was never done.

It was hard for me to explain the never-ending nature of the situation.  If I'd had this film, I could have shown it around and we all would have been a lot happier.

Few of you are computer programmers or scientists.  Yet many of you have become curious about these things that are so helpful yet so infuriating.

Most descriptions of this sort of stuff are all techno-babble.  Or just babble.  But I think you will find this very interesting.  It's about fitting the mess that is humanity into the rigid categories of the computer.  Let me know if you like it.

Computers and networks are now culture, not just machinery.  Yet, the makers and users of culture are frequently baffled by the culture of their own society.  This video describes some of the madness.  Note that they use the word 'code' to mean software.

Computerphile and Numberphile are channels on YouTube that provide explanations that entertain.  Highly recommended.

The truth, by the way, is even worse than the movie shows.  Here is a timezone map for antarctica:

They can't be serious.