Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Monday 3 March 2008, 3:32 AM
Whizz for Atomms!
I think this is topp. Who can forget the original mighty ATOM, made by the masters herman hauser and chris cury in the fermenting hotbed of teknology cambridge in the semenal years of thatcher? the Acorn ATOM (quick pause for oblig. link) which was father of the even mightier BBC MICRO which made this country grate.
no doubt we will see mani more atomic puns and weedy jokes about atomic engeneering and power and theory and all that good stuf in the days ahed. I cannot wate.
enuff of this. philip hensher sai that enyone who attempt to imitate the molesworth style wil come a croper, he mai be rite.
PreviousComments on this post
Good grief I'd forgotten about Molesworth. I wonder if my kids will get it. Must look for it on Amazon.
Simon
A quick poll around the office reveals that nobody knows what I'm on about.
Confused readers should google for Molesworth and St Custards...
i thought the spelling in the first sentence was related to the post in some humourous way. rupert... what happened to you? is there an office junior there with spots all over submitting your blogs via his mobile???
i used to read your column quite religiously before the zdnet site redesign last year which turned me off this site completely. your blogs back then were weekly and of a decent length, but then they turned irregular; sometimes just two sentences and sometimes a little bit more. i hardly ever visit zdnet anymore as its just plain ugly (just like guardian.co.uk has recently become).
I can't say whether you'll find it humourous or not, but the spelling in the first sentence (and the title, and the rest) relates to a 1950s fictional character called Nigel Molesworth, the schoolboy star of a series of books - one called Whizz for Atomms! - by Geoffrey Willians and illustrated by Ronald Searle. I don't in general like taking marketing too seriously, and calling a chip the Atom is inherently silly, so it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.
I know what you mean about not getting a decent length on a Friday. It's not quite the same. However, having a format where I can post things when they happen has its own rewards (not least getting feedback!), and after ten years of panic on a Friday afternoon - usually shared by a production desk keen to be doing something else before midnight - it was nice to have a change.
Perhaps something a bit special to mark the end of the week might be a good idea. I'll chew on that.
Are you using the RSS feed? We've had a few technical problems with that in the past, but they're behind us now; it's a good way to keep up with bits of the site without having to hunt for new posts.
Chiz Chiz Goodwins, you are a weed and a wet, say Judge minor, tripping across the office singing hello trees hello flowers.
Thing is, Rupert is quite a bit younger than me, and I don't think I'm old enough to remember when Molesworth was current.
I ate a West Country library when I was young, which had a very well stocked children's section going back some way (although I think Molesworth was still in print in the early 70s).
R
fair cop rupert. my bad. just a bad coincidence that this was the first article i had read of yours in months.
about the weekly/ item thing... jack schofield over at the guardian posts on his tech agony uncle blog whenever he gets a story, but every thursday he posts a summary of the week's highlights. i never read the blogs but i do enjoy the summary. just a suggestion. not sure how your system works over here.
Any fule kno Molesworth. Wot a chiz Rupert, keep it upp.
Fotherington-Thomas
