Here is a great slideshow covering cryptography in great detail. It was shown at the BSDCan 2010 (BSD Conference 2010). It’s about 1 hour in length, which is somewhat long for a slideshow, but includes a bunch of really interesting information! “Cryptography is hard. It usually takes many years of study before it is possible [...]

I do quite a bit of Linux/Unix systems administrator on a day-to-day basis. Over time you sort of find out that there are quite a few ‘common traits’ that apply to your usual set of Unix admins. Some examples: the use of Vi, use of Perl, restrained use of sudo, etc. I found a list [...]

“Computer science is what enables programming, but it is possible to do a lot of programming without understanding the computer science concepts underlying the process of computation. This isn’t always a bad thing. When we program we work at a much higher level of abstraction. When we drive a car, we only concern ourselves with [...]

There are many Computer Science timelines out there that describe the major milestones in the field. Most of these detail things such as the founding of major companies involved in Computer Science. This doesn’t necessarily give us a good understanding of the true history of Computer Science and of the major breakthroughs which occurred after [...]

“Who invented the computer? For anyone who has made a pilgrimage to the University of Pennsylvania and seen the shrine to the ENIAC, the answer may seem obvious: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr., who led Penn’s engineering team in the 1940s. As it says on the plaque, the giant machine made of 17,468 [...]