The product assassin
At Schlumberger, the board sent post-merger products past Allan for review. The unofficial title was more accurate than the official one.
Stories are also evidence
Anecdotes
Short doors into longer stories, plus memoirs recovered from Recondite. A CV need not read like drywall.
Yes, that SUN
The Smalltalk-80 implementation on the prototype Stanford University Network workstation was the first thing that ran on it. The acronym had not yet become a company.
Still orbiting
Some descendants of the radiation-hardened F9445 microprocessor are, quite literally, still circling the planet.
Notes towards Memoirs of a Bit Player
The first public demonstration of the Xerox Star, seen shoulder-to-shoulder with someone who would not stop swearing.
More Memoir: Chemistry for Software Engineers
A programmer’s first day in Fairchild’s Transistor Plant #2, after the chemical-safety film and before the puddle.
Channeling my inner teenager
“High School on Mars” supplies the Bangkok-school prologue; the reunion follows thirty-four years later.
The Three Laws of Security
When someone says something confusing about computer security, now you can say “I think that’s just a restatement of Schiffman’s second law.”
1. Locks Only Keep Out Honest People: Security measures inconvenience authorized users more than their adversaries.
2. Ask, “Qui Bono?”: The “pointless hassle” security procedure is there for a reason—only not the reason you think.
3. Outrun the Other Hikers, not the Bear: If you’re a far harder target than all others equally or more attractive, you’re working too hard.
The Real Security Law
Amateurs study cryptography, professionals study economics