Creator of Smalltalk on Lisp

Alan Kay, the creator of Smalltalk, recently discussed Lisp. One interesting quote:

Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance of Lisp. Lisp is the most important idea in computer science. Alan's breakthrough in object oriented programming, wasn't objects, it was the realizing that the Lisp metasystem was what we needed.

Well, I can't completely say I understood the significance of Lisp. However, I optted for Lisp over Cobol in college when there was a conflict without a second thought :). Well, that was easy. I still remember the joy of building my small world in Pure Lisp, not to mention later on doing programming and metaprogramming in Smalltalk (my first OO language) while refusing to learn C++. I didn't go too far on the life without C++. It was not a viable life style in the (early) 90s.

Torino Olympics via Google Earth

If you have not played with Google Earth, now there is a good reason to do so: to fly to Torino Italy and have a bird's-eye view of the event. Here is Lenovo i.lounge that the athletes in the Olympic Villages see. It contains several Google Earth links. After you install Google Earth, click on them and you will be brought to the locations of interest. You can even see the slopes in 3D where the downhills are going to happen (I am not sure if you can see this with the basic version of Google Earth). It's quite amazing what technology can do these days.



Disclaimer: I work for Google.

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