Top all-time · #3256
James Gleick
Personal blog · around.comwritingculturehistory
James Gleick's personal blog at around.com covers writing, culture and history. Since 2009, 23 different Hacker News readers have linked it 25 times, most often “An overflow error costing 500M dollars (1996)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Most-linked posts?
- An overflow error costing 500M dollars (1996)5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-06-13
- Time for Earth Time – James Gleick2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-11-07
- A Bug and a Crash 2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-05-24
What Hacker News says?
This discussion reminds me of the failure of the first Ariane 5 launch. The flight-termination system was activate erroneously, and the payload was not insured. Ouch. http://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/bullet87/cavall87.htm https://around.com/ariane.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_%28spacecraft%29
Comment linking /ariane.html
on “A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral”Submitted Let Twitter Be Twitter as a story · 119 points
HN discussionPeople who got somewhat of a buzz reading the above may enjoy James Gleick's new book @ http://around.com
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on “Dizzying but invisible depth”Submitted Gleick's new book on information theory as a story · 64 points
HN discussionon Shannon Laboratory (from https://around.com/where-are-they-now-bell-labs/ ): [quote]AT&T was always oblivious to Shannon’s role as the father of modern communications, and (with its usual tin ear), couldn’t figure out how to benefit from its own history. Back when Lucent split from AT&T and was granted most of Bell Labs (along with bragging rights for the invention of the transistor), I was busy trying to convinc…
Comment linking /where-are-they-now-bell-labs/
on “Claude Shannon Turns 1100100”Submitted An overflow error costing 500M dollars (1996) as a story · 50 points
HN discussionNo technology is perfect, it's always a process. And effectively every computer-related technology has undiscovered bugs. https://around.com/ariane.html ""The board wishes to point out," they added, with the magnificent blandness of many official accident reports, "that software is an expression of a highly detailed design and does not fail in the same sense as a mechanical system." (...) (...) really important soft…
Comment linking /ariane.html
on “Raymond Chen explains what the Y2K was like at Microsoft [video]”Submitted A Bug and a Crash as a story · 6 points
HN discussion"We give everyone a pair of noise cancelling headphones as a way of shutting out the office noise." Can't you just rent a 1950s vintage office building somewhere cheap and give your people the option? C.F. Claude Shannon (who stayed in a city centre building when his employer moved to the suburbs)[1]. I agree with others that the OA is confusing several issues (office layout and corporate goofiness). [1] http://arou…
Comment linking /where-are-they-now-bell-labs/
on “The backlash against running firms like progressive schools has begun”Submitted Google Dominates Us as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis is an article about competition. How long has it been since Microsoft defeated a competitor? Here is an explanation from a journalist on why Microsoft isn't included in this article: http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/30/the-squid-and-the-jellyfish... And here is one from about five years ago from Paul Graham on seeing Microsoft as no longer relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html It is fascinating to see…
Comment linking /microsoft.html
on “Technology giants at war”Submitted The Bug That Caused the Ariane 5 Rocket to Explode as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Secret No More: Google and Power as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How the Web Was Lost as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Time for Earth Time – James Gleick as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Chasing Bugs in the Electronic Village (1992) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Chasing Bugs in the Electronic Village (1992) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Watch This Space (1995) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Bug and a Crash as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Time for Earth Time as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Bug and a Crash as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bots on Patrol as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Inescapably Connected (2001) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Defining Information, Even More as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood as a story · 1 points
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