"There is a reason I use 'old' languages like J or Lush. It's not a retro affectation; I save that for my suits. These languages are designed better than modern ones. There is some survivor bias here; nobody slings PL/1 or Cobol willingly, but modern language and package designers don't seem to learn much from the masters. Modern code monkeys don't even recognize mastery; mastery is measured in dollars or number of users, which is a poor substitute for distinguishing between what is good and what is dumb. Lady Gaga made more money than Beethoven, but, like, so what?" This isn't just a thing among programmers. The entire industry is obsessed with user numbers, number of applications, and other crap that is meaningless when you consider programming to be art. When I post a new item about some small hobby operating system, the comments will be filled with negativity because it's no Windows or iOS, whereas only ten years ago, we'd have lively discussions about the implementation details. And then people wonder why that scene has died out.

Windows NT turned 20 years old today. From a 1998 story about NT, written by Mark Russinovich, "I'll take you on a short tour of NT's lineage, which leads back to Digital and its VMS OS. Most of NT's lead developers, including VMS's chief architect, came from Digital, and their background heavily influenced NT's development. After I talk about NT's roots, I'll discuss the more-than-coincidental similarities between NT and VMS, and how Digital reacted to NT's release."

"According to the CONTEXT data, Android tablets now account for 61.2 percent of the Western European tablet market, more than double the 25.1 percent recorded the same time last year. Apple iOS devices, meanwhile, fell to 37.2 percent of Western European tablet market sales by distribution, from 71.2 percent at the same time last year." This is nothing short of a catastrophic collapse of iPad market share in Europe. Furthermore, "This analysis also screens out the effect of Windows 8, credited in some quarters with helping to drive increased tablet market share and cut into Apple’s tablet lead, but in fact with little to no impact, according to CONTEXT." And yes, Windows 8 on tablets is a dud.

"In smartphones, it's not all about Apple and Samsung anymore. For several years, these two companies have dominated the mobile phone-making business, successively one-upping each other with ever sleeker, more technologically sophisticated iPhones and Galaxy handsets that left would-be rivals grasping. But now the competition is stirring, and consumers are giving another look to brands they once ignored." Not only is Samsung now more profitable in mobile than Apple (next goalpost please), smaller Android manufacturers, such as LG, ZTE, and Lenovo, are making huge inroads, and are raking in growing profits - in fact, these three now belong to the top 5 mobile device makers. The common parlance that only Samsung is making a profit off Android is simply no longer true.

"Android 4.3 has a hidden feature! It's called 'App Ops' and it lets you selectively disable some permissions for your apps. Is some misbehaving app constantly pinging your location and draining your battery in a few hours? You can fix that now." Terrible name, fantastic feature. Also: finally.

"Forth is a simple, natural computer language. It has achieved remarkable acceptance where efficiency is valued. It evolved in the 1960s on a journey from university through business to laboratory. This is the story of how a simple interpreter expanded its abilities to become a complete programming language/operating system."

Microsoft will allow self-publishing on the Xbox One - Every Xbox One will be a development unit. "Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development. That every game and experience can take advantage of all of the features of Xbox One and Xbox LIVE. This means self-publishing. This means Kinect, the cloud, achievements. This means great discoverability on Xbox LIVE. We'll have more details on the program and the timeline at gamescom in August." No matter how much Microsoft screwed up the initial PR around the new Xbox, this is just awesome news.

"Google is making another foray into the living room with the Chromecast, a small $35 dongle that allows users to stream videos from a phone or tablet to their TV using Chrome. Essentially, it turns every TV into a smart TV, but it uses the same basic interface as whatever device you're on." Looks like an absolutely fantastic product, especially with the low price point and SDK for developers. I want this. Now. Too bad 95% of the world can't buy it for now.

If you're in the market for a smartphone, odds are you're looking at an Android phone. If you're looking at an Android phone, odds are you're looking at Samsung, and if you're exotic, you may be looking at a Nexus, HTC, LG, or maybe even Sony. Few of you will be considering Oppo. I, however, did.

Joel Spolsky killed a Microsoft patent application in just a few minutes - he found prior art and submitted it, and the USPTO examiner rejected the patent because of it. "Micah showed me a document from the USPTO confirming that they had rejected the patent application, and the rejection relied very heavily on the document I found. This was, in fact, the first 'confirmed kill' of Ask Patents, and it was really surprisingly easy. I didn't have to do the hard work of studying everything in the patent application and carefully proving that it was all prior art: the examiner did that for me." This is all under the umbrella of 'Ask Patents'.

"Apple revealed Sunday that its Developer Center suffered a lengthy outage this week following a security breach that may have compromised data, but a security researcher has provided evidence to suggest the shutdown was in response to his identification of a vulnerability." It's no secret that Apple's developer portals are a mix of outdated, crappy technologies, and it seems that this security researcher did good work by making that fact very, very clear for everyone. Would be nice of Apple to acknowledge his work, although as we all know, that's about as unlikely as Pluto blocking the sun, no matter how Apple claims it wants to be "open" about this disaster in its public statement.

"It's now been almost three full days. I don't know anything about their infrastructure, but for a web service to be down this long with so little communication, most 'maintenance' or migration theories become very unlikely." Downtime is normally just part of life, but three full days? There's something going on.

"Alan Turing, the Enigma codebreaker who took his own life after being convicted of gross indecency under anti-homosexuality legislation, is to be given a posthumous pardon. The government signalled on Friday that it is prepared to support a backbench bill that would pardon Turing, who died from cyanide poisoning at the age of 41 in 1954 after he was subjected to 'chemical castration'." Justice.

"Surprise, surprise, a certain Korean company copies more of Apple's product design. When Apple launched the iPad mini in October 2012, Apple explained the design: the almost 8" screen size and thin border allow one-handed use. Now, the new 8" Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 has the same border design as the iPad mini." From what I can only assume is the The Onion of technology reporting. I love humour like this on a lazy Friday afternoon.