For much of its life, JOHNNIAC operated more than one shift. Its nighttime operations were under the control of the same people who operated the other computers we had. On lengthy computations, the operator would start the machine, switch off the room light, and go awasy — to come back for the completed work. On many such occasions it was noticed that machine errors were made, and eventually, the story got around that "JOHNNIAC was afraid of the dark." So it turned out to be. Upon investigation, we found that certain small neon tubes in the machine were sensitive to light, and did require the presence of light for reliable operation. So it is that we have a row of fluorescent lights just inside the doors.

Fantastic post by Ryan Dahl: on why software sucks.

RT @souders: Patrick McManus writes about his experience adding SPDY to Firefox (via @CooperPress):

new post: "App cache & localStorage survey" Top 10 sites: 5 use localStorage on mobile, 2 on desktop, 0 use app cache