Monthly Archives: July 2012

Well, it’s been a bit of a summer break. Almost two weeks, 12 days in fact. Your author has started a new position. But, for the few of you reading, I shall press on. Computers are great at certain calculations. … Continue reading →

I have noted that some of you have been referred to this blog when performing a search on Turing Completeness. Now this blog is intended for general audiences, but this is worth a bit of a diversion. Turing Completeness is … Continue reading →

We know that information can be represented using bits. Modern computers store those bits in various places. A hard drive can store trillions of bits. A computer’s main memory holds billions of bits. Hard drives can store information even when … Continue reading →

Computing makes heavy usage of abstraction. Without, one would be lost in a morass of details, making any computing task overwhelming. In fact, the abstractions that a programmer uses to make a web page are very far removed from the … Continue reading →

If you have been following this blog, you should have a better idea of what computing is. Having a idea of what computing is is critical to understanding what a modern computer really is. Turing defines what it means to … Continue reading →

Claude Shannon is known as the father of information theory. Information theory is about how messages (information) can be transmitted as a signal over a given medium, or channel. For example, an electrical signal over a copper wire can be … Continue reading →