New York City Archives - The Silicon Underground

Robert Rayford (Robert R): AIDS in St. Louis in the 1960s

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 12:00:38 +0000

The sad story of Robert Rayford (aka Robert R), the first documented case of HIV/AIDS in the United States, shows that if timing had been a little bit different, the AIDS epidemic could have happened a decade earlier than it

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Marx vs. Lionel

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 12:00:42 +0000

In the 1950s, Marx and Lionel took turns being the biggest toy company in the world, largely riding on the popularity of O gauge trains. Neither company particularly liked the other, but both owed some degree of their success to

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The Marx connection to Hafner

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 11:00:30 +0000

Hafner was a Chicago-based maker of clockwork-powered O gauge trains during most of the first half of the 20th century. The trains were inexpensive but durable. William Hafner developed the clockwork motor as a hobby around the turn of the

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There are several things to like about the Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:25 +0000

The Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013 is coming soon to a Senate near you, and there are several things in it worth paying attention to. 1. Unbundling. It’s not uncommon to have to pay for hundreds of channels in

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We need to fix CISPA, not kill it

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 10:00:40 +0000

Here’s a good plan for fixing CISPA. And CISPA needs to be *fixed*, not stopped. We have three alternatives right now: Secure the Internet Voluntarily pare back the Internet Wait for the Internet to fall apart and/or become too dangerous

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Happy late birthday, OS/2

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 12:45:33 +0000

Twenty-five years ago this month, on April 2, IBM announced its new PS/2 computers and a new multitasking operating system to run on (most of) them–OS/2. They even lured a bunch of the actors from M*A*S*H to do an ad

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Christmas Eve, a train that wouldn’t run, and a happy ending

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:53:58 +0000

It was Christmas Eve. I finished playing Santa, then I plopped down in front of the computer to unwind and signed into Facebook. Internet pal John Dominik posted a status update about buying a Bachmann N-scale train set and it

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Why I generally buy AMD

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:20:10 +0000

I was talking to a new coworker today and of course the topic of our first PCs came up. It was Cyrix-based. I didn't mention my first PC (it seems I'm about four years older--it was an Am486SX2/66).

With only a couple of exceptions, I've always bought non-Intel PCs. Most of the Intel PCs I have bought have been used. One boss once went so far as to call me anti-corporate.

I'm not so much anti-corporate as I am pro-competition.

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Whatever happened to risk-takers?

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 15:15:02 +0000

I love Disney like I love the Soviet Union. Mainly it's because the company clawed its way to the top by taking advantage of obscure aspects of copyright law, and then the company bought enough Congressmen to close up the doors they used to get where they are today.

But I read something today about Disney that I found interesting.

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Lionel bankruptcy

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 22:22:01 +0000

It was all over the various news sites, but Lionel, the train maker, filed Chapter 11 yesterday.

A lot of the news stories got a lot of details wrong.

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