Everything could have been different: why computers are like that
There are certain things we take for granted: bytes have eight bits, the internet uses packets. But these are decisions made by humans when other alternatives were on the table. In this talk, I’ll tell stories of some papers that were pivot points in the history of computing. How is the internet a response to nuclear war? How did a neuropsychologist and a tragic genius dream up neural nets? There will be an absolute banger of a bibliography for you to continue learning with.
