History

1911 Census Online

History / 29/08/2009

Including scans of the original documents, in case you didn’t hear.

The household returns and ancillary records for the censuses of Ireland of 1901 and 1911, which are in the custody of the National Archives of Ireland, represent an extremely valuable part of the Irish national heritage. Read more about their digitisation.

All thirty-two counties for 1911 are now available on this site . We have decided to make the material immediately available, in the knowledge that the vast majority of our users will be able to find what they want. Corrections and improvements will be ongoing, and we are very grateful to all users who have submitted corrections to us.

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Witchfinders Direct

History, Humour, Videos / 21/05/2009

From CBBC. Given the dearth of decent original material on “adult” TV, perhaps we should all start working shift and stay at home during the day.

Colossus Is Back Baby!

History, Security / 17/11/2007

No, I haven’t put all that weight back on again. This is the Colossus that cracked German ciphers during WWII, rebuilt over an incredible 14 years in Bletchley Park. Valves an’ all!

I’m going to London in February to buy a whole new set of clothes, so poor old T is going to be dragged all the way to Milton Keynes. :)

Colossus

Jakob Nielsen’s Dishonesty

Business, History, Web / 26/08/2007

I’ve always disliked Nielsen’s holie-than-thou attitude and painful-to-look-at website, so I’m only too delighted to highlight his admission that in 1997 he suppressed research that demonstrated that users respond to dialog-box style ads on websites.

Now hold your horses before you dive in to defend his honour. Yes he’s admitted it now, and there’s no denying that that’s a step forward. But ask yourself, when did you start admiring him, recently or ten years ago? Would you now, with the same information?

Neilsen is a dinosaur. Move on people.

Did you know?

History / 15/05/2010 /

That the phrase “By Hook or by Crook” originated when William the Conqueror swore that he would take Waterford by Hook Head to the east of the harbour, or Crook head to the west. I didn’t (until a few weeks ago).

IBM 704

Engineering, Hardware, History, Technology / 11/06/2007

IBM 704

Shorpy: This network of black magnetic beads, smaller than a postage stamp, is one of a number of input-output “memory” units in the new “704” electronic calculator built by International Business Machines. This particular “memory” unit of the 704 instantaneously strips all information off a slow-moving punch card, stores the data momentarily in the form of magnetic charges, and passes along the individual items, one at a time, to a lightning-fast calculating section, which can handle around 10 million operations an hour, theoretically replacing 3,000 hand-operated adding machines. Orders are in for over thirty 704’s, which I.B.M. will rent at some $20,000 a month each.