Sir Clive Sinclair: Computing pioneer dies aged 81
10 minutes ago
Inventor Sir Clive Sinclair, who popularised the home computer and invented the pocket calculator, has died at his London home aged 81.
His daughter Belinda Sinclair said he passed away on Thursday morning after having cancer for more than a decade.
Sir Clive's products included the ZX series of computers and his ill-fated C5 electric vehicle.
He was still working on his inventions last week "because that was what he loved doing", said Ms Sinclair.
"He was inventive and imaginative and for him it was exciting and an adventure, it was his passion," she added.
While his ZX Spectrum computers brought affordable personal computing to the masses - selling in their millions across the world - Sir Clive's attempt to launch an electric vehicle was not successful.
Minute's silence for Sir David Amess in House of Commons
The Speaker’s chaplain has led a minute’s silence in the House of Commons for Sir David Amess MP.
Tricia Hillas said of the murdered Southend West MP: “May the bright memory of his rich life ever outshine the tragic manner of his death”.
Lindsay Hoyle also paid tribute to the former Northern Ireland secretary James Brokenshire, who died on 7 October.
Re: Recent Deaths
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2021 2:29 pm
by wjfox
Re: Recent Deaths
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2021 3:07 pm
by caltrek
While I do believe in the wisdom of speaking kindly of the dead, there are lessons to be learned from history. The career of Colin Powell supplies plenty of such lessons. On the positive side, the development of the "Powell Doctrine." On the negative, his role in trying to facilitate the U.S. invasion of Iraq by use of what should have been perceived as dubious evidence. For further background on that second point:
Climate Cassandra: Seeing the Future When No One Believes You
by Rebecca Gordon
October 18, 2021
(Common Dreams) In the run-up to the March 2003 invasion, figures who might be thought of as "anti-Cassandras" took center stage. Unlike the Greek seer, these unfortunates were apparently doomed to tell falsehoods—and be believed. Among them was Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security advisor, who, when pressed for evidence that Saddam Hussein actually possessed WMD, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," implying Iraq represented a nuclear threat to this country.
Then there was secretary of State Colin Powell, who put the case for war to the United Nations General Assembly in February 2003, emphasizing the supposedly factual basis of everything he presented:
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and
conclusions based on solid intelligence."
It wasn't true, of course, but around the world, many believed him.
And let's not leave the mainstream press out here. There's plenty of blame to go around, but perhaps the anti-Cassandra crown should go to the New York Times for its promotion of Bush administration war propaganda, especially by its reporter Judith Miller. In 2004, the Times published an extraordinary mea culpa, an apologetic note "from the editors" that said,
"[W]e have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged—or failed to emerge."