Cursing by Keyboard in the Early Morning
20 July 2023 • by Bob • Poetry, Humor
If, like me, you were ever forced to read Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," here is my 21st-century homage to his most-famous work:
Cursing by Keyboard in the Early Morning
It's half past two, I'm still awake,
Typing madly, cursing mistakes.
Myriad tasks my ire rouse,
No end in sight, and my head aches.
Emphatic din of keys and mouse,
Resound throughout the tiny house.
Word just crashed with hard drive errors.
I scream in silence. (Can't wake my spouse.)
Word's "auto-save" denies my prayers;
Four thousand words beyond repair.
No cloud drive clone, I could just weep.
I start again, fraught with despair.
I long for blankets warm and deep,
But I have my deadlines to keep,
And hours to work before I sleep,
And hours to work before I sleep.
POSTSCRIPT:
While I admire Frost's usage of iambic tetrameter throughout this poem, I thoroughly dislike the rhyming scheme that he employed. Nevertheless, my trifle of a poetic offering is more or less a form of parody, so I tried my best to stay true to Frost's pattern.
Not All Marginalization is Misogyny
10 July 2022 • by Bob • Computers, Apple, Microsoft, Technology, Rants
Every few years, the following photograph of Margaret Hamilton makes the rounds in social media. This particular image's popularity is not surprising; it's a great shot of Hamilton, who was NASA's lead developer for Apollo program, standing next to the stack of computer printouts for the software that told the Apollo Guidance Computer what to do and when to do it, which eventually helped astronauts land on the moon.
#/media/File:Margaret_Hamilton_-_restoration.jpg "Margaret-Hamilton-With-Apollo-Software")
A friend recently posted this image to social media, and upon seeing it, someone else responded, "That is incredible. Why haven't I ever heard of her before?"
My friend's reply was simple: "Because men."
I completely understood my friend's point. There are far too many times when women are overlooked in their respective fields. But I was annoyed and frustrated by my friend's
In some fields, men are easy targets for a good round of bashing where "popularity" or "fame" are concerned, but when an entire career field isn't "popular," then EVERYONE who works in that field remains obscure. As history shows, Hamilton (and Hopper, and Sammet, and Allen) earned a host of accolades, but most people haven't heard of them because we use their work without giving a second thought where it came from. (Which, by the way, is true of all engineering fields, but I digress.) I challenge anyone to name a single engineer - man or woman - who helped to produce the iPhone, which is (for better or worse) one of the most civilization-altering inventions in history. Oh, sure - everyone can name Steve Jobs, because he owned the company. But Steve Jobs never "made" anything; millions of unnamed engineers - both men and women - are responsible for the iPhone, the iMac, Windows, Google, Microsoft Office, etc.
Here's another example: I just watched the new "Thor" movie, and Taika Waititi's name is everywhere during the credits because he co-wrote and directed the movie; but most people probably haven't heard of his co-writer, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, because "men." (Hollywood has always been and continues to remain misogynistic, but once again I digress.) However, did anyone bother to pay attention when the credits listed hundreds of people who worked on SFX/CGI for the movie? Nope - we enjoyed their work, but the computer scientists and digital artists who contributed to every scene in that movie remain unknown to anyone outside of their field.
Looping this back to the original subject of NASA and whether they slighted Margaret Hamilton, can anyone name any of the other members of her software development team? If the entire reason some people haven't heard of her was "because men," then I would assume that people could name some of the men who were on her team because they would have received credit for her work. But no, people can't name any of them, either. And why is that? Because - engineers.
How about any of the men and women who designed the Apollo space capsule? Or the Lunar Rover? Or the space suits? Or the propulsion systems? Or the communication systems? Or anyone involved in Skylab? Or the Space Shuttle? Or the Mars probes? Once again, people can't name a single one of those people. And why is that? Because "engineers."
NASA isn't slighting anyone. On the contrary, NASA hires brilliant minds - both men and women - who remain unknown to the general public because they chose extremely technical career fields that lead to obscurity within the community, and societal anonymity doesn't care about gender when it comes to scientific ignorance...
Computers in the 1980s, Girls Studying STEM Subjects, and Chickens Versus Eggs
22 April 2022 • by Bob • Computers, Technology
I recently listened to the NPR podcast "When Women Stopped Coding," which suggests that women and girls weren't into computers during the 1980s due to a lack of marketing, and I disagree with the podcast's assertions. However, I should begin by saying that I used to love NPR; for at least a decade they were my morning and evening source of news as I commuted. That being said, the quality of NPR's reporting has gone down considerably over the past two decades, to the point where I no longer listen to NPR. In my opinion, this podcast is typical of what I mean.
Let me put things in perspective: I was into computers long before the 1984 shift in marketing strategies that this podcast is basing it's thesis on, and here is my personal experience: around 1980, math classes in High School were 50/50 between boys and girls. However, computer classes were almost entirely male. The advertising that is quoted as the cause of this inequity had yet to come along, so what else could have caused this disparity? The answer is simple, although it is unpopular with people who want promote the idea that sexism was the key factor.
The reason why girls weren't into computers in the early 1980s was because there was no "cool factor" to them. If you were a girl in high school at that time, and you were into computers, you were going to be unpopular. Advertising had nothing to do with that; it was all about peer pressure. On the other hand, many guys had no problems with being unpopular, and there was an entire segment of society that sprung up in the late 1970s as the perfect base for the home computing market - the group of social misfits that evolved during that era was known as: the nerds. These were the boys who were into Dungeons and Dragons, played with Rubik's Cubes, and read fantasy books by authors like Tolkien. However, speaking in general terms, girls weren't into those sorts of things, because - for the most part - girls didn't WANT to be seen as social misfits. It is true that Hollywood and marketing types would soon launch a series of movies and advertisements that capitalized on this growing separation within young society, but this social shift is more of a "Chicken and Egg" scenario than NPR's podcast seems to suggest. (e.g. Advertising followed the social trend, and not the other way around.)
The group of boys who were already social misfits continued to be social misfits as they shifted from nerdy games to computers, which were seen as an extension of their nerdiness. While at the same time, girls - even those who were great at math - drifted further away from computers as they grew in popularity.
That being said, it is true that schools could have done much more to promote computers to both genders, and in that respect public education is partly to blame for creating the environment in which we find ourselves. And to that end, it is great to see so many schools today that are promoting STEM subjects to girls at a young age. It is for that reason that my niece is well on her way to a promising career in astrophysics, with a dream of working for NASA one day. In addition, I love the fact that a major part of Girl Scouts' vision is to promote STEM subjects to young girls. I'd love to see the Girl Scouts launch an advertising campaign that says, "Buy a cookie, create an astronaut." (Or a scientist, or a chemist, etc.)
By the way, in the interests of full transparency, one of the people who first mentored me on computers was the girl next door, Ellen. She wasn't typical of the girls at our High School, and I can't say if she was ever considered a social outcast, but I can say this for certain - she clearly didn't care. Ellen was one of the smartest people I knew, and it's undoubtedly a good thing that she didn't know I had a major crush on her at the time, because I would only have dragged down her IQ through prolonged exposure to me. Nevertheless, both her and her brother's influence during my early flirtations with computers are probably why I chose computer science as my career. But as I mentioned earlier, when I took my first computer classes, there were almost no girls in attendance, and this was before Hollywood seared that image into the public consciousness.
In other words, girls like Ellen were into computers "way back when," but it took the right kind of moxie to be willing to go against the flow. And yet, that concept is completely lacking in NPR's story. In that respect, I think this podcast suffers from a problem that's endemic to a lot of NPR's "reporting" these days: it is a bias in search of data.
UPDATE: This post is one of several that I had written that I later discovered had never been set to "public."
Al Gore and the Invention of the Internet
07 December 2021 • by Bob • Computers, Politics, Technology
There is an age-old story circling within political spheres that former Vice President Al Gore once claimed to have "invented the Internet." And in contrast to that story, there is a
In deference to Tech Insider's claims, there is a vast difference between being "misquoted" and "misspeaking." Al Gore has NOT been "famously misquoted" with regard to his comments to CNN in that video, in which he clearly says, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." That is a direct quote, not a misquote. Of course, history tells us that Gore was misspeaking when he said that, which could be attributed to hubris, deceit, or ignorance.
Putting things in perspective, Al Gore uttered his
Nevertheless, Tech Insider's and other people's insistence that Al Gore has been "misquoted" are ludicrous. Regardless of his reasons for doing so, it is a matter of undisputed fact that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. And it is also a matter of undisputed fact that Al Gore did not invent the Internet.
If you'd like a brief introduction as to what really happened when the Internet was created, the following three-minute video should tell you everything you need to know.
By the way, if you've read some of my old blogs, you'll see that I wrote the Request for Comments (RFC) document number 7151, which defines a method of
Those who can - do. Those who can't - teach.
03 November 2020 • by Bob • Computers, Education, Programming
A few years ago I elected to take a class at the University of Arizona as a refresher for a programming language that I hadn't used in over a decade. I was originally self-taught in the language, and I knew that the language had evolved since I had last used it, so I thought that it would be worthwhile endeavor to study it formally.
The class was going well, but when I turned in one of my assignments, the professor had dropped my grade a full letter because - seriously - he didn't like my variable names. Being an adult - and not an
I scheduled a time to meet with my professor, whereupon I told him that I thought he was wrong. All my variables were descriptive of their purpose, and I used a consistent format across the entire assignment. In addition, I wanted my grade restored.
The professor looked at me and said, "No one names variables like that."
I replied, "That's called 'Hungarian Notation.' It's a widely-used standard in the software industry."
He attempted to counter with, "That's outdated. No one uses that anymore."
To which I replied, "I work for Microsoft. We write millions of lines of code every day using that notation."
He grumbled a bit more, but eventually he acquiesced and restored my grade.
I later discovered that this particular professor earned his BS in Computer Science, then his Master's, then his Doctorate, and then went straight into teaching at higher education establishments. In other words, he's never worked a single day in the industry that he is teaching about, and yet somehow the software engineers of tomorrow are supposed to learn from him?
The Future - and Past - of Dual-Screen Laptops and Tablets
18 June 2018 • by Bob • Technology
Nearly a decade ago, Microsoft cancelled the Courier tablet (see below), which would have been the first dual-screen tablet/laptop on the market, and it would have been competing head-to-head with the single-screen iPad when that tablet was first released:
- Gizmodo: Courier: First Details of Microsoft's Secret Tablet
- Wired: Microsoft Cancels Courier Tablet
Now the Courier's untimely death seems especially premature, since the big news coming from Computex 2018 is that several of the big computer manufacturers are coming out with dual-screen tablets/laptops that look all-too-familiar to anyone who saw a Microsoft Courier tablet back in the day:
- Digital Trends: Brace yourself! The age of keyboard-less laptops is upon us
- Engadget: ASUS' Project Precog is a dual-screen AI-powered concept PC
- CNET: No keyboard, no problem: Welcome to the dual-screen laptop era
It seems that - given enough time - foresight and hindsight can become blurred...
The Internet Is Down
21 October 2016 • by bob • Computers, Humor
You know, for all those hundreds of times that my kids would tell me "The Internet is Down," today the Internet actually goes down and none of my kids lived at home to complain about it. I'm not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing...
FYI - For news about the Internet outage, see the following URLs:
I Guess I'm Not So Special After All...
16 August 2016 • by bob • Humor
I've been going through my emails, and I'm beginning to get the feeling that all of those "Hot Deals Just For You" messages that I've been receiving for the past 20 years aren't just for me...
So sad.
Technology in the Home
21 January 2016 • by bob • Family, Computers, Humor
Finally a book comes out that would have helped my children understand part of their childhood.. 
It Was All Fun And Games...
16 December 2015 • by bob • Humor
Yup, it was all fun and games until this happened...
