All posts by djones

computers, mama kat, writer's challenge

I remember when ….

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This week, one of the topics posed by Mama Kat was to write on the topic of “I remember when …”

I remember when I saw my first small computer. I can’t say it was a personal computer because it wasn’t. It had about 1/1000 the power of the first PC and cost more than a house at the time. It was a special prototype lab instrument in the Hewlett-Packard research labs. I was attending a science institute during high school when I saw this beautiful desktop sized computer. It was love at first sight and I dearly wanted one of my own.

Later on in graduate school. I drooled over the experimental group’s hand crafted computers running the data acquisition software for the particle detectors. The price had dropped to the point where each little board on the detector cost less than $10,000.

When the advent of the CP/M based hobbyist machines finally brought the price of personal computers down to the level I could afford, it was close to decade after my first sighting. My very first “real” PC had a blazingly fast 2MHz Z80 processor, 32 KB of memory, used an old character-only terminal as the user interface, and had one (1!) of the old eight inch floppy disks for storage. I could compile a program with only 8 swaps of the floppy disk for temporary storage and various passes of the compiler. I was in hog heaven!

Over the next year and a couple of hundred visits to surplus and swap meets, I added 4 five inch floppy disks to replace the single eight inch disk. It made me the envy of all my friends since I could now compile a program without swapping the disks. Just start the compile and go to bed and it might be done by morning. I also added one of those new-fangled 1200 baud modems so I could call into the Bulletin Board Systems and the nascent Compuserv network. And I added another 32K of memory so that I had the full 64k addressable by the Z80. Still no hard drive since the technology for winchester disks was just starting to ramp up and even a 5MB drive cost more than $10,000 (and had a mean time between failures measured in months, not years).

Now that I have put you all to sleep as I drool over my first techno love, let me put the capabilities of this beautiful little machine in terms that may be more meaningful:

  • The Z80 processor in the machine had less compute power than the chip in a  toaster today
  • 64k of memory is less than the amount of memory your toaster probably has in it today
  • The five inch floppy disks held 96K each. Thus all four disks together held less than .5 MB. A typial notebook today has 200GB of hard disk – more than 400,000 times the capacity of my little machine.

What makes all the memories so remarkable is that today with literally thousands of times the memory and compute power, the only real change in computing is that all that power is devoted to the user interface. Things happen faster and are flashier, but are not fundamentally improved from the old days. It will be interesting to see what the changes are in the new few years and if they finally fundamentally change the underlying computing model.

I am reminded of a collegue from long ago who once said that the only change in computing from 1980 to 2000 was that we made the machines faster and larger so that ever less capable people could write programs. There is some real truth to that view. (And it isn’t necessarily bad either.)

innocent, lawyers

Innocent

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Tonight I was declared innocent. While it is a relief, it should never have been necessary to even consider the converse.

Thanks to a vicious campaign of slander, innuendo, libel and outright lies mounted by a person attempting to prevent my placing the review of their contract on the city council agenda, I was accused in secret of crimes that are personally odious (dishonesty, theft, etc.) to me. Because the claims also involved another city employee, I was bound by the city charter and civil rights issues from speaking out and dispelling the rumors floating around town. So the not-so-secret secret investigation was the topic of gossip in the coffee shops and numerous questions from friends and even some enemies. And all I could do was say “No comment.” It had reached the point where I was prepared to ask the other people involved if I could force the whole issue out into the light. Nothing is more disheartening or more damaging than secret accusations that you cannot publicly refute without violating the law.

So tonight, after the report from the outside counsel engaged to investigate me, I was declared to be innocent of wrong doing. The whole process was a waste of time, energy, and money. I was declared not to have commited any of the odious acts charged in secret. What is interesting is that although it was announced that I had done nothing criminal, the false and malicious charges that triggered this whole mess were never brought forth, including the person who did it and the reason they did it. So I have been declared innocent and it is up to others to figure out what I’m innocent of.

Now the question is do I want to pursue legal action against the slandering and libelous person who instigated the whole incident or do I just let it die. I have a strong suspicion that some of the other people affected will be filing suit, since the person in question violated their charter and civil rights in a quite blatant manner. It will be interesting.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while now know why I haven’t been my normal self on these pages for the last few months. Incidents such as this eat at your soul. Being falsely accused and then legally bound not to respond is painful beyond belief. It attacks a fundamental part of me – my integrity. It left me so angry, wanting to respond and yet not allowed to respond, that I couldn’t sleep at times.

At least the system worked and the trash was cleared away. That’s probably about as much as one could ask for at the moment. It still doesn’t do much for the anger and violation I feel, but I hope they will fade with time.

mother's day, oddity

An Odd Mother’s Day Story

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Yesterday evening, as L and I prepared to go out to eat with some old friends, I picked up my phone to find a rather long message queued up for me. So as we walked out the door, I was listening to the charming message. The message was from what sounded to be an older lady. She was waxing poetic about the beautiful roses she had received and how they were so beautiful that she wished she still had the energy to plant and grow an acre of roses. The message went on talking about how wonderful the roses were, how brilliant their colors, and how they were the perfect gift, etc. It was clear that someone had gifted this lady with a gift dear to her heart that she treasured and deeply appreciated. Finally, about eight minutes into the message, the caller started to wind down and mentioned that she knew Shauna had to work and that she hoped to talk to family later.

Now I had a quandry. Clearly the lovely lady who had left this charming and gracious message on my phone had dialed the wrong number. She had either missed or ignored the intro message stating that it was I that her phone had connected to. Normally I do not call and tell people that they have not reached the number they must have been expecting. So should I use the caller ID and call back to tell the lady that her message was lovely, but had not reached her intended destination? Or …

A bit of back story first. The reason that I generally do not call and tell people that they have reached the wrong number is two fold:

  1. My answer message clearly states that you have reached the number of and that if you so desire, you can leave a message for . Thus you have to be a bit of a doofus to leave the message for someone else on my phone.
  2. My number is one digit off from the now defunct pig sale barn. For years I was plagued with 2-10 calls a day from people trying to reach the pig sale barn. The people that called to inquire as to the late day Chicago price of fat backs and other such arcana were amidst the rudest I have ever conversed with. I was accused of everything from lying to stealing the pig barn’s phone when I would answer or return a call via caller ID to let them know that the barn wasn’t going to know they were planning on bringing a truckload to the Thursday sale unless they actually called the pig barn. 

Thus my policy of not calling people to tell them the bad news that they called my answering machine rather than whom they desired.

In the end I did the only thing I could and have a clear conscious. I called the number and had a very pleasant conversation with the author of the original message. After her initial denial turned to acceptance when I delivered a brief synopsis of the message, we had a very pleasant conversation. It turned out she was trying to reach her daughter in Arizona (whose cell phone was indeed one off from mine) to thank her for the beautiful gift. When she was younger, she had always grown a large plot of roses on the homestead and missed them deeply now that she couldn’t do it anymore. Her daughter knew that and so sent her the gift that meant the most to her – roses.

So here is hoping the happy mother re-called the thoughful daughter and this time they connected. It makes my heart happier to think of that ending. In any case, I did my part.

mother's day

What I Learned …

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I saw one of the standard Mother’s Day paeans in a newsletter the other day and was reminded how often the mushy sentiments in such articles leave a bit to be desired relative to reality. The newsletter version featured old standbys such as:

My mother taught me to MEET A CHALLENGE … “What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you! Don’t talk back to me!”

My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION … “Just wait until your father gets home.”

My mother taught me LOGIC … “If you fall off that swing and break your neck, you’re not going to the store with me.”

My mother taught me ESP … “Put your sweater on; don’t you think I don’t know when you’re cold?”

My mother taught me HUMOR … “When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don’t come running to me.”

But I think that some more realistic teachings can be extolled. Thus I give you …

Some of the Things I Learned From My Mother

My mother taught me THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE … “Just pull up a chair, you’re always welcome to eat with us.”

My mother taught me THERE IS NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT … “If you don’t hoe the weeds now, they’ll go to seed. Then you have a real problem.”

My mother taught me IT IS BETTER TO GIVE, BUT LEARN TO RECEIVE WITH GRACE AS WELL … “You’ve helped us so many times, let us help you now.”

My mother taught me ABOUT PERSONAL HYGIENE … “Wash under your arms! Someday you will want to lift your arms in public.”

My mother taught me YOU NEED NOT DISCLOSE ALL THAT YOU KNOW … “Yes I knew you and your brother broke the door. But you already felt bad enough about it so I didn’t need to bring it up.” And you’d be amazed at all the secrets that weren’t actually a secret when you talk to your mother about those events years after the fact. {*grin*}

My mother taught me TO LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY … “People can’t help how they look, but they can change their heart. So love the heart and tolerate the rest.”

In honor of mothers (and mother-in-laws) everywhere, may you all enjoy a

Happy Mother’s Day
friday high five

Five Strange People …

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Time once more for Fiday High Five hosted by Angela:

Five Strange People I Sometimes See When Speaking In Front Of An Audience

  • The bored one. This is the person who is bored to tears by your very appearance before them. It doesn’t matter that they were the one who invited you to speak and suggested the topic, it is still clear they would rather be anywhere other than listening to you. You have to be careful though, because sometimes it is these sufferers of ennui that ask the sharpest questions.

  • The perpetual yakker. They were talking before you started talking and they will still be talking long after you are finished. The joke telling variant of the yakker is the worst because they have those around them laughing at their jokes as you speak of serious matters. The worst part is that you’d dearly love to hear a good joke as well.

  • The overly attentive listener. They nod and mouth yes and no to every point and sentence you utter. If they were dogs, they’d be slobbering on your shoes and laying their heads in your lap. Unfortunately, they exhibit just about as much comprehension of the topic of your speech as your dog does.

  • The overly amorous couple. If the audience has a median age below 55, you can count on the show given by this pair. It can leave one with a mixed mind. On the one hand, there is a strong temptation to just shout “Get a room!”, but that is probably a holdover from high school. Other times you’re sure that a small camera and contacts with the right web site could insure your income for the next year or more.

  • The buffet nabber. This is the person that waits until you start to talk to make repeated passes back through the buffet. Given the amount of food that they carry back to their table during the course of your speech, you wonder why they don’t weight 400 lbs. Then you wonder if they have the plastic lined purse and are stocking up for the week.

So what kind of odd people do you see when you speak before crowds. If you don’t speak (and I have to ask why not), then what about the odd people sitting around you in the audience?