Embrace And Love It

As for old age, embrace and love it. It abounds with pleasure if you know how to use it. The gradually declining years are among the sweetest in a man's life, and I maintain that, even when they have reached the extreme limit, they have their pleasure still.

-- Marcus Annaeus Seneca (BC 3-65 AD), Roman philosopher, dramatist, statesman. trvth'ed in honor of my father's 93rd birthday 24 April 2010

Twitter

This is an entirely new addition to the historical record, the second-by-second history of ordinary people.

-- Fred R. Shapiro, of the Yale Law School, on an agreement by the Library of Congress to archive Twitter messages, New York Times, 15 April 2010

50 Years Of Public Computing

I had a good time this morning at 50 Years of Public Computing at the University of Illinois where I attended the session dedicated to the PLATO educational computer system.

http://50years.lis.illinois.edu/bibliography/plato.html

The panelists were Don Bitzer, Peter Braunfeld, and Lippold Haken. Half of the people in the audience could easily have served on the panel as well, and I had the pleasure of hearing many of them reminisce about those good old days. I saw Jim Kraatz and Celia (Davis) Kraatz, Rick Hazlewood, Paul Tenczar and Darlene, Jim Knoke, Jack Stifle, Rick Blomme, John Gilpin, Aaron Woolfson, Helen Kuznetsov, Mike Walker and CK Gunsalus, and many others (my apologies to those I've left out).

Here's a link to the dozen or so pics that I shot today. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera, so these were taken with me Palm Pre -- no zoom, and today the background (thin drapes over a window) was brighter than the foreground ...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065040&id=1191873703&l=c35eb843ef

It was a lot of fun, and it makes me that much more interested in the PLATO@50 Conference coming up on 2-3 June 2010 in Mountain View, CA at the Computer History Museum. The conference is dedicated entirely to PLATO, with the theme "Seeing the future through the past". Here's a link to the Museum's page about the conference --

http://www.computerhistory.org/events/listing/plato-at-50/

Presenters include:
Ray Ozzie (Microsoft's chief software architect)
Don Bitzer (initiator of the PLATO project at the UI)
David Frankel
Andrew Shapira
Dave Woolley
... and many others (as listed at the conference URL, above)

In addition to discussing the hardware and software of the PLATO system, there will also be a focus on the culture of the development team, and the online community that sprang up around the PLATO system.

Besides the conference itself, I'm interested in visiting with the people involved, many of whom I worked with (or went to school with) in times past. I started using the PLATO system while in high school, and was a student programmer on the PLATO System Staff at the UI in my teenage years in the late 70s. I was a software engineer at NovaNET (which PLATO evolved into, locally) for over 8 years, ending in 2002. I also worked on the PLATO system as a computer operator at the UI, and as a programmer for the Department of Defense at Chanute AFB in the early 80s. In all, I worked on PLATO and its descendant systems developing educational software and its related infrastructure over a 25-year period.

At the UI's CERL (Computer-based Education Research Lab) much of the work was accomplished by people who pursued their own interests, and then made that work relevant to the community at large. It was a pleasure to work in that culture.

I plan to go to the conference if I can manage it.

Relevant Vs. Irrelevant

We no longer have a coherent conception of ourselves, and our universe, and our relation to one another and our world. We no longer know, as the Middle Ages did, where we come from, and where we are going, or why. That is, we don't know what information is relevant, and what information is irrelevant to our lives.

-- Neil Postman (1931 - 2003), American educator, media theorist and cultural critic, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)

Spring

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"

-- Robin Williams (1952-), American actor and comedian

Which Is This?

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

-- Zora Neale Hurston (1891-01-07 - 1960-01-28), American folklorist and author, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (1937)

At Once

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

-- Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), 30th president of the United States

Memories Of Those Who Cared

Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.

-- Harlan Ellison (27 May 1934-), American author and media critic, Paladin of the Lost Hour (1985)

Youth And Middle-Age

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American author, poet, naturalist, and philosopher, Journals, July 14, 1852

The Future

My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.

-- Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958), American inventor, founder of Delco

Getting Wrinkles

When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity -- but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.

-- Joyce Carol Oates (16 June 1938-), American author and creative writing professor, interview in The Guardian (London, 18 August 1989)

And Lets Fly

History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, "Can't you remember anything I told you?" and lets fly with a club.

-- John W. Campbell (1910-1971), American science fiction editor and writer, Analog Science Fiction/Fact magazine (1965)

Birthday Redux

Coincidentally, all of the kids in my family (my siblings and I) were born on Wednesdays ... sort of. John was born Wednesday 14 May 1952, Jim on Wednesday 26 August 1953, David on Wednesday 1 January 1958, and I was born on Wednesday 6 May 1959 ... sort of.

From the Illinois Dept. of Public Health web site's FAQ on vital records --

Note: Prior to July 1, 1959, births and deaths were to be recorded on standard time, even though the community in which the birth or death took place was observing daylight savings time. On July 1, 1959, a new law became effective legalizing daylight savings time as being state standard time between the last Sunday in April at 2 a.m. and the last Sunday in October at 2 a.m. Since July 1, 1959, all births and deaths are recorded using the current time.

So prior to 1 July 1959, roughly 4% (1/24th) of births during DST in Illinois were recorded in standard time the day before. Everyone born between midnight and 1am DST had their birth time recorded as between 11pm and midnight the night before, in standard time. This places me among the last to experience this effect, as I was born at 12:23am on Wednesday 6 May 1959 (by the clock on the wall), which was officially recorded as 11:23pm on Tuesday 5 May.

How Old Would You Be?

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

-- Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (7 July 1906? - 8 June 1982), American Negro Leagues and Major League baseball pitcher

Shortness Of Time

We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.

-- Seneca (BC 3-65 AD), Roman philosopher, dramatist, statesman

donald appleman / cerl

The following events all occurred on March 12, 1974 --

* Donna Gail Manson, 19, disappeared from the campus of Evergreen State College, the second of "Son of Sam" Ted Bundy's 28 murder victims.

* John Lennon got into a tiff with a photographer at The Troubador in LA.

* Goldie Hawn was filming "Shampoo".

* Lt. William Calley was freed on bail pending an appeal of his convictions for murdering Vietnamese civilians at My Lai 6 years earlier.

* Paul & Susan Newman were spotted in Beverly Hills at Dan Tana's.

* NASA's Mars 6 spacecraft reached Mars where a descent module broadcast the first data returned from the atmosphere of Mars, for 224 seconds, before crashing into the surface.

* My first PLATO signon, donald appleman/cerl was created for me by Bill Golden.

Waste Your Money

Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life.

-- Michael LeBoeuf, Ph.D., business author, lecturer, and former management professor

Fixed Income

Time is a fixed income and, as with any income, the real problem facing most of us is how to live successfully within our daily allotment.

-- Margaret B. Johnstone

The Very Beginning

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

-- Richard Feynman (11 May 1918 - 15 February 1988), Nobel-prize winning American physicist and writer