Posted by Jon Wise on Mar 08, 2010
It was the late 70s, and this concept of a personal computer was approaching a difficult coming-of-age. Everyone knew that the computer would change everything, but the race was on to define how that would look.
In the labs and offices of Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) a group of engineers and scientists pulled together ideas and concepts into a computer called the Alto. The main unit was about the size of a filing cabinet, while a landscape monitor, keyboard and mouse would sit on the desk. The computing environment consisted of windows, menus and icons on a bitmapped screen capable of rendering detailed graphics. No one had ever seen such a thing before, and although the Alto never made it out of the scientific world, it was shown to a team from Apple – including a young Steve Jobs.
The rest, of course, is history – legend even. It’s said that Bill Atkinson (the author of the QuickDraw ROM and MacPaint) excitedly pressed his face against the Alto’s screen, trying to count the pixels. The group from Apple returned to their headquarters in Cupertino, and so impressed was Jobs at what he’d seen, that he immediately spun off this rogue team first to the Apple LISA, and soon after to work on the Macintosh – computers with a bitmapped screen, mouse, windows, menus and icons. Others followed suit.
Of course the Macintosh wasn’t Apple’s only invention – nor was the Alto Xerox’ only invention. PARC is responsible for scripting languages, the laser printer, Ethernet and even the concept behind Tablet PCs/iPads – a theoretical device called the DynaBook. Virtually everything we know about modern computers was defined in one of these two campuses, or another in Redmond, Washington that I get to visit more frequently.
These are all things that I’ve known about for over a decade: fables, folklore, legend. The places where these things happened were no less fantastic to me, and therefore no more real, than planets in the Star Wars galaxy…
Until last week.
As I finished up a couple nice days working with some partners, I pulled up Bing Maps to look for a place for dinner… and realised I was only 36 minutes away from Cupertino, and another 10 from Palo Alto. I practically ran to my car – locking myself out of my hotel room, and forgetting that the battery in my GPS was nearly dead and I didn’t have a car charger – and started driving. I nursed the GPS along, turning it on for brief moments to orient myself, and drove through some beautiful California country-side to the places where dreams came to life…
That I have walked the sidewalks where giants of this industry tread – where perhaps they paced as they wrestled through ideas so big that they would change the world – is such an incredible honor. But to make this story even more incredible, I realised recently that I’ve met, and chatted with one of those giants! At a conference last November in Los Angeles, I attended a talk by a Butler Lampson – a researcher at my company – on artificial intelligence. Later, I came across him reading on the show floor and stopped to have a chat with him.
It wasn’t until much later that I discovered that this Butler Lampson was the same one who, almost 40 years ago, penned a memo detailing the design of a revolutionary computer. At the time, he was a researcher at Xerox PARC, and the computer he dreamt up… it was called the Alto.
I am literally working in the shadow of giants, in the cradle of some of the most remarkable inventions ever, surrounded by some of the most amazing minds of our time… and I could not be more grateful and blessed to have this incredible job.
Posted by Jon Wise on Jan 01, 2010
So by now everyone’s heard of the underwear bomber — how’d you like to go down in infamy with that title? Anyway, here’s somethings maybe you didn’t know:
- He was allowed on an international flight with an expired Visa
- He had known connections to Al Queda
- His father contacted the CIA before his flight to warn them about his son
- His name was on a terrorist watch list
So what’s our reaction to this sweeping failure of our security theater? More theater. Now you can’t go to the bathroom or listen to your iPod during the last hour of an international flight, and you may not sleep with your hands under a blanket.
Ya, that sounds like it’ll solve the problem…
Posted by Jon Wise on Sep 23, 2009
When Star Trek: The Next Generation (STNG) first came out, it was shiny, high tech, and a million times more polished than the original series — which although still classic, was looking awful dated. STNG just felt more futuristic, and glossy.
Now, of course, it looks almost as silly as the original. The special effects and props look obviously fake, and the crude CG in the credits could be more convincingly animated by any 10th grader today, with a decent computer. But despite its age, and the campiness that time has foisted upon it, something still happens to me when the model Enterprise creeps across the star-lit screen. When Patrick Stewart’s noble, classically trained voice narrates the Captain’s Log setting up the episode’s cold open, and then the theme music soars in triumphantly, it still inspires — over two decades since the show first came out — a sense of wonder, at the scope of what we don’t know.
Star Trek captures adventure and a spirit of hope that I think influences the politics and ideals of most sci-fi fans — maybe more than we recognize. Its a collective dream about a time, some day in the distant future, when petty quarrels about health care are long since solved, and wars over resources or ideals are a distant embarrassing memory, because people have long since learned how to solve these things without violence. When each individual’s contribution to society is toward pursuing an exciting and challenging unknown together.
Its unfortunate that we don’t live in the world that Gene Roddenberry imagined — one which likely looks a lot more like the one God intended for his kids, than what we’ve muddled ourselves into. Its unfortunate that our technological research leads us to more efficient killing machines, instead of toward the vast galaxy that God made for us to explore and learn. Its unfortunate that such sci-fi is the realm of geeks and nerds, and maybe a few ridiculous idealists, who understand that the future should hold excitement and adventure, not fear and uncertainty. Its unfortunate that so many people are so terrified of cultures different from their own, that they could never function in the kind of cross-cultural environment that the creators of Star Trek so carefully illustrated.
And, with TV shows starting back-up again this fall, its unfortunate that there’s no one out there doing anything remotely like Star Trek, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. When I recently settled into my couch to re-watch a campy episode of the final season of STNG, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if people could just stop arguing selfishly — if we were driven not by greed, but a pure sense of wonder at the majesty of God’s handy work — and set our minds on truly appreciating the scope of the universe God made for us, and the companions he created to explore it with us…
Posted by Jon Wise on Sep 15, 2009
I found a wonderful, wondrous article about being an Introvert. You should all read it — especially those of you who are extroverts — so you can better understand the introverts in your life! There are so many choice lines in it, that I can hardly pick just one to include as an excerpt…
Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice? …If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands.
Many actors, I’ve read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors.
Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome.
[Introverts] tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours.
Read the rest…
Posted by Jon Wise on Sep 11, 2009
September 11, 2001: A small group of radicals executes a strike on American soil. The terrorists hijack three planes and succeed in flying two of them into the World Trade Center. Hundreds of innocent civilians loose their lives in the destruction. Hundreds more loose moms, dads, brothers and sisters in a tragic, and unprovoked attack.
September 11, 1973: A U.S. orchestrated and financed coup d’état overthrows democratically elected President, Salvador Allende, to install military dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet rules Chile from 1973 to 1990, during which time he is responsible for the disappearance of over 3,000 Chileans, murders, concentration camps, and the torture of over 30,000 people.
Its 9/11 today. Its a good time to remember the victims — all of them. There are more innocent lives lost, throughout the world, every day.
Thanks to our American friend, Karl, for the history lesson.
Posted by Jon Wise on Aug 20, 2009
The CRTC is Canada’s governing agency for Radio, Television and Communications. It was created in 1976, and frankly hasn’t evolved since then. The organization is in the pocket of Canada’s sole owner of 90% of our copper phone cable infrastructure, Bell Canada, and has repeatedly acted to limit innovation potentially problematic for, or competitive to, that company.
In theory, the CRTC should act to protect consumers, improve competition, and ensure that our country remains technologically progressive. In practice, its done the exact opposite for the past 10 years. The CRTC has crushed Bell’s DSL competition, stifled innovation, and enforced a status quo that is beginning to make Canada positively backwards compared to the rest of the world.
Wonder why the iTunes store or XBox Live Marketplace suck in Canada? Why we have no NetFlix? Why in an age where even my parents are interested in digital content, there’s almost none to be obtained legally in this country? The CRTC is the reason why.
The agency needs to be dissolved before things get even worse. Already we get half the service of our neighbours to the south, for twice the money. Don’t even think about comparing our country’s infrastructure to Japan’s — we might as well be using smoke signals!
If you’re Canadian, and you don’t realise how bad you have it, try making a phone call to Bell or Roger’s customer service departments — their duopoly in Ontario basically ensures that you won’t ever win.
If you’re Canadian, and you’re starting to get some inkling that maybe you’re getting screwed by your TelCo/Cable Provider, trust me: you are.
Sign the petition to dissolve the CRTC before things get even worse.
Posted by Jon Wise on Aug 12, 2009
Lock nuts. Ever heard of them? They might just be the stupidest invention ever.
Our Toyota Matrix got a hole in the tire. I walked out of the cottage yesterday morning, and noticed that one side of the car was lower than the other. I have no idea how long it had been like that. We have the other car with us, so it wasn’t a big deal, I figured I’d just put the spare on some time and get it patched when we got home.
This afternoon, I set about to do same, and was confused when one of the 5 nuts was rounded, and had a funny pattern on it. Attempting to loosen the nut with the provided wrench did nothing. I searched the car for some kind of tool to turn this odd nut, and came up dry. Apparently whoever we took the lease over from forget to include this essential piece. Giving up, we called CAA and figured they could handle it. But when the arrived, and tried every tool they had in their arsenal, they had no luck either. The driver filled the tire back up with air and sent me downtown to a local mechanic.
On the way I called Toyota — the nearest dealership being an hour and 20 minutes away. They informed me that there was not likely to be any aftermarket tools for this nut, that there was no way to find the tool using the VIN of the car, and that the only solution was to have the vehicle towed the 80km to them to have it removed. I tried really hard not to swear as I hung up the phone.
Fortunately, the guy in town was able to patch the hole in place, because if he couldn’t, in his words I would be “F@#$.”
Imagine, then that this had happened at 11:00 at night, in a snow storm, to Nicole while she was driving the kids somewhere. She would have been stuck there, totally and completely stuck.
Now I gather that such an invention is not unique to Toyota products. But Toyota passed the vehicle’s inspection upon our lease assumption without providing us with the tool — despite taking nearly a week to do so. Just like Toyota built a vehicle with an engine torqued so far beyond its capabilities that the piece of crap spins out at the first sign of snow in the first 3 gears. And Toyota sells a “racing” edition car in Canada with tires that are near-lethal to drive in the winter.
I hate, hate, hate our Toyota Matrix, and as much as I’d one day like to own a Prius, I don’t think I will ever buy a Toyota again.
Addendum: Consider me mollified. The car still sucks, the leasing process still sucks, and I’ll never buy a Matrix again, but… the service guy at our local dealership was stellar. He apologized for the problem, and rectified it for us in less than half an hour — for free. 4 new, non-lock-nuts on the car, and the key for the original nuts is on-order if we ever want to pick it up and use them again. The Prius remains in the running for our next car…
Posted by Jon Wise on May 27, 2009
When building a team for a project, one of my old bosses used to refer to potential team members by their “do/say ratio” — meaning (in case its not obvious) that the reliability and usefulness of an employee could be determined by this measure. If someone has a poor do/say ratio, it means they don’t often do what they say they will.
I would like to think that I have a high do/say ratio — because people who don’t are one of my pet peeves. I would like to think that if you ask me to do something, and I say yes, then its going to happen — and it’ll happen roughly when I say it will. I may fall short of that mark, but I hope that if someone were keeping score, it would be apparent that I do what I say I will most of the time.
I’ve noted, however, that some people don’t share this value in common with me. That more and more frequently a committment isn’t a firm thing, or reliable in any way. That signing up for an activity or group doesn not necessarily indicate a willingness to make it there. That volunteering for a task does not necessarily mean the task will get done. That full grown adults seem to think “yes” and “no” are malleable words — ones that take a different meaning depending on the day they were said and the time between the making of the committment and the fulfillment of it.
The Bible has very clear instruction on this. Matthew 5:37 says “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”
I think, whether you’re a Christian or not, this seems like a good principle to base your life on. And I sure wish more people out there would do so. And if I don’t? Feel free to call me on that…
Posted by Jon Wise on May 12, 2009
So I’ve been sick for the past couple days — hit me on the weekend, had me lying fevered in a puddle of cold sweat all day Sunday. I did manage to load up on Advil by Sunday evening, and donning a winter hat and blanket, shuffle zombie-like into a movie theater to spread my virus see the new Star Trek movie.
I wanted to post this earlier, but apparently my web host is a little sick today too.
Star Trek will be a subject of this entry, but not until I’ve offered up a little rant for the less nerdy readers — the subject of which being grocery bags.
I know not if this is a Canada-wide, Ontario-wide, or more localized phenomenon, but as of last week or so, the grocery stores we use are no longer employing Plastic Grocery Bags. You are forced to bring your own bags, or purchase canvas bags made of recyclable and recycled material.
This purports to be a “green” move, to help our environment, etc… which, usually, I’m all for. I’m not an environmentalist nut, by any stretch of the imagination, but I am in favor good stewardship of our natural resources. However, this particular move is little more than an ineffectual PR and money-grubbing stunt, that will have no impact on the environment whatsoever. Consider with me:
Have you ever known anyone, anywhere under any circumstances to throw out empty Plastic Grocery Bags? They have to be the most “re-used” containers ever invented. The most common use, once you’ve brought your groceries home, is as garbage bags. In fact, garbage pails have been designed around the used Plastic Grocery Bag. And not just garbage pails either — diaper disposal systems have been designed to re-use these bags. Bags with holes in them can be used to organize plastic recyclable materials, since the bags themselves melt down much faster than the other plastics. And when all other uses fail, they make great packing material.
The Plastic Grocery Bag is already possibly the most recycled device that exists. And with grocery stores taking them away, guess what the proposed alternative is? That’s right, they now sell boxes of similar bags which you can buy. So they’re not really helping the situation at all — instead of providing a cheap (for them, free for the consumer) bag that can immediately be recycled for at least a second use upon being brought home, they’re now selling a bag for only one use.
The only thing that this does is put more money in their pockets. It does nothing for the environment. People will still need garbage bags. Now they just have to fork out more money for what used to be free. This is stupid.
OK, speaking of stupid, the new Star Trek was definitely not.
Yes, as a loyal Original Series fan, there were a few things I’d quibble with that can’t be answered by the changed time line (eg: why does it take an earlier generation of Enterprise only 3 hours to travel from Earth to Vulcan, while the Enterprise used 10+ years later needs 4 days to get there? Details, people!) And the jury is still out on some of the cast they’ve selected. The story was also a little bit heavy on the action, and low on the cerebral content we love ‘Trek for. But…
It was fun, the chemistry between the characters showed real promise, and it was very respectful of the source material. I loved Spock’s role in the movie, and that Bones sounded pretty much exactly like Bones should. Scotty was a little over the top, but I’d like to think James Doohan might have played it that way if he’d been cut loose back in the 60s — he certainly got more fun in his old age. And Kirk was… honestly, only a little bit recognizable, but it still sorta worked.
Importantly, it was also accessible. You don’t have to be a huge Trek nerd — or even a sci-fi fan — to enjoy it. Star Trek has typically had good character driven stories, and this one added a very action/adventure feel to it. It was (mostly) faithful to the canon, without requiring you to have ever watched Star Trek before.
It should be noted that I was nearly comatose while watching it, so my review might not be the one to go on, but reviews web-wide are mostly positive. Even old school Trekkies seemed to enjoy it. I’ll be happy to go to a second viewing where I’m confident that what I’m watching is not an elaborate, fever-induced hallucination. And I’ll be quite happy if they make another movie in the same vein.
In conclusion, “green” moves that do nothing except take green from my wallet are evil; Star Trek reboots, however, are good.
Posted by Jon Wise on May 06, 2009
I’ve now discovered three unique kinds of back pain (so far!) Being able to identify them is useful, as the kind of pain indicates the kind of treatment you can do at home to pretend you’re actually relieving it…
Note: I am not a doctor. Or a yogi. Or a massage therapist. This is just what I’ve learned...
Muscle Pain
This is no different than muscle pain in your arms or legs if you work-out hard, or pull something playing a sport. Its just that its in your back, so it feels like your entire body is suffering.
I’d describe muscle pain as a sort of throbbing. Its by far the lowest on the back-pain scale — so suck it up!
A fun variation on this is muscle spasms, where you’ll suddenly feel like you’re frozen for a second or two, or someone has quickly jabbed you with a cold knife. This may recur for awhile, but you’ll make it through the day.
Treatment: Stretching. Hot tub or just a hot bath. Alternate hot and cold for spasms. Take Advil.
Bruised Joints
I found out recently that its entirely possible to bruise your back — even without an impact. Over-extending yourself, especially if you have disc problems, can cause the joints to rub together and bruise. This pain is constant, worse than muscle pain, and it feels more piercing. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to last too long — provided you’re careful. Avoid stretching much until the pain subsides.
Treatment: Cold pack to dull the pain. Advil.
Disc Rupture/Slippage
By far the worst kind of pain I’ve found yet. When it initially hits it comes on suddenly and severely like a sword stabbed deep into your back. On more than one occasion its dropped me, face-first, on the floor instantly. Following the slip or rupture, you’re in for days, or even weeks, of gradually subsiding, but severe pain.
Sometimes its possible to feel a slip coming on in advance. Like cracking your knuckle, you feel your back kind of pop out of place. If this happens (and you haven’t been floored yet) stop what you’re doing — for the next 3 days. Don’t lift anything (or anyone) and don’t try to live your normal life. Just rest your back, and resume gentle stretches once a day when you’re ready. Don’t sit for too long. Do NOT treat with heat! Avoid Advil or any other painkiller if you can — it will only mask the warning signals your back is giving you.
Treatment: If you do slip/rupture a disc, your only hope is lying flat on your back, and taking the minimum pain killers necessary. There is no escaping the punishment, and no medical work-around. You’re done — probably for at least a week. Anything you think you can do, other than lying in bed, will only lengthen your suffering.
Muscle pain can be prevented with strengthening exercises and stretching. Ensuring you have good posture throughout the day will do wonders. A hot tub, or a massage therapist can help you when you’re feeling tense. Similarly, bruising can be avoided by maintaining a healthy spine shape through stretches and posture — and avoiding over-exertion.
A slipped disc, however, will recur. If it happens once, it’ll happen again, and each time it happens the disc gets weaker and is more prone to slipping/rupturing. If this happens to you, even once, get help. Don’t soldier through. Don’t blame it on bad genes. Get your spine looked at — your body will begin adapting to the deformation in ways that are not necessarily healthy in the long term, and will only lead to more misery the next time your spouse wants to dig a vegetable garden!
