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Stupid User Tricks
I learned just about everything I know about writing computer code from a man named Carl. I met him in the early 90s when we were working on creating a digital, automated way to transmit raw union payroll data from my company (a sound postproduction studio) to his (a payroll processing company). The idea was…
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Labor of Love
I have a saying: “there’s lots of people I don’t want to be.” That’s particularly true when I look around at some of my fellow retirees, who seem to have “stopped.” Stopped caring – yes, but also stopped growing and stopped changing. Change is life and life is change. You know what doesn’t change? Something…
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Carded by Google
After writing the other day about how I’m getting older, it would seem I had it all wrong. I’m Benjamin Button-ing before my very eyes! It started innocently enough. Google frightens me. That said, I do use it, first and foremost as a search tool that dramatically speeds up my research into the various things…
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It all started with Ranjit’s legs
The first computer program I wrote was called ROLO. That’s not entirely true, because in high school I’d written a program that did nothing but print my name out on the screen ten times to demonstrate to Mr. Rodgers, the Computer Science teacher, my grasp of the concept of “iteration” using a for-next loop. It…
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Going the way of the dodo
I remember when we got our first microwave when I was growing up in the 70s. Whenever you weren’t using it, you were supposed to place a cup of water inside. I think the rationale behind this was so the oven, if accidentally switched on, wouldn’t cook itself! A quick check of the Internet and…
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Write Something
I have nothing to write about this morning. Unless you count writing about having nothing to write about “something.” I don’t. I generally like to have a point, a topic, or even a goal (e.g., convince people the Pacific is a better ocean than the Atlantic) in mind when I set out. Trump is awful;…
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Under the Oaks
In the winter of 1983, I was in the first semester of my senior year at St. Francis High School in La Cañada Flintridge, California, a private, all-boys Catholic school. You may find this hard to believe, but these were the days of antiquity, before everyone had a computer. There were two very special rooms at…
Your mileage may vary.