In the summer of 1970 I took my first vacation. Ever. I had a new yellow Fiat 124 Spider convertible that I packed with a tent, a duffel of gear and a cooler, and headed west from Detroit. It was maybe the second or third day out; cold, constant rain and dark. I saw the sign that said Mount Rushmore and decided to pass on setting up camp in the rain. I pulled the car up an incline on the verge of a side road to make reclining easier and quickly fell asleep.
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From the 1890’s to as recently as 1975 Ranchers have run cattle in Canyonlands. This is not pasture grazing – this is high desert. I imagine the cattle only survived. The cattle and the cowboys that tended them were surely tough. The cowboys lived in open air “bunkhouses” under the overhanging rock for months at a time. The black is the smoke deposits from the stove behind the bush. (No, the white box in the center is not a beer cooler!)
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When I was ten or so my most enjoyable times were spent in the pages of comics. I was not into superheroes or monsters. My friends were Bugs, Elmer, Mickey, and ducks Daffy, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Donald, and Scrooge. But my favorite was Duckburg’s odd inventor chicken, Gyro Gearloose–And still is. His inventions included:
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Ten or so years ago I quit watching television news — both network and cable. I was often fed up with the drivel that was forced on the viewer as “news” and for me, the last straw was a segment about Paris Hilton doing something dumb and completely irrelevant as “news”. There were more productive ways to spend my time. As it turned out, I was none the worse for being “uninformed.” Although it was a few months before I discovered that Glenn Frey had died — OK, just “Take It Easy.”
Continue readingA while back I had occasion to review the design of a very high-end residence hall facility at an institution of higher learning I can’t name. It is not in the US, so it is unlikely your alma-mater.
There seemed to be no limit on the budget. Each room was equipped with full digital video/voice/data and Internet connectivity. Outside each room a digital touchscreen “whiteboard” where the occupant could leave messages for their buds, who could then leave replies.
Continue readingIn the mid 70’s there was a series of articles published in Research & Development magazine by Archibald Putt titled “Putt’s Law: The Successful Technocrat”. I was just a young Science Geek at the time, had been doing research on blowing holes in stuff with lasers, but wanted to develop chops as a Business and Management Geek. This became my motivation to do so. Archibald Putt was a management genius, right there with Peter Drucker, Laurence Peter, Tom Peters and Sun Tsu (who was known as “Pete” to his friends). I copied all the articles from the magazine and still have them in my files.
Continue readingWe in the US are in the unfortunate position of dealing with many years of “dumbing down” of our education system. Efforts to standardize education–while noble in concept–have really just established a standard for conformity and only served to maximize mediocrity. A car race where everyone is required to drive 55 offers little motivation for those who can go 100.
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This beautiful diagram is best definition I have found those of us who are more complex than ordinary folk. Not entirely complementary, but accurate.
If a picture is 1,000 words, then a well-crafted diagram is 10 times that.
In November, 2010 BBC Four aired a 6 part series titled “The Beauty of Diagrams”. In the series, beginning with the Vitruvian Man, mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explains how and why pictures really do serve a thousand or more words. It is currently available on BBC’s iPlayer, and possibly on internet repositories like Netflix.
/r
Maybe “Geek Entomology” is more appropriate. Confused? Find the difference here.
Continue reading“Why have you suffer’d me to be imprison’d,
Shakespeare in Twelfth Night, V.I
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull
That e’er invention play’d on? tell me why”.
No, it is not who you think! While it is evident our current president has certified geeks in his employ, he is really a poseur (“poser” for you millennial readers) when it comes to true presidential geeky-ness.
Before the word “geek” acquired its current meaning, the concept was most often applied to engineers. And in that context, the true presidential geek was Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer who proudly made his living in the profession. His defense of his work is classic:
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