A Curious Instrument

A while back, I talked about my George Bailey circumstances .  Of course, some people will get confused and say that I am some sort of altruistic credit union sort, which I can be on the odd Thursday. Archibald (Harry) Tuttle I am more like Archibald (Harry) Tuttle, the rogue heating engineer in the Terry Gilliam movie "Brazil" . Harry Tuttle : Listen, this old system of yours could be on fire and I couldn't even turn on the kitchen tap without filling out a 27b/6... Bloody paperwork. Sam Lowry : I suppose one has to expect a certain amount. Harry Tuttle : Why? I came into this game for the action, the excitement. Go anywhere, travel light, get in, get out, wherever there's trouble, a man alone. Now they got the whole country sectioned off, you can't make a move without a form. Like me, he tends to be competent, efficient, quietly conspiratorial, and appropriately paranoid.  Harry understands how his world really works and has found his own ways to cop...

I love Jon Postel because of his Robustness Principle and how it can be applied far and wide from the confines of computer science. All great truth finds wide application! Also he had a flowing beard and wore sandals and was the ultimate editor of technology. Yes, I am weird and read RFCs for fun. Jon's RFCs were the best - pure poetry! The Internet works because Jon Postel wouldn't let it do anything less. He was a model for the benevolent dictator and knew what a good God should be about! Postel Center: About Jon Postel

I poked around the Forth programming language in the 1980's and really enjoyed it. It really seems to work better with my brain, which strangely acts more like a computer than I suppose other brains do. That was when I first ran into Chuck Moore, who created Forth. It is simple, it is efficient, it is very, very different, and it is (perhaps above all) esoteric . These are all descriptors of me! I am Forth! I think Chuck is one of the most unique minds around, which I like immensely. His brain is just wired differently and I feel a kinship there. He has also been accused of being clinically insane, which I probably have been as well. Chuck Moore's Weblog

I was a kid in Clovis, New Mexico and one of the things that my family did occasionally, as a treat, was visit the local Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Shop.  They had all those flavors (31 varieties was advertised at the time) and I could get a scoop of anything I wanted, although I was very, very shy and always went conservative with "Rocky Road" or some such.  It was a nice memory and good ice cream! I don't know when I noticed it, but I finally figured out the concept of "taste spoons".  I suppose I was watching other kids and they would buzz around the counter like flies and constantly ask for a stream of free tastes of ice cream.  It didn't take me long to decide that these little devils were working some kind of pre-adolescent scam, abusing the marketing generosity of the shop just to "score" some free ice cream with no intention of ever really legitimately buying anything. The shop in Clovis is now closed and I can only think it was because ...

I don't even like to talk about how many sleeping bags I have. For years, in my camping and hiking adventures, pathetic though they may seem, I have always struggled with the problem of sleeping bags.  I am too tall apparently, and only relatively short people are supposed to do such things.  Of course, I am an anomaly in a lot of ways from other camper/hikers (besides all the other anomalies I have generally with humans), as I prefer my equipment ultra-cheap and relatively light, in that order.  If I pay more than $50 for a piece of equipment, I must really, really think it is going to save the world or some such. Over time, I have collected an assortment of bags, each with features I had hoped that I would like, hoping one day to stumble upon that "holy grail" of fit, comfort, and utility.  Lightning hasn't struck yet, but even so far as yesterday, I keep trying. Of course, when it comes to sleeping bags, cheap and light rarely come togeth...

It is with great sadness that I learned in the creation of this post that Bob died just a few weeks ago in an accident while driving his beloved VW Bug. I am very sad that I will no longer partake of any new "Pease Porridge". My list of "people I honor" continues to be more of a list of folks I will have to meet in the hereafter... Bob Pease is a brilliant analog engineer who enjoyed a rich set of avocations (hiking, biking, deep thinking), which is a sign of greatness to me. I enjoyed how he thought and wrote and respected most of all his unpretentious yet still scientific methods. I also once saw a picture of his office, which looked like a cave with walls made of technical documents, much like mine at home. Bob Pease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have a wall of pictures of people I really, really like. They have different attributes that I value and they are very, very smart. You likely have never heard of any of them, unless you are heavily into electronics, computers, philosophy, libertarianism, or Mormonism, which says a lot about what fields of endeavor I pursue! Here is one that is actually still living and is still incredibly productive (which is the attribute I treasure in him along with his staggering common sense) - DON LANCASTER! This is a link to his "What's New" page, which looks suspiciously like a blog. He doesn't mind passing out his ideas and experience for free, which is also something I admire. Guru's Lair: What's New? for 2011