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Author Topic: IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER  (Read 24289 times)

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FJL

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #120 on: October 04, 2005, 10:42:46 AM »

Dinner in Jersey delayed just a little.  Synagogue ran a little longer than expected, I think.
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FJL

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #121 on: October 04, 2005, 10:43:28 AM »

As a page 5 dance:

HORA!  HORA!  HORA!
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Jrand74

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #122 on: October 04, 2005, 11:01:25 AM »

Oh yes, I may give The Amazing Race another look tonight.  And of course tomorrow night - the finale of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE!
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Dan (the Man)

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #123 on: October 04, 2005, 11:21:22 AM »

What is--or was--Kander and Ebb's GOLDEN GATE?  I never heard of this one.
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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #124 on: October 04, 2005, 11:26:15 AM »

DtM - you've got the Haney System down to an art!  My favorite was the Haney School of Television Acting:  Always talk into the orange juice can but NEVER look into the tomato juice can!

DR ELMORE - I know exactly what you mean.  I have two colors of skin myself:  white or red.  And I ALWAYS wear a hat as well!
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DERBRUCER

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #125 on: October 04, 2005, 11:54:26 AM »


Oh, I just crack myself up!

Confucius say:

Lady who fly plane upside down, have....nevermind

der Brucer
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Jrand74

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #126 on: October 04, 2005, 11:57:27 AM »

Where are the Noo York pitchers?
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DERBRUCER

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #127 on: October 04, 2005, 11:57:47 AM »

TOD:

A catalog of my computer experiences would be almost as lengthy as a catalog of my debauchery (but not as interesting).

Since this is a family site, we'll stick to part one.

In college (Naval Academy) I was introduced to both mechanical and electro analog computers - both used to aim and fire guns. (Mechanical computers consist of a dizzying array of rods, gears, cams, travelers, and other Rube Goldberg parts. Electo-Analog computers consisted of vacuum tubes, rheostats, diodes, and a varying collection of resistive bridges, and LC circuits).

Early Navy tours had me working with analog computers for generating solutions for delivering ordnance to kill submarines I also spent 18months working with a research group that was using my ship to develop experimental deep-submergence detection systems (cameras towed at the end of very long cables searching the sea bottom). This effort provided a very special challenge - the cameras had a look distance of about 20 feet and were dangling at the end of about 2 miles of cable, streaming through ocean waters a million miles from nowhere. Presuming the camera spots something, how do you know where it is, and how can you return to that point? (Knowing "about" is not good enough, you must be within 25 ft! We needed to erect high metal towers on the ship to hold antenna that communicated with special aircraft that could relay radio signals from land beacons so we could compute our position - then we had to develop sophisticated computer programs to try and figure out where the cameras were in relation to the ship - this was the prototype of the system that was used to find the USS Threasher, the sunken submarine in the North Atlantic.

In Post Graduate School, I was introduced to digital computers with Fortran programs on punched cards input and folded paper printouts for output. (And like many "clever" programmers I did manage to submit a program that got caught in an endless loop that included a print command. Many a valiant tree died to provide the reams of paper spewing forth for my pick-up box before the operator caught the problem and halted the program.)

Next came the Cruiser missile systems with their digital computer controlled targeting and guidance radars. Following these was a tour on an early NTDS (Naval Tactical Data System) frigate where I was in charge of the new digital system that linked all our sensors and weapons to a central command point, and provided digital data links to other units to co-ordinate combat operations - This is the system I took to the Viet-Nam War. All of the combat air operations, including search and rescue, were coordinated from our ship that was sailing in the Gulf of Tonkin. Our job was to direct our planes on the desired course, keep them from flying over Red China, provide them with heads up on enemy planes, and make sure we didn't endanger commercial aircraft.

Next came civilian life, based on my extensive background in surface navy operations and air control I naturally gained employment working on Submarines and Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. (One of my favorite stories of this era involves a dispute I had with Univac over software programming. I had provided them with a list of "programming constraints" that were necessary to move target and control date between their computer and the torpedoes or missiles via our Digital to Analog converter. They firmly announced that there was no way they could be expected to abide by my guidelines. Hell, said I, if the Navy wants, we could redesign our box so you can send your outputs any way you want, and we will prepackage your inputs in tables for your use. Fine says the Navy -do it! On the plane ride back my boss asked how we would do such a thing. My Answer - "I haven't the foggiest, I was winging it assuming I could embarrass UNIVAC into doing their job." Well, we got a multimillion dollar contract mod and I had the job of putting their money where my mouth was. I took what was basically an Analog Converter Box that had a computer interface, embedded one newly designed special purpose computer system that intercepted all the Univac generated commands and repackaged them in accordance with our Programming Guidelines and embedded a second special purpose computer that dummied up computer commands for data gathering and packaged the results in tables that were sent back to the Univac mainframe. In answer to the question "Did it work?" I direct your attention to the CNN reporter during the first Gulf war commenting on the missile flying down the street outside his Bagdad hotel - that had been launched from our submarines using this system.

On the PC level, I first started working with a Varian (8 inch floppys, CPM programming), followed by my first home computer a Kaypro (on loan from a sub-contractor).This was CPM based and I ran TMaker (an early spreadsheet program) and DbaseII.  The first PC to hit my work desk was an IBM PC XT, which I quickly duplicate at home. The work environment started having in the Mac vs PC wars in earnest. Since I was responsible for directing organizations that used both, I ended up with one of each - MAC-SE on the table to my left (with DARPA Net Connections), and my AT on my desk in front, with the MacLink interconnect cables between. As a result, I also ended up as the "go-to-guy" for converting files from one system to the other. At home I finally broke down and added a MAC to my collection (which I abandoned when we moved East).

For those of you who think your desk computer is too complicated, consider it's ancestor:


ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, was the first all-electronic computer designed to be Turing-complete, capable of being reprogrammed by rewiring to solve a full range of computing problems.

Physically ENIAC was a monster—it contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand- soldered joints. It weighed 30 tons, was roughly 2.4 m by 0.9 m by 30.5 m, took up 167 m² and consumed 160 kW of power. Input was possible from an IBM card reader, while an IBM card punch was used for output. These cards could be used to produce printed output offline using an IBM accounting machine, probably the IBM 405 .

der Brucer

I leave it to Prof Orr to expound on "Turing-complete"
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JoseSPiano

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #128 on: October 04, 2005, 12:03:29 PM »

DR DerBrucer - There better not be a quiz on the above tomorrow!

;)
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Ben

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #129 on: October 04, 2005, 12:07:39 PM »

Those people with cameras who took the pictures are out galavanting around Noo York. The administrator of this here site will need to do a photo dump soon to accomodate all the pictures.
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Dan (the Man)

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #130 on: October 04, 2005, 12:10:31 PM »


Physically ENIAC was a monster—it contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand- soldered joints. It weighed 30 tons, was roughly 2.4 m by 0.9 m by 30.5 m, took up 167 m² and consumed 160 kW of power. Input was possible from an IBM card reader, while an IBM card punch was used for output. These cards could be used to produce printed output offline using an IBM accounting machine, probably the IBM 405 .


LOL!  I remember a teacher in college who worked in some capacity with ENIAC who would often wax nostalgic about the "runners"--University of Penn male students who ran through the machine replacing the burnt-out vacuum tubes.  He seemed to greatly appreciate the fact that, because of the tremendous amount of heat, the students had to work in their underwear and would sweat quite a lot.  It sounded like a 1940s version of Spalsh.
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Jason

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #131 on: October 04, 2005, 12:12:08 PM »

Last night DR MBarnum was introduced to the vocal stylings of this...erm...little lady.
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JoseSPiano

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #132 on: October 04, 2005, 12:12:11 PM »

Good Afternoon!

I'm back at the apartment for a bit just taking care of some more loose ends.  I realized that I'll be busy all day tomorrow and all day Thursday, so I'm taking a bit of time this afternoon to get ahead of schedule - sort of.  In any case....

I met DR MBarnum and Charles Bloom at Carnegie Deli.  Massive amounts of foodstuffs were consumed, and Michael continued to amaze me - and Charles - with his encyclopedic memory of B-movies, B-movie stars and child actors.  And while Michael treated the table to lunch - Thank You, Michael! - Charles was able to "treat" Michael to the "pleasantries" of a Carnegie Deli waiter.  -I think Michael was thinking the exchange was going to end up in fisticuffs.

;)

We then walked over to 8th Avenue, and grabbed some dessert at one of those bakeries that touts to have the Best Cheesecake in New York City.  Of course, neither of us ended up ordering cheesecake.  Ah, well...  Next time.

I then headed to the Post Office - where the line was surprisingly short - and Michael and Charles headed over to the Museum of Television (???) -the proper title is eluding me right now.

And, later on, if Michael hasn't melded himself into one of the viewing booths, we will meet up at Bombay Talkie in Chelsea for an afternoon libation.  Then DR Rodzinski will fetch him and get him ready for his trek up to Washington Heights tonight.

The adventures continue....
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JoseSPiano

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #133 on: October 04, 2005, 12:14:07 PM »

I may join the gang for dinner, but a friend of mine called me earlier, and I may stop by and see him later since he's heading out of town for a while on Thursday.  We shall see...
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DERBRUCER

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #134 on: October 04, 2005, 12:17:34 PM »

Synagogue ran a little longer than expected.

Hire a Mohel to cut it short.

der Brucer
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Jason

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #135 on: October 04, 2005, 12:19:58 PM »

Oh, Jose...It'd be loverly if you were able to join us tonight. Do consider it.
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JoseSPiano

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #136 on: October 04, 2005, 12:22:13 PM »

DR Ron Pulliam (and Matthew, and...) - I'm working on heading out to San Francisco for the last week of Lestat.  I won't be playing the show, I just want to see it.  -And then I'll head back to DC, and play the last week of Damn Yankees at Arena.  It will sort of be a working vacation.  I'm still waiting for the official clearance from the contractor in DC, but it looks like a very viable option right now.  I just really want to see the show before it comes in to New York.

I'll keep you posted.

-And as for what that $65 will get you... Well, a friend of mine just moved out there to be one of the new sous chefs at Bouchon, so....

:)
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bk

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #137 on: October 04, 2005, 12:28:49 PM »

Back in the late 80s for about six weeks, I was a spokesperson for Quadratron, a software company.  When I think back on the stuff I had to speak, the complex mailmerge programs and all that technobabble crap, it just amazes me how simple things are today.  There were all those computer classes and manuals to read - the greatest invention ever for computers was point and click - someone finally got the idea that it could never have mass appeal unless complete idiots could operate.
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bk

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #138 on: October 04, 2005, 12:29:48 PM »

Back from the morning errands, and will now try to write a little.  I've got a big production meeting tomorrow at LACC, and I have to do a ton of work for it that I haven't even begun.  I suppose I'll be doing all that in the morning.
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Jason

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #139 on: October 04, 2005, 12:30:48 PM »

And now for my daily Carrot Stick bitchfest.

We get one hour for lunch. ONE HOUR. Somehow, she gets an hour and twenty minutes and no one has said a word to her. She left at 2:00 for a 'doctor's appointment,' which usually means she has an audition or meeting with a potential agent. She was supposed to be back at 3:00 so I could go to lunch but she mosied on in here at 3:10. I can understand being 10 minutes behind - especially if one has a legit doctor's appointment. But then (!) she proceeded to go to her friend's cubicle to talk very discreetly about something (probably revealing where she had really gone over her break) and then went to the kitchen to prepare her lunch. "Wait, didn't she take a 1hr10min lunch break?," you ask. Why yes, yes...I think she did. "So why is she preparing her lunch now?," you ask. I don't know, but it took her another 15 minutes to do that. So here she comes, lumbering back to her desk with two plates full of food and two cups of water and plops down at her desk to start checking her email and smacking her hateful lips on a really foul-smelling veggie burger and God knows what else and never even bats an eye. Never apologizes for taking a 1 1/2 hour lunch break, in turn cutting into MY lunch hour. Never apologizes for stinking up MY desk with her smelly-ass sandwich and never apologizes for smacking her lips for 6 out of our 8 working hours.

And yet my boss says absolutely nothing to her about any of it. Not a word...
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DERBRUCER

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #140 on: October 04, 2005, 12:35:11 PM »

dial-in bulletin boards.  These were portals in which you had to navigate by using arcane Unix commands.  There were paths which led to a lot of Star Trek games and a lot of Goth chat rooms.  Information could be found through early search engines such as Gopher, Archie and Veronica.  This is the environment where the real computer geeks thrived, but I found these to be needlessly complicated and gave up on them pretty quickly.

Somebody named Jason Scot produced an entire Documantary on BBS.

Judging from this extract from his site, he is a fan of some folks around here:

Quote

December 25, 2004
Merry Christmas - The Last Starfighter

Back in October, I reviewed a performance of The Last Starfighter. It recieved a lot of attention and helped the creators of that musical in terms of recognition and attendance. About a week ago, they sent me a very special gift: a Demo CD of the Last Starfighter Musical, performed by the Original Cast at the show I saw at the Storm Theatre in New York City.

I asked if I could make copies, and they said yes, except that it could not be sold, because of Actor's Equity rules. It is to function as a demo of the musical (created by Skip Kennon and Fred Landau) and for the people performing it.

In the spirit of that and the holiday season, I am now providing this music to the world. This is going to kill my bandwidth connection, and I hope some kind soul could put up a bittorrent or a mirror to help me.

...([link to file - deleted to protest the innocent]

I hope that this will open doors for the cast, crew, and creators of this musical; information on the production is included in the pack and of course I can be contacted if there are any theatre groups or performers looking to run this musical; I think it's pretty timeless.

Happy Holidays.

der brucer
« Last Edit: October 04, 2005, 12:45:10 PM by DERBRUCER »
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JoseSPiano

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #141 on: October 04, 2005, 12:37:47 PM »

DR Jason - Remember those "phone calls" I said I would be more than happy to make?

;)
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Ben

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #142 on: October 04, 2005, 12:41:33 PM »

Jose, got the info. Thanks. Sorry I wasn't clear. I needed your cell, which I have someplace just not here.
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DERBRUCER

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #143 on: October 04, 2005, 12:43:56 PM »

And now for my daily Carrot Stick bitchfest.


Are you opposed to Gun Control?

der Brucer
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DERBRUCER

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #144 on: October 04, 2005, 12:53:32 PM »

DR DerBrucer - There better not be a quiz on the above tomorrow!

;)

You can turn in your essays at lunch  :P
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Jason

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #145 on: October 04, 2005, 12:55:04 PM »

Jose....I'm working on a synopsis of our 'new' musical. I'm quite proud of it if I do say so myself...
« Last Edit: October 04, 2005, 12:55:22 PM by Jason »
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Matthew

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #146 on: October 04, 2005, 12:56:13 PM »

DR Ron Pulliam (and Matthew, and...) - I'm working on heading out to San Francisco for the last week of Lestat.  I won't be playing the show, I just want to see it.  -And then I'll head back to DC, and play the last week of Damn Yankees at Arena.  It will sort of be a working vacation.  I'm still waiting for the official clearance from the contractor in DC, but it looks like a very viable option right now.  I just really want to see the show before it comes in to New York.

I'll keep you posted.

-And as for what that $65 will get you... Well, a friend of mine just moved out there to be one of the new sous chefs at Bouchon, so....

:)

DR Jose - nice to hear your news.  Be sure and let us know when you know for sure when you'll be here so we can get tickets for the same day - that is if that's what DR Ron wants to do, but it's definately what I'd like to do.  And I'm sorry, I can not offer you an eating walking tour, but I can offer you a tour of the city if you'd like.
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JoseSPiano

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #147 on: October 04, 2005, 01:00:49 PM »

DR Jose - nice to hear your news.  Be sure and let us know when you know for sure when you'll be here so we can get tickets for the same day - that is if that's what DR Ron wants to do, but it's definately what I'd like to do.  And I'm sorry, I can not offer you an eating walking tour, but I can offer you a tour of the city if you'd like.

Well... I'll have a better idea of whether or not I'll be "allowed" to head out there in a few weeks.  I'll keep you posted.

I plan to sit in the pit one night, and sit out in the house another.  -I should be able to request house seats.

:)
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JoseSPiano

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #148 on: October 04, 2005, 01:02:55 PM »

Oohh...

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is on ActionMax right now..

-Just in case you're interested - and have all those Cinemax stations.
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JoseSPiano

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Re:IMPREGNATED BY MY COMPUTER
« Reply #149 on: October 04, 2005, 01:04:04 PM »

Jose....I'm working on a synopsis of our 'new' musical. I'm quite proud of it if I do say so myself...

Too bad we don't know a record producer who would be willing to record it for us.

;D
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