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LoC #54 with She
On the latest episode of Land Of Confusion, the member show for members, by members where we interview members, we finally sit down and interview She.
We start as we now do with our members questions and learn a lot of information on the state of the wool industry in the USA and the culture of southern PA. We then learn about She’s growing up in Nigeria, under the adventures of her colonial administrator father, and the life of a free roaming child in that West African Nation.
We then travel to the USA and learn about her time in school and living in the wilds of the heart of major PA city.
Then She talks about her life at the frontier of micro computing and how she helped bring about the introduction of word processers to that corner of the world and her love of the Atari 800.
Be sure to watch it all, and we will see you in the comments.
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Published in General
Wumpus first came out in 1973, but I played the Star Trek “text” game often before that, which came out in 1971. That was on the CDC-3300 “mainframe” system (the 3300 wasn’t a very big “mainframe” but still technically qualified) at Oregon State University, running a special timesharing system developed at OSU, which was called OS3 or OS^3, for Oregon State Open Shop Operating System.
I remember it well.
I knew it!!!!!
I heard about PROFS way back when, but as I studiously avoided having to work on IBM systems, I never had to deal with it myself.
The Qantel (note: really, no u in Qantel! Quantel is something different)
dealer that I did business programming at, also dealt with Lexitron dedicated word-processing systems.
which were a fairly early WYSIWYG type of system. They used Qume-built daisy-wheel printers, and had the sheet-feeder option.
My aunt got a couple of goats to handle her lawn. They preferred the neighbor’s roses.
Fencing 6 acres seems like a lot of work, if it wasn’t already done by someone else.
But then repeatedly mowing 6 acres would end up being a lot more work.
One of the first we had was likewise huge. It was capable of graphics and was good for 300 dpi. Some bright spark decided to plot some data without reducing the number of available data points. He tried to print out about 100,000 to 200,000 dpi. The printer burst into flames about a quarter of the way through his plot.
On the bright side, we got to test the halogen fire suppression system. It worked pretty good, but the dust that had accumulated above the ceiling tiles made our appreciation of its function rather short.
More frissons of (not always welcome) memories: Makes me recall OS/2, the operating system originally developed by IBM and Microsoft, till they had a row and fell out over it. It came out at the same time as IBMs new generation of PCs, known as the PS/2 (I won’t tell you what we called them. Use your imagination.)
After IBM took over exclusive development of OS/2, it came out with a few revisions, notably OS/2 Warp which ran a little faster and had jazzed-up interface and a few more features than its predecessor. Customers stayed away in droves.
At the time, I had a LAN Specialist working for me who came from Pakistan. He was fond of the IBM OS. (I think we had it running on three or four PCs at the hospital, because it was required for certain software packages that came as a bundle with the PC and OS all together.)
And he always called it OS2/Wrap.
I had to fire him because he became unmanageable, and started reporting me to Human Resources for (he said) using illegal IP addresses on the hospital’s network and taking bribes from the clinical systems vendor (if you knew the people, and the companies involved, you’d appreciate how funny that was). He then started claiming that he was being victimized by me and others in the department, that we wouldn’t allow him to sit in the lunchroom and eat his lunch, and didn’t invite him to meetings, and he started taking notes every minute of the day and then insisting on meeting with members of the administration (the male ones anyway) to talk about how he couldn’t be managed by a mere woman and he wasn’t going to put up with it any longer.
So I fired him. At the time, I was one of three IT managers. The other two were former US Marines. Jack, who is tall, laconic and dependable, stood outside the door. Roger, who is about three inches shorter than me, and a scrappy, wiry guy you want on your side in a fight, sat in the room with me. Hospital security was in the lobby, and the city police were outside the building. It went as well as it could, I suppose, although I was a bit nervous for quite some time arriving and leaving work, and moving between the hospital buildings during the day.
About eighteen months later, (it was Monday, September 13, 1999), I got to work one morning and, as I was making coffee, my boss Rodney asked me if I’d heard the news. I said “what news?” His response is the only time in my life that I’ve dropped like a rock, and if someone hadn’t shoved a chair behind me, I’d have been on the floor.
My former employee had, the preceding Friday night into Saturday morning (September 11, as it happened), murdered his wife, his father-in-law, his sister-in-law and his two-year-old niece. He was apprehended at LaGuardia Airport with his two sons, attempting to flee back to Pakistan. The story is here.
Twenty-two years later, he’s still on death row in Ohio. And that story is here.
Yeah. OS/2 Wrap.
Laser printers got a lot smaller once LED type lasers were invented.
Those radical islamists just can’t hold their temper…
Well, I suppose if it actually happened on Sept 11, he couldn’t really have been disappointed by what DIDN’T happen on the 13th. (Although even on the 11th it would have been clear that it wasn’t going to happen.
P.S. I have several copies/packages of OS/2, including v. 1.2 and Extended Services for 1.2 that come as a large number of floppy disks in large boxes.
There are still fan groups supporting OS/2 Warp 3 and/or 4.
Version 1.2 would run on a PS/2 model 60, which was just a 286 cpu.
It was already mostly fenced when my son and daughter-in-law bought it, though they have been beefing up the fencing. My son explains that fencing is more important for keeping the very destructive wild hogs out than keeping their own animals in. Though he has experience, as he also did major fencing around a couple of rugged acres when he lived in New Mexico a few years ago.
Our daughter-in-law contracted out the mowing while our son was deployed for 7 months last year. She just couldn’t keep up with the mowing. But property also gives him a “reason” to have tools. :) He just ordered a compact tractor (25 hp Kubota with loader bucket).
Oh, fun times! We bought our first new tractor in 2000, a 29HP New Holland. When we first moved out here in 1986, we bought a 42HP David Brown, 1960s vintage. It was a workhorse, but I was never really all that comfortable on it, and had to stand up and jump up and down on the brake and clutch pedals to get them to do anything meaningful. The New Holland, which has power steering (almost too much power steering, actually) is way nicer. Among its accessories are the front loader bucket and the backhoe.
The presence of such a thing looming large in my life, at this point in my life, is worrisome to my rurally-challenged relatives, but I am very careful. I’ve only had one scary episode-a few years ago–when the brakes let go and it free-wheeled down the hill. I managed to get it under control just as I was seriously contemplating jumping. I remember thinking–“jump to the high side, so you’re not underneath it, if it tips.” Always good advice. Truth be told, if I’m not planting enough fence posts to justify attaching the auger, or using one of the other attachments, I’d rather drive Rocinante, the Polaris Ranger, around. I wouldn’t say she purrs, either, but in general she handles the terrain rather better than the tractor.
I should say. With a front loader and a back hoe, you are a one-woman zone of destruction on wheels.
The first thing they teach you on a hay wagon.
Maybe this is one of those moments? (Something not quite right on my youtube channel at the moment, but perhaps this will work):
@lillyb @justmeinaz
Those are just accoutrements, her mind is her weapon.
I am afraid that some cultures (generally) foreign to our own, understand that (perhaps better than we do), which is why they insist on shackling the female mind in physical, social, and cultural terms. And why they send young female suicide bombers into Kano market to blow themselves up before they can make a difference, and why they shoot young women like Malala in the head.
I’ll leave it at this:
[snip video WRT Bill Maher re: “cumming”]
Wut? I’m sorry. If you’re implying that Malala is a “furball with a broken spirit who’ll look out on a world she can never enjoy,” then we have a serious disagreement.
WRT to Maher’s comment on “mustangs,” maybe some of them were just horse’s asses. (I have some experience in the “mustang” department, and I wouldn’t advise you to go there.)
Bill Maher is, for the most part, a righteous Liberal, IMHO. Comments such as yours though make it difficult for me to manage this perception.
Very often it’s clear that Maher doesn’t really believe what he says, in particular regarding politics, and neither does his whooping and hollering audience, because they don’t vote that way. But every now and then he makes a point.
However, I’m 62 and quite aware that there’s no real benefit to being totally honest with women. That’s why I said “I’ll leave it at this.”
LOL. I’ll be 67 in September.
As far as your statement that there’s “no real benefit in being totally honest with women,” I expect that’s something you’ve decided is “your truth,” (as the Duchess of Sussex might say). So no point in discussing it.
Best.
If you don’t understand from those videos, let alone personal experience, there’s probably nothing to be done. If you really think the reason young girls/women started being used as suicide bombers or that Malala was attacked was some fear that she – or any other girl – would become some world-changing or invincible woman in the future, that’s a kind of willful blindness that nobody can fix for you.
When a woman has decent acreage and has shown she has a tractor with a backhoe and a front-loader bucket, only a fool would pick a fight with her. But you have fun, @kedavis. I’ll pretend to miss you when you’re buried beneath some anonymous field with sheep grazing over you.
She, remember, six feet is fine for natural causes, but go at least twelve for your victims.
On a fence line. If you reposition a few posts, the disturbed earth is easier to explain, and the weeds will cover it up anyway by fall.
Maybe an unarmed fool with no legs.
But, nice job of “making women (or woman) nod.”
Thanks. Got that. I’m willfully blind and too stupid to understand. This conversation (between you and me) is over. I’m not leaving this thread, because it’s largely mine, but I won’t engage further with such foolishness.
Quick question for the class, then: can anyone think of any other reason why a terrorist group might start using young girls – or children of either gender, for that matter – as suicide bombers, OTHER THAN some horror at the possibility that she/they might eventually change things in their society so it’s better to get them killed?
Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
If anyone needs more than 2 seconds for that, you get an F.