Knowing When to Keep Your Mouth Shut

Back in ’77, I had recently taken a job at IBM Boca Raton, in the “advanced technology” department. It was beginning to dawn on me that I needed to be somewhat less nerdy in behavior, if not core, attitudes.

A few folks visited what was then Bell Labs, which had been responsible for a lot of seriously good tech for decades. The Bell people proposed a port of the UNIX operating system to our new minicomputer, the Series/1.

(“Minicomputer” is a dated term, but this was the seventies, and I learned coding using punch cards anyway. “Punch card” is also dated, youngsters.)

UNIX was developed by the Bell people based on their work at the MIT MULTICS project, and the name is a pun. I’d studied UNIX a coupla years before, at Case Tech, since it was perceived as a really good example of software development and impressive new tech. It was written in the C programming language, developed by the same guys. That was new in itself, since normally operating system code was done in machine language. (Yes, I’m oversimplifying a bit.)

When our team returned from Bell Labs, they were pretty tepid about the idea, but I was asked for an opinion. I felt that we could do better, but that UNIX would be great for the Series/1. Maybe I mentioned that it was far superior than the official S/1 operating system, developed using what some call the “waterfall” approach.

[One of the most eloquent descriptions of “waterfall” software development by Scott Adams]

My approach was politically and socially clueless. I failed to realize that local management had made a major investment in the official operating system, not only financial but also their careers might’ve depended on the success of the software. My suggestion was a non-starter, and I kinda understood that I needed to grow in non-technical areas.

Sure, I coulda fought hard for some kind of joint effort with Bell Labs to migrate UNIX to the S/1. It probably woulda meant frequent commutes to New Jersey, a mixed blessing, since I’m … from Jersey. (Inside joke for fans of Sparks Nevada, Marshall on Mars, part of the Thrilling Adventure Hour.)

My take is that UNIX on S/1 would be a great success, given its existing reputation and legitimization by Bell Labs and the phone networks of the time.

That woulda had vast repercussions on the whole computer industry, since much of the subsequent industry was based on UNIX systems, particularly the earliest Internet (ARPAnet and Sun Microsystems). Sun and related servers powered much of the early Net, including about a year of craigslist.

UNIX influenced a lot of development, for example, the filesystem structure of and later Windows. A UNIX variant, Mach, powers Apple Mac and even iOS.

Much more importantly, Linus Torvalds decided that the world needed an open source, free version of UNIX, and went ahead and did it.

The result is Linux, which powers much of the current Internet, it’s everywhere but not obviously so.

For that matter, Linux is the basis for Android, which runs most of the world’s smartphones.

If the Bell Labs folks, with minor help from me, made S/1 UNIX a big deal, this would have disrupted this history in unpredictable ways. It’s probably good that I was timid, and decided to learn un-nerdly social behaviors over the course of decades. (I can simulate normal social behavior, but observe my clock running out at about 90 minutes. Seriously.)

Instead, both a phone company in Jersey and one in Ann Arbor ported UNIX to the S/1, but years later, and it’s rare to find someone who remembers the S/1, or even UNIX.

My path took me less technical for the most part, spending 11 years at IBM as a Systems Engineer, kind of a tech consultant for customers. That’s a technical position, but not like a UNIX porting engineer. I never completely lost contact with what I was about, for example, I remember learning C in what amounted to a storage closet at IBM Detroit in ’85 or so. (If you live in Detroit, that’s the building on Nine Mile, where it hits Southfield and Northwestern.)

In ’95 I learned newer programming languages, Java and Perl, to participate in the incipient dot-com industry, helping develop Home Banking for Bank for America, while starting something called craigslist.

Nowadays I do lightweight customer service, and a great deal of public service and philanthropy. I know enough tech to have a meaningful conversation with people, more than I need.

I guess I’m much better off taking the path I did. The world didn’t need anyone to disrupt the industry, particularly the path of Linux. People do benefit from a mostly-free service (like craigslist), which helps put food on the table, in the short run, and in the long run, ain’t bad to “do well by doing good.”

Middle Photo: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2014-10-12/

Lower Photo: http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/Home/equipment/ibm-series1

December 29, 2014

Will women dominate the tech field?

Hey, big news: for the first time, women outnumber men in a UC Berkeley Computer Science course. Could this be a new trend?

Stats are a little wavering and it’s unclear. Mike Cassidy at Mercury News says that after Harvey Mudd College began emphasizing coding instead of siloing it, and started paying for freshman women to attend the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, “the percentage of female computer science majors at Harvey Mudd increased from about 10% before the initiatives to 43% today.”

Cassidy also thinks that the number of women in the computer science field is getting worse. He said that “in 1984, more than 37% of computer science bachelor’s degrees in the US were awarded to women. By 1995, the figure had dropped to about 28.5 %. The latest U.S. Department of Education figures from 2011 put the number at 17.6%.”

From my perspective, it seems to be improving overall. Folks, there are more female computer science grads at Stanford than ever before, women are outnumbering men for the first time ever at a UC Berkeley Computer Science course, and the number of Harvard sophomore women who are declaring their major as Computer Science has increased over the years. It seems to me that it’s the little things that are increasing, and those things really add up.

What have you noticed about women in the Computer Science field? Do you think that gender equity’s on the upswing?

February 27, 2014

I Could Not Press the Computer Keyboard Buttons

Folks, I’ve been doing some monetary support for the computer center at Mfangano Island, and have recently received a few updates from people who have been using the center. I wanted to share their stories with you. Here’s Eric’s story:

It was in June 7^th, 2010 that I first joined Ekialo Kiona Center. Though I had been living on Mfangano Island for a long time, I had never used nor handled a computer before. When I heard that becoming an EK member would give me the opportunity to learn and use computers, I got excited and joined the club. All people who join the free community cyber-cafe (with onsite Voluntary HIV counseling and testing) through biannual HIV testing receive free unlimited access to the Internet. Even though I had never known my HIV status before and feared the process (and of course knowing my status) I decided to go through the process, just to get chance to touch a computer.

It was not easy for me in the IT room! Just touching the keyboard was so strange to me. In fact I believed that the ‘Wazungus’ (white people) were the people who knew and can handle these gadgets. At first I feared I could damage the computer so I did not want touch it. But anyway, I got the opportunity that I could not leave to pass. It took me only three months to know everything about the computer: handling the keyboard, writing, accessing information, and using the internet, among others.

I can remember an incident when I received my first email message from my friend Graham Tattersall, who I had met some years back. I yelled so loud that it made a lot of noise in the IT room and I had to be sent out for more than thirty minutes before being allowed in again. I didn’t believe I could get a mail from that far. It is marvelous; technology has changed my life and the lives of many people like on Mfangano Island.

That is the power of technology through EK Center on Mfangano Island and its environment. Thanks to those who have made this a reality.

Eric Omondi is a youth and is currently a volunteer in the EK FM Youth Radio, a project under EK Center

February 13, 2014

Why I’m a nerd and not a geek

I’m not going to wind up saying that being a nerd is better than being a geek. It’s just different and overlapping.

I’m pretty much old school. I was brought up during the Eisenhower administration and I fulfill the 50’s or early 60’s version of the nerd cliché. Y’know, the plastic pocket protector and all that. I was very much into sci fi and fantasy at that time – back then sci fi and fantasy were mostly books and very little media.

A nerd was an outcast type, one who might be very knowledgeable with engineering, and eventually computers. Generally someone with little social skills, something that kind of caused one’s own ostracism. Again, this is kind of a 50’s perspective on the whole thing.

These days, a geek is someone with a fascination of some aspect of pop culture, often related to sci fi or fantasy, and they might get really good at what their focus is. If their focus is computers, they’ll get really good at it like a nerd with the same focus. Yes, I’m using one common definition of “geek” which I hope is fair.

The meaning of “nerd,” I guess, has shifted and conflated with “geek,” but nerd is something pejorative. Geekdom is more socially acceptable, far as I can tell. This has come about in the last 20 years, but that’s just my take from what I’ve observed from living through it. There’s a podcast/TV show called the Nerdist, it’s been a podcast for a while and became a TV show sometime last year. It goes to show how nerds have become more mainstream.

The term nerd’s meaning was getting fairly diluted in that time frame, over the last 20 years, and depending on who you talk to, nerd and geek may mean the same thing. The Japanese term of Otaku is related, but more toward the geek side with more social isolation.

Again, I don’t think one is better than the other, and again, I’m using a relatively narrow definition of nerd. The Simpson version of Comic Book Guy is a very realistic parody of the real thing.

The original nerd was an outsider, though, a geek or a nerd in the modern sense is not so much an outsider, that kind of behavior is now accepted and sometimes glorified. Like, on the Simpsons, the comic book guy is classic geek, but as recent pop culture shows, it’s become more socially acceptable. Comic Book Guy recently met Mrs. Comic Book Woman. The episode is very funny, and even moving from a narrow point of view.

Sometimes the old school nerd thing is about getting stuff done. Old school nerd is linked with technology, engineering, and math, while modern day nerd is linked more with pop cultural obsession . This is speculative on my part, based on experience, and there will be people with other opinions.

I identify as a nerd, and in my case, it’s 50’s styles, as that’s when I grew up.

February 7, 2014

There’s room in Cyberspace for us all

Hey folks, I recently donated some web gear to The Women’s Building in San Francisco to help out with their free computer lab. Not everyone has the means to use technology, and I think that it’s important that it’s as accessible as possible. Here’s what Tatjana, Development Director of The Women’s Building, had to say about it:

There’s room in Cyberspace for us all

Even the US government thinks it’s important that ALL Americans, regardless of class, should have computer and internet access (“FCC plans cheap Internet service and computers to connect poor Americans”).

At The Women’s Building, our free community computer lab has been open for years. Most of our visitors are low-income, and sometimes homeless. Every day people, mostly women, come in to use the computers; often to search for jobs and other community resources, as well as for entertainment and to connect with others… pretty much what everyone seems to use computers for.

We have learned that ACCESS to computers isn’t the only barrier: Some of the women who come in don’t even know HOW to use a computer. The Women’s Building helps these people by offering free computer classes and one-on-one assistance; i.e. how to use a mouse, how to set up an email account, and how to surf the web. In today’s world, even house-cleaning, baby-sitting, and kitchen staff jobs are posted online and people have to contact employers through email.

We realize that numerous women who use our computer lab may have many different issues that they are grappling with, so we also offer information and resources on issues like domestic violence, legal and housing, and just sympathetic support so that the women don’t get discouraged.

We are grateful for Craig’s vision that cyberspace is for everyone. Recently, he helped us make some great updates and now our computer lab is an even better place for the community. We were able to get:
• Three new computers
• Two web cameras
• A projector and screen for our computer classes
• Faster internet speed from 3.2 MBps to 14-15 MBps (Yay!)
• An upgrade of all computers to Windows 7/Office 10
• Head-phones with microphones

Once the lab was updated, one of our computer users told me, “The new computers are great and I’ve really noticed the faster internet connection. I like coming to this lab and I can keep in touch with people and even meet new people around the world. Thank you for what you do here. It’s helped me so much.”

For more info about The Women’s Building, visit us at: http://www.womensbuilding.org.
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November 15, 2011