I've Got This

The Oregonian posted their funniest cartoon today. Todays favorite was one from Non Sequitur. It features a group of people gathered around a grave with a tombstone that says simply "I've Got This". 

We have all walked up a path we knew nothing about. In the search for for a solution to a problem put before us, we have volunteer blithely. We put on a smug smile. After all we are sure that "We've got this". Then we journey to the brink.

Jeff in the cartoon above set out to find out how far one had to gone before a task turned from one demanding courage into the one that was just plain stupid. Jeff died in the quest. His tombstone tells it all. It is funny but it is also a little sad.

Boy do we have to be careful when we put ourselves into the line of fire with "I've got this!" because "not having it" can be a very bad thing.

The one that I have used many times before is "how hard could it be?". I remember heading out to see a cousin. He and his wife lived in a small community of about 900 people. I didn't have his address but I thought "how hard can it be?" Surely the gas station guy would know where Dale and Renee lived. Well, believe me, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

I said the same thing when we added a porch to our park model, when we added an Arizona room to the same structure, when we poured concrete (many time) and the list goes on. My husband runs and hides when I say "How hard could it be?".

I think Trump thought the same thing about being the President of the United States. After all, being President can't be complicated..."How hard can it be?" he thought. Then before long we heard him say "This is a lot harder than I thought it would be". I know how he feels.

...it's wireless. How hard could it be to not install wires?

I have learned that going on a quest without a plan is not a good plan and I should never say "how hard could it be?"

It is Friday and it is just a thought! What do you think?

I Invented the Computer! he said.

I wrote this article back in 2012. Russell Kirsch is a hero of mine. He called me on the phone what day many years ago so I wrote about it. I will never forget that conversation. This is a follow up for that article.

If you love Dilbert, you will understand why I loved the reappearance of Russell Kirsch in a article written for BoingBong. In case you don't know, Kirsch was the man that took the very first digital image and it was of his son. That was back in the 1950's. Kirsch loves a good laugh I think. That is why he says things like "I invented the computer"!  Not that the statement is untrue but just because those kind of statement do get your attention. 

BoingBoing had a story the other day about a man that had an encounter with Mr. Kirsch in a coffee shop. The encounter started with Kirsch saying, 

"That’s the problem with a lot of people”, ...“they don’t try to do stuff that’s never been done before, so they never do anything, but if they try to do it, they find out there’s lots of things they can do that have never been done before."  

When the much younger man asked what the old man had done, Kirsch said simply "I invented the computer." WOW! I am sure the young man wondered if that was true? I expect this incident to appear in a cartoon one day soon much like Al Gore saying he invented the Internet. But here is the truth...Russell Kirsch is a very interesting and important man in the world of "inventing the computer".

As it turns out, I talked with Mr. Kirsch back in 2007 after I wrote a blog post about him (I had spelled his name wrong but really he just called to say thank you). He told me his story of being a young man involved in the thermonuclear weapons calculations. This was during the cold war era in the 1950's. As I understand it, that program was the impetus for the building of the first programmable computer here in the United States. Kirsch had been a part of that program and he was the young man. An article published in the Oregonian in 2007 tells us:

Russell Kirsch with the 
image the first digital image.
2007 edition of the Oregonian

In 1957, Kirsch was a computer programmer -- a job category that, at the time, must have seemed closer to magician than to engineer. Kirsch and an elite team worked with SEAC, the Standards Electronic Automatic Computer, the federal government's first electronic programmable computer.

As he was telling about his work on thermonuclear weapons calculation (programming?), I think he mentioned the International Ballistic Missile program. He told me how he played with the computer on his own time...without the knowledge of his superiors probably. We all know that Dilbert's boss would have gone ballistic over something like that...no pun intended. Kirsch may have spent a little bit of the company's time playing too but he didn't say that. Sounds familiar doesn't it? He laughed softly as he told the story. I had read an article in the Oregonian the day before (2007) about him. They told about the first digital image taken with a device he created using the the government programmable computers. That first snapshot was a picture of his son, a small baby at the time. The Oregonian told how that image was chosen by Life Magazine as one of the pictures that changed world. We all know digital photography is a wonderful addition to our world.

When I last talked to Mr. Kirsch he and his wife, an art historian I believe, were working on an Apple program looking at replicating art on the computer. I hope that research has been used somewhere in our cameras or computers today.

So did Russell Kirsch invent the computer? Well yes and no. Was he a man on the list of people that helped accomplish that task? Yes he was. Was he a man that changed the world in a very big way? I think so. But best of all I think he has a wonderful sense of humor that leads him to watch the face of a young nerds as he blows them out of water when he says, "I invented the computer." I love that a lot! And you might like to know that Russell Kirsch is in his 82 year of life...amazing!

b+

Note: the original article is not available on Blogger anymore. I do have it printed somewhere but it is probably in Oregon and I am in Arizona. Darn.

Ageism: Will all the ignorami or ignoramuses stand up?

Always Postpone Meetings With
Time Wasting Morons: A Dilbert Book

Examples of IGNORAMUS

1. I can't believe they let an ignoramus like that run the company.
2. Only an ignoramus would be foiled by the building's security system

Do young people make you feel like an ignoramus now that you are older? And if they do, don't you wonder if they would have done that if you were 20 years younger? I really don't have an answer for why. Let me know if you do. All I know is ageism just ticks me off...it makes me want to find a few compassionate human cells and a petri dish and grow myself some new people that think people of my age are really smart! I got the idea from Dilbert!

I love the comic section of the newspaper. I always wonder how those guys come up with the perfect combination of words and images to make use laugh. Sunday Dilbert was a classic. It seems that Dilbert's boss wanted to have a brainstorming session with the employees. The pointy headed guy is so clueless that he generally sabotages a good plan, replaces it with a bad one and then proceeds to sell the bad idea using an evil cat or whatever that office devil is that occupies the corner of the desk.

The pointy headed boss guy really stepped in it this time. Does the creator of that comic hang out in your office? Or if you are retired, the place you used to work. If you were a boss, you know that bosses love brainstorming...it makes everyone feel useful, even the ignoramuses. Brainstorming is a wonderful concept in that it allows the free flow of ideas both bad (for the ignoramuses) and good. But the rule is, as the boss pointed out, there can be no niggling or giggling. They could not make those people they viewed as ignoramuses feel unworthy. Dilbert volunteered to go first suggesting a gene project or something of the kind to create a boss that was not an "ignoramus". It was the perfect combination of a word that makes you want to laugh, a diatribe that could get a person fired and the image of the pointy headed boss sitting stunned caught in his own web of rules. If someone had said "Will all the ignoramuses stand up?" would the boss be the only one in the room standing or would Dilbert have gotten up too?  After all he almost gave the boss permission to fire him!

I know when I worked, I did not like to feel like an ignoramus. Now that I am retired, I really object it. I am the boss of me and I will not give others permission to treat me badly. I liked the idea of being in charge in the classroom when I worked and maybe people did think I was not too bright. But now...nope, not going to let that happen anymore.

Just a thought!

b

Suggested links:  'Elderly' No More, NYT