President's Message
August 2007 (v1.5)
Rob Limbaugh - President
Wow… I’m writing this in mid July, and there’s still a lot I have yet to do! This month has been pretty busy. We’ve got a couple of teenagers who are developing new interests and responsibilities. Work always has some new ‘learning experience’ around each corner. With our own hobbies and interests, it sometimes seems as if we’re always doing something.
All that is about to change—Shortly after this reaches you, our home schedule will be following that of an all-inclusive resort in Aruba. This will be the first time I’ve been out of the North American land mass since being a toddler. Of course, our trip will only last a finite amount of time, and sitting on a beach isn’t really my thing—I have trouble equating the action of lying out in the sun on the beach being any different than lying out on sand dune in the middle of a desert. So, in between our ‘family activities’, I’ve started working on a list of things I want to do. This trip was a long time in the making and I look forward to it. It will certainly be an experience!
Recent Events
Our July General Meeting was outstanding! Bruce Preston and his son, Scott, did a fabulous job showing how to digitize audio that resides on only tape or vinyl! They explained mechanical recording principles in a very ‘user friendly’ manner. The best part, in my opinion, was how they showed the results one can obtain without needing a full blown recording studio.
The new “DACS Event Calendar” was also announced. This is to be considered the “Official Event Calendar” for DACS going forward. Since events could change from the time our newsletter goes to press to the time and event occurs, please check the online calendar regularly. If you wish to see details, click on an event. We also added a simple link to reach it: http://www.dacs.org/calendar.
Video Review—“Triumph of the Nerds”
This documentary hosted by Robert Cringely (author of ‘Accidental Empires’) explains what events took place to create ‘personal computing’. The DVD is comprised of three documentaries that were originally aired on PBS in 1996. It is very informative and has interviews (albeit from the mid-90’s) with some of the key players. Mr. Cringely keeps a very balanced viewpoint and does a great job telling the stories behind the events. He even goes into his garage and pulls out some of the first hardware available in the ‘Personal Computing’ era. For more information, check out the Internet Movie Database or Netflix. A link at Blockbuster’s website could not be located for this video.
Book Review—“Hackers and Painters” by Paul Graham
This interesting prose is a conglomeration of many ideas, observations, and experiences. The beginning of the book sheds light on the mindset of people who become successful, compares that to himself and others in the technology arena (in particular, the dotcom era and programming). The overall premise of the book is to explain that much like the Arts, when a new technology or medium appears everything that stems from that is largely in the shadow of the original work. Humor is mixed in, along with a very practical viewpoint of where technology has brought us and where it is taking us. The only complaint I have is that Mr. Graham portrays Lisp as being the endpoint of all programming languages, yet he has created his own dialect of it. That very action, in my opinion, negates his assertions in this book that Lisp is the pinnacle of programming language evolution.
Until next time…
ROB LIMBAUGH
relimbaugh@dacs.org |
