Author Archives: Stan

25th anniversary of Windows 95

2020/08/28 at 14:25

Anil Dash reminds us how momentous the launch of Windows 95 was. In 1995, I was working for a company in western New Jersey that developed machine (human language) translation software. Katie and I had a Macintosh SE that we had bought in 1987 or 1988. Not too long after the Windows 95 launch, we went to CompUSA (or a similar store, can’t remember) and bought a new PC with a Pentium chip, and Windows for Workgroups 3.11–which had the TCP/IP stack. We got Internet access via Compuserve at our home in rural New Jersey, and I spent hours every evening the for the next few years exploring the web and teaching myself web-related technologies.

God, I’m old.

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Another Mandala-inspired cross stitch project

2020/03/02 at 18:35

Mandala-inspired cross stitch project

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Things I’ve learned

2020/01/26 at 07:20
For the last few months, I’ve been reading and participating in discussions in the reddit community r/cscareerquestions. Most of the discussions are started by people who are starting a career in programming or who want to start a career in programming. Lots and lots of people in their early 20s who are still in college, are about to graduate or are in their first year or two after graduating.
I’ve learned quite a few things from the discussions in this community:
  • When I was in my early 20s, I really thought I had to change the world, do something remarkable with my life. I now have a new appreciation for just how typical that is with people that age.
  • The flip side of this is tremendous anxiety. So many of these young people feel that their entire future is riding on their current endeavor: passing a class, getting that first job, etc. It is heart-breaking to see these people suffering so much anxiety.
  • Many of them are motivated solely by money and status. They are completely obsessed by getting a job in one of the biggest, most successful tech companies today (I’ve learned the short-hand for this: FAANG). People with this kind of drive and motivation exist in every generation, but what has changed in recent years, I think, is that software engineering is now one of the career paths that people with this motivation think will get them that success. It used to be other careers: finance, business, etc.

When I make comments in these discussions, it’s often to try to reassure these young people that not getting a job at Google does not equate failure. In actuality, very few software engineers work at these top companies; the vast majority of us make a good living at companies you may not recognize, and have quite happy lives.

The observations above are pretty mundane and, for the most part, not unique to either the time or place of r/cscareerquestions. However, I’ve also noticed a lot of economic anxiety among the young participants in those discussions, and I think that may actually have a component that is unique to recent decades at least. 

For most of the 20th century, parents in the United States could feel pretty confident that their children would have a higher quality of life than they themselves had. But this began to change with Gen X parents: stagnating wages and increasing economic inequality led these parents to fear, legitimately so, for their own kids’ futures in a way different from their own parents. And I think this economic anxiety is at least partially explains some of the parenting behavior of the last couple of decades: the dreaded helicopter parent.

I saw this among our cohorts when our kids were young. Katie saw it when she was teaching college: parents who felt that every action they and their kids took could have lifelong economic impacts: make sure that the kids are in the best school, participate in the right extracurricular activities, get the highest grades, make the highest scores on college entrance exams, get into the best university, etc. A feeling that a failure at any point could doom their children’s future. Push, push, push.

This is not a brilliant new theory that I’ve formulated. A lot has already been written on the economics of the recent past. But when I’ve mentioned this theory in discussions on r/careerquestions, several young participants have identified with it. “Oh wow. That was me!” they say. For some of them, this is a new idea. I bring it up in the appropriate discussions in the hopes that helping to provide some perspective to some of these anxious, driven young people might help them to lead happier lives.

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Self-purification

2020/01/21 at 07:56

Yesterday, I posted an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” As I was reading the letter in its entirety, I was struck by the addition of “self-purification” to the steps:

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action.

and later in the letter:

We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” “Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?”

Making sure you’re confident that you can withstand the consequences of direct action certainly sounds like a sensible step, but I find it interesting that he calls it “self-purification.” I would probably need to do some in-depth reading about Dr. King to understand this better.

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Just and Unjust Laws

2020/01/20 at 13:59

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr ring true today still:

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state’s segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

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End of an era

2019/11/25 at 08:48

Run for the WaterA few weeks ago–a few days after the Run for the Water race, in fact–I injured my hip while running. Last week, I went to see my orthopedist about it. As her PA was examining me, noting that I’m a lifetime runner, I mentioned that also have low-level pain in my right knee, but not enough that I’d gotten it checked out. The PA said they should X-ray the knee, too, while I was in the office.

The good news: the hip injury will heal with a rest in running, some stretches, etc. The bad news: the knee pain is due to degenerative osteoarthritis. The doctor said that they can take some measures to ease the pain but that the only remedy is a knee replacement. The arthritis will only get worse whether I run or not, and I may eventually need a knee replacement. She emphasized that running it will accelerate the degeneration. She also pointed out that I would eventually have to stop running if I had a knee replacement and that knee replacements only last a certain period of time, therefore it’s vital that I delay it as long as possible. Therefore, she strongly advised me to stop running.

I think both the doctor and her PA assumed that I would find this news devastating and that I would not want to stop running. But after a few days of reflection and talking with a lot of people about this, at this point in my life I identify primarily as a healthy, fit and active person–it’s just that running is the only way I’ve ever used to maintain that state. Furthermore, I don’t relish the prospect of increasing chronic pain and eventual significant surgery. It’s much more acceptable to me to find other forms of exercise that don’t exacerbate my arthritis and allow me to remain fit than it is to continue running at all costs. I think that swimming is an activity that I enjoy that will most easily fit into my current schedule/lifestyle. I have already been to the pool once, and I think I will try to take a swim course to learn to swim more effectively. But I’m sure I’ll continue a little running, and maybe also do some biking as well.

 

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Run for the Water

2019/11/11 at 08:33

On Sunday, November 3, I ran the 10-mile Run for the Water through west central Austin. I completed in 1 hour and 30 minutes, at a pace of 8:53 min/mile. I used to be a lot faster, but that’s not bad for an old guy.

Run for the Water

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India Trip 2019

2019/10/12 at 08:45

I visited my company’s office in Noida (Delhi) at the end of August, 2019. 

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Late summer in central Texas

2019/08/25 at 08:51

Yesterday afternoon I took a bike ride around our home in Pflugerville. I took this photo of a dry feed corn field at a break just outside of Hutto.

Dry corn stalks against the summer sky

Dry corn stalks against the summer sky

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Rangoli-inspired cross stitch projects

2019/08/22 at 12:35

I recently bought some black plastic aida 14-count cross stitch canvas, and I decided to try out the DMC Étoile embroidery thread. The result is two rangoli-inspired small projects. The original patterns can be found here and here.

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