John Kemeny

The BASIC programming language gets much grief from the hacker elite who dream in C++, Java, C#, and other object-oriented monster languages. The truth is that many of the computer professionals of today cut their teeth on some version of BASIC. Indeed, Microsoft's Visual Basic is arguably the most successful language in the world for hobbyists as well as numerous Windows consultants.

BASIC was born on May 1, 1964, at Dartmouth College. The brain child of John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz, two math professors. Tom is still alive, but John Kemeny died back in '92. Both names were, perhaps, mentioned in my old high school data processing class (circa 1983), but "mentioned" is as far as it went.

John Kemeny was a Hungarian immigrant to the US. He worked for Richard Feynman during the development of the bomb at Los Alamos (this was before Kemeny had even finished his undergrad degree). While in graduate school at Princeton, he was the mathematics research assistant to Albert Einstein. After co-creating BASIC, he went on to become a President of Dartmouth (but insisted on being allowed to teach a couple of classes each semester). Kemeny was the leader of the commission that investigated The Three Mile Island accident. He died on December 26, 1992, at the age 66 of unexpected heart failure.

Why share an outline sketch of a life that passed so many years ago? I think because I stumbled across the following when doing some research on the history of programming languages, and it made me want to remember. After John Kemeny's death, this was written in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine: "The newspaper said John G. Kemeny, 13th president of Dartmouth College, died of heart failure. Clearly this was a mistake. John Kemeny's heart never failed anyone."

Further research confirmed that this man, who is mostly known for a maligned product, but whose intellectual biography is as impressive as any in the 20th century, was remembered by those who knew him as someone who's "heart never failed anyone." That line haunts me, maybe because I know that when my life is over it will not be true of me. But perhaps, like Scrooge, there is still time to redeem the life that remains.

Postscript - What did Kemeny think of himself? When he handed over the office of president of Dartmouth to his successor he made this comment: "History alone will be able to judge whether my presidency was good or what my record is worth, but there is one thing I do know for certain: I'm one hell of a good teacher."

On Finding an Empty Plastic Bag Where I Really Expected to Find a Soul

What colour the little scream,
that proceeds all day from my heart,
as silent as a tomb and as large as the universe?

astral ball bearings,
greased lightly with faux mirth,
falling through the web of self-lies and forgotten stories.

madness claims each tomorrow,
a dark sun rising over an infinite jest.

Scanner Vote

Anyone have any input on which would be a better replacement for a dead Minolta PS 3000 scanner: ether a Plustek Omnibook 3600 or an HP Scanjet 5590?

Yet Another T-Shirt To Blow Money On

The sad flashbacks of the middle-aged geek:



More details at the site.

Restroom Story: You've Been Warned

So, I notice this guy on campus, an undergrad student, wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Buddha that read "Rub My Belly for Good Luck." Ok, yes, Buddha would think it's funny, especially on a conservative Bible college campus. I wanted to say something when I first saw him, but something in me said "wait." Since that's the same something that keeps me from sticking my finger in the spinning blade of a fan (well, there was the one time that sense failed me... but, another story, another time), I opted for listening to it. As Buddha would have it, ten minutes later this student was standing at the next urinal over. I turn and say, "I'm sorry, but this really doesn't seem like the time or place to reach over and rub your belly." I'd like to say that rendered him speechless, but he fires back "I appreciate that." "Still," says I, "wearing Buddha on a Bible college campus, that's pretty gutsy." "Uh-huh," he returns. "Well, have a nice day!" I smile. The student then left the restroom fairly quickly.

I'm not sure whether this story is more Funny, Creepy, or Pointless. But it's been forever since I've shared any bathroom humor on this site... (and too long since I've posted anything. If this is what I'm reduced to, I may as well close this blog now).

The Night Before...

Tomorrow, at long last, is the open house for the remodeled library. One more day and all of this madness will be over. It's been... hmm, well, not exactly fun. But the place looks great! (Note to self: post pictures for the terminally curious).

On a completely different note, a conversation today brought forth the phrase "theoretical drunkenness" which I thought was a Grand Idea. I googled the phrase, and it came up with no hits! Ok, it's too cool to go to waste, so I'm going to make an otherwise empty blog just to capture the phrase. If you're truly terminal in your curiosity, check out Theoretical Drunkenness (actually, please don't).

Can't Stop Me Now

This weekend my brakes failed. Not totally, just mostly. I was in traffic. In Bloomington. I had the kids with me. Not fun. Thankfully, we made it home in one piece and my car is at the mechanic's.

On the positive side, we found 1 GB usb drives for $10 at Office Max, so I was able to make some amends for the techno-woes of the week before.

We're in full force here at the library, moving towards an Open House on the 9th. All of which to say, I need to get back to shelf construction...

Oh, I caught disc 1 of season 2 of "My Name is Earl" last night. Fun!