Cyril's Gleans

Books about P. G. Wodehouse Bob likes

Davis, Lee, Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern
James H Heineman, Inc, New York, 1993

Green, Benny, P G Wodehouse: A Literary Biography
Pavilion Books, London, 1981

Phelps, Barry, P G Wodehouse: Man and Myth
Constable and Co Ltd, London, 1992

Wind, Herbert Warren, The World of P G Wodehouse
Hutchinson & Co Ltd, London, 1981

Usborne, Richard, Wodehouse at Work to the End
Penguin, London, 1978

Day, Barry, (ed) The Complete Lyrics of P G Wodehouse
The Scarecrow Press, Inc, Lanham, Maryland, 2004

Garrison, Daniel H, Who's Who in Wodehouse
2nd (revised) edition, International Polygonics Ltd, New York, 1989

Taves, Brian, P G Wodehouse and Hollywood
McFarland & Co Inc, Jefferson, NC, 2006

Cazalet-Keir, Thelma, (ed) Homage to P G Wodehouse: A Critical and Historical Essay
Barrie & Jenkins Ltd, London, 1973

Kiernan, Rober F, Frivolity Unbound: Six masters of the camp novel. Thomas Love Peacock, Max Beerbohm, Ronald Firbank, E.F. Benson, P.G. Wodehouse, Ivy Compton-Burnett.
Continuum, New York, 1990

Bob the BMer

Bob joined IBM June 6, 1960, in Endicott, New York, as a Junior Mathematician. He worked for IBM on permanent assignment in eight different locations: Endicott, New York (1960-1963), Wilmington, Delaware (1963-1964), Poughkeepsie, New York (1964-1965), Kingston, New York (1965), Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (1965-1972), Zurich, Switzerland (1972-1977), Rochester, Minnesota (1977-1982), and Boca Raton, Florida (1982-1987). He worked on short-term assignments in numerous other locations, mainly the IBM R&D laboratories in La Gaude, France, and Hursley, England, and the IBM World Trade Headquarters in Paris, France. He held a variety of job designations in addition to Junior Mathematician including Senior Programmer, Senior Engineer, and Senior Planner. While he was on assignment in Europe (early 1972 - late 1977), Jacques Maisonrouge, then CEO of the IBM World Trade Europe/Middle East/Africa Corporation, appointed him an "Honorary European".

Bob mostly went to meetings and wrote reports but was a jack of all trades: recruited, hired, fired, developed and shipped products, developed prototypes, performed competitive analysis and customer surveys, made field fire calls, ghosted speeches for IBM VIPs, worked on company strategies, consulted with industry and government customers, and took the blame when things went wrong. The IBM lab in La Gaude gave him the sobriquet: "The Abominable Snowman".

Bob took early retirement from IBM at the end of June, 1987. He taught for the next five years at Central Texas College in Killeen, Texas: the first two years on an IBM Technical Academic Career Program stipend.

Bob’s thoughts on this and that

The overriding problem in the world today is overpopulation – everything else is subsidiary. Four subsidiary items in pretty much descending order:

1. Lack of basics (sanitation, potable water, food, education)
2. Oppression by the plutocracy.
3. Unemployment.
4. Exacerbating technology.

In some areas, the loss of value of the family and the community is the first subsidiary problem, replacing lack of basics.

An update on IBM history books

Bob has a fair interest in the history of IBM. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of books on the subject - including his samizdat memoirs.

The two best he has run across are (apart from his memoir: "Binding Time: Memoirs of a Programming Man":

The Maverick and His Machine – Maney

Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology -- Emerson W. Pugh

The best others are

Inside IBM: The Watson Years -- William W. Simmons

And How They Achieved – Lucinda Watson (daughter of TJW, Jr.)

The oddest book is

And Tomorrow…the World -- Rex Malik

The following are pretty much mandatory:

IBM’s 360 and Early 370 Systems -- Emerson W. Pugh, Lyle R. Johnson, and John H. Palmer

IBM’s Early Computers -- Charles J. Bashe, Lyle R. Johnson, John H. Palmer, Emerson W. Pugh

Father, Son & Co. – Watson and Petre

A Business and Its Beliefs: The Ideas That Helped Build IBM – Watson (Jr.)

The Computer Establishment – Katherine Fishman

The Sun Never Sets on IBM -- Foy

The Romance Division…a Different Side of IBM -- Deloca and Kalow

IBM System/38 Technical Developments (1978 IBM General Systems Division) – ISBN – 0-933186-00-2

Design & Memory: Computer Programming in the 20th Century / Peter H. Huyck and Nellie W. Kremenak

How many Playstations make a Watson

IBM's Watson will accelerate the rate of change in the way we live - particularly CAI - if IBM follows through the way they should:

http://www.mendicott.com/2011/01/how-many-playstations-make-watson.html

Thanks to Char for today's Net Humor

Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:

Why did God make mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my mom just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
1. We're related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's mom like me.

What kind of a little girl was your mom?
1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Why did your mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my mom eats a lot
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms and dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home and dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller and stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friends.
4. Moms have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Bob is going off the BBC Worldservice

Bob has been a regular listener to the BBC Worldservice since Xmas 1956 when he was given a desktop tube Grundig shortwave receiver.

He converted to a portable transistor Zenith Trans-Oceanic in 1960 and sometime in the 1980s to a Sangean (the Zenith lasted a long time).

His final conversion was to the Internet circa 2005.

At the moment, Bob has the Worldservice on pretty much 24/7, but he is growing increasingly irked.

They go on and on about the problems that beset the world and almost never mention the population problem – and never discuss at length.

The major problem the world has today is approximately 20x too many people. However, Mother Nature will fix this problem soon with a catastrophic human die-off.

But I guess a discussion of this does not fill-up much airtime and tends to discourage interest in the other problems.

Oh well, que sera sera: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Que_Sera,Sera(Whatever_Will_Be,WillBe)

Bob continues in a fever of excitement about the future of CAI in the World of Watson

Bob sees an unlimited number of customized tutoring systems. With any luck at all, a friend of Bob’s, a consultant to IBM in education, will take this up with IBM. Stay tuned.

Bob Mulls Computer Assisten Instruction

There are hundreds of packages providing computer assisted instruction: some quite good for their purpose but most not.

Use of these packages is increasing as a recent NYT article indicates:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/education/18classrooms.html?partner=rss&emc=rss - The state is using virtual classrooms, called e-learning labs, with online teachers. An amendment limits class size for classrooms with teachers, but not virtual labs.

In Bob's opinion until now the right technology did not exist for providing good CAI other than for specialized packages. However, he thinks IBM now has the right technology for less specialized packages: technology which they developed for business data mining.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarter_Planet - Smarter Planet is a corporate initiative of the information technology company IBM. The initiative seeks to highlight how forward-thinking leaders in ... Origins - Advertising Campaign - Smarter Cities - Cities: Our journey to a ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jeopardy!tournamentsand_events - From February 14–16, 2011, the IBM Challenge will feature IBM's Watson ...

http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/what-is-watson/index.html

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704029704576088241218930616-lMyQjAxMTAxMDEwODExNDgyWj.html

It is not clear that IBM has plans to turn this technology into one or more CAI packages. Bob thinks they should.

An Unfortunately Named Resource for Many Things Educational

Lauren Jackson, a reader of this blog, sent me a pointer to a nice webpage on multiple intelligences: http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/library/multiple-intelligence-theory

This webpage is part of a great resource for many things educational in addition to being a guide to online schools:

http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/