Covid19 on our minds

Robert Burns once said, “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.”
I didn't intend to get caught up in this Covid pandemic, nor did many others.
But somehow, in the fourth week of January, for the next two weeks, I couldn't get out of bed for more than ten minutes at a time, and my chest felt like it was being squeezed by a python.

By the time I sought help, the hospital was none too eager to see me.  They popped me into an isolation room, gave me a few antibiotics, and refused to test me for Covid although President Trump that day at CDC (March 6) announced that "a million tests are now available".   Well, he was, shall we kindly say, 'mis-informed.'    

Over the next five weeks, I was poked and prodded, given five separate X-ray exams for pneumonia (and presumably the virus), tested for Valley Fever, heart issues, pleurisy, and a host of less well-known things.   I have a thesis about medicine--if the name of the disease has a doctor's name associated with it, it is probably not a good thing to be considering.

At this point, I am functioning again, and in the past two weeks have gained back enough strength to be able to walk to the front gate and back (about three hundred yards).  The dog is grateful--his evening walks have resumed, and his constitution has never been better.

And then, voila, the studies started emerging that claim that the virus was community-circulating in January and February in both California and Washington--despite numerous assertions that it came from China only in late February.   Granted, the studies have been roundly criticized, but not about that finding, simply that the samples weren't entirely random.

And although I had mused that I'd taken no trips for months, reviewing the calendar revealed a three-day sojourn in Napa and Sonoma counties in January, plus a large funeral service in Los Altos, and then a four day February trip to Palm Springs, staying with numerous friends from the Seattle area (about to have an epicenter explosion, we now know), and a work-week at the Tulare County agricultural fair.   

The Tulare County Fair was one of the last big gatherings in CA before "shelter-in-place" orders from the governor.   It has 150,000+ visitors, from 65 countries.   I managed to spend a couple days with a vendor from Daegu, Korea, unaware that Daegu was the epicenter that very week for the Korean covid-19 outbreak.   When the hospital urged that I call the Korean person, I shouldn't have been surprised that the company answered in Korean.   Engaging an emissary a day later generated an e-maill from them, written in Korean, saying they were fine, and they hoped that I and my colleagues were likewise.

A total of six people at our ranch wound up sick (four saying they felt "deathly ill" for days), all at the same time.   We're not exactly a nursing home here, except for geriatric horses, but it seemed a strange coincidence.

So, not that you care about this particular story, what is perhaps important to share is that it caused me to take more interest in the data behind the events, and that in turn has led to what I am now terming the "InnovaScapes Institute Dashboard"    You can see rudimentary versions at www.anywhereanytime.io/covid19  

This has several important features that are difficult to find on the more prevalent dashboards, that I plan to describe in succeeding posts.    Notably, you can group any set of USA counties, and just see them in comparison.   Example-- how about just the counties with major ski resorts, destination places where world-wide travelers encamped for days during January-March.  Were they worse than surrounding areas, the same, or relatively unscathed?   Or, in the case of little Tulare County where I live, it seems odd that a small rural county with only one town of 100,000 folk, would have the seventh highest case-load per capita in CA, or the third highest 'kill-rate' out of 58 counties.  Was it that Farm Show, or the two nursing home flare-ups, or a combination?

The macro-map, of 3,144 counties for the 50 states and D.C., reveals the dichotomy of rural vs. urban case-load incidence, giving credence to both those urging relaxed standards and those fearful of future flares.   We can plot case-load, new cases, deaths, death-rates per incidence, death-rates per capita, timelines in both linear and logarithmic plots, etc. at the click of a button.   

I've longed for this capability, as many of you know, for years for the COPD issues in America, but unavailable to me until now, with the help of Microsoft Power BI business analytics (similar to but seemingly more powerful than Tableau), and with the help of wizards at AnywhereAnytime LLC (anywhereanytime.io) which specialize in Silicon Valley Executive Dashboards.  They do an amazing job for C-suite executives seeking powerful synchronous data-visualizations for their business--I thought "why not?" for my concerns.

Stay tuned...

A modest four year hiatus

Time is fleeting, saith old Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Where did the time go?   Didn't you have anything to write?  

Skipping any pretense of adequate excuse, I'll move to the point--I feel ready to, maybe even compelled to, post again to this InnovaScapes blog.   Remarkably, in the meantime, some 18,900 page views have occurred.    That number pales alongside the 240,088 views of my HP Phenom blog, but HP is better known, and at least at some point in our collective past history, was a great company.

But InnovaScapes Institute in fact has been busy over the past several years, particularly in terms of collecting oral and video histories of computing pioneers for various organizations, and in terms of involvement with societal impact of technology.

Rather than try to re-assemble four years of activity from calendar and diary records, we'll just start afresh for the 2020 New Year about to begin.  

To do a re-start, I went back to read the 100+ posts that are in this blog from 2013 through 2015.   And, to my great surprise and pleasure, they seem on balance to reflect views that I still hold.  And even in places, I found myself tickled to read something--kind of that "wow, I had some insight and was able to construct cogent thoughts on that one."    Reading old work for me has always had a bit of mystical quality to it--an out-of-body (or rather, an out-of-authorship) mode, where you don't recall writing the stuff, and it is pleasing to find that it isn't written too  badly.

Several themes from six years ago are still relevant.  

One was some interaction with Robert Atkinson with ITIF, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in Washington DC.  Atkinson et al just published a new report, The Case for Growth Centers, through Brookings.    I will comment over the next several posts on that report.

Another was the launch of the Cisco Heritage Video Interview series.  We'll do some coverage of that work, plus augment it with parallel work at the Computer History Museum, and at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).   This is incredibly satisfying work that has legacy value for many.

A third is the Novim Epiphany Awards program, about to enter its third year.

That's sufficient outline for the moment.   Stay tuned, or rather, "tune in"

Best regards,
Chuck

Yes, the new book is ready

I mentioned in a previous post, October 8, 2015, that I had a draft of a new book, PRESERVING OUR DIGITAL REVOLUTION HERITAGE, almost ready to go.

It's out, not yet with Amazon or Barnes and Noble, but already with Lulu Press.  Two versions--both in paperback, one with full color and one with black and white illustrations.  The first is $14.95, the second one is a 'cheap' $9.95.  I recommend the second one; the color is not worth it.

I am handing copies out to the Computer History Museum trustees this week at their quarterly board meeting, with the notion that they might actually have some friends at various companies who care about recording those journeys and the tools, techniques, methods, and products and services that they yielded.

Everyone should have ten copies, not just one, and freely hand them out to colleagues.

This is actually a quite important quest.

Here is the online purchase site:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/charles-house/digital-revolution-heritage/paperback/product-22378873.html 

SHOT and friends

I'm at the annual SHOT conference (SHOT stands for Society for the History Of Technology); this is the 58th meeting.  I attended the 12th meeting, in 1969, when I was contemplating a PhD in the History of Technology when I was completing a Master's Degree in Urban Studies and Technology at the University of Colorado.  I've also attended the last three meetings, one in Portland, ME, and last year at the Dearborn Museum, and now this year in Albuquerque coincident with the Albuquerque ballon races.

Ah, that brings back memories.  Jenny and I were invited in 1987 or thereabouts, to come to these same races, and we got a ride in the HP balloon, rising into a clear desert sky at dawn with about six hundred other balloons.  It was a major-league thrill--watching yesterday morning was also a treat.

For the conference, I was serving as Commentator for four papers by history researchers.  They concerned ACM topics.  One paper--a very good one--analyzed how has the approved curriculum for Computer Science evolved over the years--who drove it, in what direction, with what results, and where were the pitfalls and issues?  It brought back memories of how HP and our Logic team got involved in college curricula to teach about Algorithmic Design (and we didn't even know to ask Al Gore for his perspective).  It also evoked some of the Cisco Network Academy challenges.

Another paper described how Canadian computer scientists tried gamely to develop an indigenous industry and perspective, ultimately conceding that it was not practical.  Canadians have some great sayings, and this speaker trotted some out to our delight.  Such as McLuhan saying, "Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without an identity."

A favorite McLuhanism for me is this one: “Our permanent address is tomorrow.”  Especially when coupled with “A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and
understanding.” 

A third paper addressed the legacy and contribution of George Forsythe, an early ACM president and the erstwhile founder of Stanford's Computer Science department in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  This work, by Joe November, was very insightful, and brought back significant memories for me--that on reflection gave me pause for just how Stanford built its reputation, and how awesome in retrospect some of the MIT programs were at the time.  

And then, a tuneup.  I was reading the program the night before, and to my utter shock, found my name listed as a speaker in another session.  Yes, I had submitted some proposals, but I'd been led to believe that they'd all been turned down.  Wow--had to pull a major talk together in short order.  

The topic: Wide-area network evolution, circa the Cisco / HP time.  Whew.  I think I did a pretty good job, but Mischa Schwartz was in the audience, a kindly-looking older gentleman who had a question of me--actually a pointed discourse on what I left out.  Turns out when I got to the Web later, he's one of the GIANTS of the telecommunications industry history, with Columbia University, a major book from 1987 on Network Design, especially Packet Networks, and so many honors it makes your head swim.  I met with him for a half hour later--talk about an edifying time!

I have often been told I have a thin skin for criticism, and I don't for a minute doubt that view.  In this case, after my initial 'defense' of my point of view (see the McLuhan quote above), I chose to listen, and the advice he preferred was stunningly helpful.  What a privilege if we can learn to listen more.

If I take nothing else home from this trip but a little dose of humility on this score, I'll be blessed.

A NEW BOOK, whoopee

I just received a package, from Lulu Press, which contained three draft versions of my NEW BOOK, Preserving Your Digital Revolution Heritage: If Not You, Who--If Not Now, When?

While it is not yet available for the excitable reading public {to my surprise actually this morning}, I am going to describe it anyway for you.   Here's the cover story:

Tips and techniques for IDENTIFYING, CAPTURING, and PRESERVING company histories from alumni--our Digital Revolution is too important to leave up to the few historians who try to cover it. 

Your history is OUR history. And too many companies have contributed too many ideas / products / services to the Digital Revolution for historians to keep up. While the participants are still alive, YOU must help to IDENTIFY, CAPTURE and PRESERVE the records for these people and these companies. This book tells you how to do that--simply, easily, with much emotional value in it for you. 

The events, people and companies that have created the Digital Revolution for the world are still living, but unless their thoughts and words are captured now, they;ll be lost forever. This book describes how YOU can take matters into your own hands, and with a few colleagues decide how to identify, capture, and preserve the key historical records of the company or organization with which you are most familiar. Historians can interpret and write the history later if the artifacts, moods, events, and personalities of the participants are captured now. Otherwise, history of the orgins of the most important revolution of civilization's long march will be irretrievable

The interesting thing for me was the difference in the three versions.

The first version is the way I usually create these small books--monographs, really--which is a standard-sized paperback with color covers and black/while interior for all illustrations.

This time I did a second book, still paperback with standard size, standard paper, but full-color pages as well as color covers.

The third book is hardbound, with 'better paper' and full color pages.

The first is priced at $12.95 with a 15% discount, ($11.01 net); the second for $14.95 with no discount, and the third at $39.95 with no discount.   All three priced thus earn the same royalty--says lots about the production cost profile!

There are twelve illustrations listed on the Figures page; only one is truly enhanced by using color, so it is dubious that there is enough value in the color version to make it 'the standard'

The hardbound book is nice to hold, but mygawd, at that price for 132 pages, you'd have to be nuts to think this is the way to go.

So, we'll probably 'tune' the standard version a bit. and then I'll let you know it is available.  Stand by with your prospective orders, and get ready to become a historian of sorts for your own career!

Point of View

I mentioned POINT of VIEW to close the last post, chiding Isaacson's Innovators for omitting any of the network contributors to the Digital Revolution, whilst including the topic of networking on one out of every five pages in the book.

Another example comes from one of my favorite History of Technology writers, Jim Cortada, whom I mentioned in the post last December about Dearborn's SIG/CIS meeting.

Jim's most recent 'big' book is The Digital Flood: the diffusion of Information Technology across the USA, Europe and Asia.  One would expect that the WWW, and the Internet, were a big part of that diffusion, right?  And Jim is writing about ICT--Information and Communication Technology--as the rest of the world titles it.  It is a terrific book, taking a big swath of territory, including the politics of cities, states, and nations as they encounter and embrace ICT issues.

There is simply no book like it, and I heartily endorse it.

Except...well, lessee.  There's that pesky Point of View issue.

Page counts for IT providers by name include IBM on 139 of 599 pages, Apple on 23, HP on 11

Page counts for WWW by name is 86 pages, so networks must have mattered.  But page counts for all networking companies of all stripes that I could find = 1.   Cisco is mentioned once, period.   No other company is mentioned, nor is any networking technology mentioned except Token Ring (from IBM) once.  No TCP/IP, no EtherNet, no X.25, no ATM, no anything.  Mostly WWW and IBM made all this happen.

You might recall that Jim was a 30+ year IBM executive, as well as a professional historian.

Point of View biases each of us, and it is easier to see in others than in ourselves.

But it is there, in everything we read, view, and embrace.

History is so much bunk

So saith Henry Ford, multiple times.  Reports from 1916 onward, when he began his diatribes against knowing or worrying about or learning from history, indicate that he was quite the character.  Donald Trump would find him a great fellow-traveler on his current quest to be certified.  

Is history 'so much bunk?'  Well, it certainly has some interesting sidebars if you study it just a bit.  I'm intrigued these days as much by what doesn't get said, as what does.  Take, for example, Walt Isaacson's two most recent books--the wildly popular best-seller Steve Jobs, and the much more nuanced Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution.


The Jobs book was commissioned, almost as Jobs was dying, rushed to market to capitalize on Apple's strong brand and Jobs' near mythical status as its innovator/leader.  It was not well researched, it lacked important elements of 'the story,' but it 'caught the mood' and sold A LOT.

Fortunately, along comes Becoming Steve Jobs, so we have a better, more nuanced account.

Isaacson's Innovators, on the other hand, is a gem of his own desire, with years spent on it.  It shows. Isaacson is a gifted writer, no question about it, and he creates readable, page-turning prose.  And it is a great contribution, even though a few historians of science quibbled about some factoids.

What I found interesting, though, is the premise that "the Digital Revolution" is mostly about small computers and mobile phones, never mind the infrastructure that runs them.  So I did a check on words.  Internet, or WWW, appears on 98 of the 490 text pages--he must think the Internet is part of the Digital Revolution.  And the title is about the "hackers, geniuses, and geeks" who did it.  So who is listed, from the network side?  Bob Metcalfe, once.  His Ethernet idea, once.  Cisco as a name, once.  And no one else, and no other company, of the eighteen prominent and perhaps fifty also-rans who built the backbone for all of our mobile and connected world.  

So, it is not an indictment so much as an observation about POINT OF VIEW.  Point of view of the author is always the give-away.

And my guess is that Henry Ford understood at least a bit of that perspective when he blurted out his famous words 'for history.'