Greetings Clear Middle - I'm just ahead of you, being born late 40's and graduating in the 2nd computer science class at my university. So many fascinating programs but I hardly recognize the software world now as it is built on such a huge infrastructure. We had virtually no infrastructure as we built custom RTOS for early automation projects.
But to your subject - do you adjust your eating seasonally? Where do you find real food in the winter that isn't shipped from a thousand miles or more?
Something in me longs for the simplicity of the software of old, even though I know what nonsense it all is. I started out, my first semester in college, in a chemistry course, using and programming a programmable calculator that could run off of stored programs, and branch conditionally. After that I took a Fortran II class, learned the language in the first two weeks, and took on assembly language for the balance of the semester. Eventually I was writing assembly code, as a consultant, for real-time weather monitoring systems (for nuclear power plants, no less), and yes I had to write what there was of an OS for them. I had all kinds of fun with interrupts and multitasking. And I wrote code that contained year 2000 bugs. There, I've finally admitted it.
I had finally found something I could do easily that most other people couldn't, and it eventually led to a good income for life. Apart from that, life wasn't so good.
We (there are two of us here, sharing the house) are doing a little better now with the local food thing. My housemate is growing vegetables in raised beds and in pots in the back, in addition to the fruit trees and berry bushes that she already had.
Some of what I buy is from a hundred or two miles away, what I can find, and some of it is from a thousand or more, depending on what is or is not in season in the garden.
I am in the process of making further adjustments, based on new information coming in -- well, not really new, but information about anti-nutrients that I lost track of previously amongst all the conflicting claims about what is healthy and what is not. I will write about this after running yet another experiment on myself and seeing what comes of it. It will likely take some months, or possibly longer.
Yes I wrote assembler, Fortran (made money in college manning the Fortran help desk), Algol, PL/1, and lots of drivers. We automated the LADWP water management system, STCA hydro-dams, and lots of warehouses and baggage handling systems. Fun! But I eased into systems engineering and architecture and got father from code.
As for food, there was a lot of great local produce, fruit, eggs, dairy, buffalo, venison etc in Michigan where I once lived, but here in Alabama the local choices are more limited. We are starting a garden but it is challenging to grow stuff in baked clay!
Ah yes, Algol. I liked that one. I worked on FORTRAN and Algol compilers, long ago, in my punched card, mag tape, and disk pack days (CDC mainframes -- Control Data, not the evil government agency). My escape from coding, which makes my brain hurt after a while, was database design and SQL, although I still do quite a bit of UI coding, but I get to be paid for having fun with databases. They are all about relationships.
Here in the capital region of California the local food choices seem to be limited as well, no doubt for different reasons (market demand for convenience food, I guess). Part of it is that I am just not physically up to going out and shopping regularly. My housemate (it's her house -- I'm the long-term boarder and her tech consultant) is a Master Gardener who has recently discovered the special appeal of growing quantities of food at home (in contrast to inedible California natives -- we have no lawn). She's going wild with it, and sharing what she grows.
I was fortunate to be raised with mostly clean food before it became a thing. It was a large family, not well to do, so a low calorie diet was the result. I love this way, near best food possible, but not a whole lot. (also, pay for a pure water system and drink a fair bit.)
"What if we were to pause from our unceasing efforts to make things better, and to look upon what had already been accomplished before the first of us in all our cleverness ever appeared on the scene. What if we enquired of that — whatever it was that did the accomplishing? Would there be answers?"
I love words like these because they point to the casual lack of respect, let alone reverence for 'whatever it was that did the accomplishing'
The answers are here, but always in the shape of the question. God speaks to each of us according to the nature of our understanding, whatever its limitations. Our task is to remove some of the limitations, reshape our understanding and better connect to the divine creative impulse.
Greetings Clear Middle - I'm just ahead of you, being born late 40's and graduating in the 2nd computer science class at my university. So many fascinating programs but I hardly recognize the software world now as it is built on such a huge infrastructure. We had virtually no infrastructure as we built custom RTOS for early automation projects.
But to your subject - do you adjust your eating seasonally? Where do you find real food in the winter that isn't shipped from a thousand miles or more?
Something in me longs for the simplicity of the software of old, even though I know what nonsense it all is. I started out, my first semester in college, in a chemistry course, using and programming a programmable calculator that could run off of stored programs, and branch conditionally. After that I took a Fortran II class, learned the language in the first two weeks, and took on assembly language for the balance of the semester. Eventually I was writing assembly code, as a consultant, for real-time weather monitoring systems (for nuclear power plants, no less), and yes I had to write what there was of an OS for them. I had all kinds of fun with interrupts and multitasking. And I wrote code that contained year 2000 bugs. There, I've finally admitted it.
I had finally found something I could do easily that most other people couldn't, and it eventually led to a good income for life. Apart from that, life wasn't so good.
We (there are two of us here, sharing the house) are doing a little better now with the local food thing. My housemate is growing vegetables in raised beds and in pots in the back, in addition to the fruit trees and berry bushes that she already had.
Some of what I buy is from a hundred or two miles away, what I can find, and some of it is from a thousand or more, depending on what is or is not in season in the garden.
I am in the process of making further adjustments, based on new information coming in -- well, not really new, but information about anti-nutrients that I lost track of previously amongst all the conflicting claims about what is healthy and what is not. I will write about this after running yet another experiment on myself and seeing what comes of it. It will likely take some months, or possibly longer.
Yes I wrote assembler, Fortran (made money in college manning the Fortran help desk), Algol, PL/1, and lots of drivers. We automated the LADWP water management system, STCA hydro-dams, and lots of warehouses and baggage handling systems. Fun! But I eased into systems engineering and architecture and got father from code.
As for food, there was a lot of great local produce, fruit, eggs, dairy, buffalo, venison etc in Michigan where I once lived, but here in Alabama the local choices are more limited. We are starting a garden but it is challenging to grow stuff in baked clay!
Ah yes, Algol. I liked that one. I worked on FORTRAN and Algol compilers, long ago, in my punched card, mag tape, and disk pack days (CDC mainframes -- Control Data, not the evil government agency). My escape from coding, which makes my brain hurt after a while, was database design and SQL, although I still do quite a bit of UI coding, but I get to be paid for having fun with databases. They are all about relationships.
Here in the capital region of California the local food choices seem to be limited as well, no doubt for different reasons (market demand for convenience food, I guess). Part of it is that I am just not physically up to going out and shopping regularly. My housemate (it's her house -- I'm the long-term boarder and her tech consultant) is a Master Gardener who has recently discovered the special appeal of growing quantities of food at home (in contrast to inedible California natives -- we have no lawn). She's going wild with it, and sharing what she grows.
Happy New Year Clear Middle
I was fortunate to be raised with mostly clean food before it became a thing. It was a large family, not well to do, so a low calorie diet was the result. I love this way, near best food possible, but not a whole lot. (also, pay for a pure water system and drink a fair bit.)
"What if we were to pause from our unceasing efforts to make things better, and to look upon what had already been accomplished before the first of us in all our cleverness ever appeared on the scene. What if we enquired of that — whatever it was that did the accomplishing? Would there be answers?"
I love words like these because they point to the casual lack of respect, let alone reverence for 'whatever it was that did the accomplishing'
The answers are here, but always in the shape of the question. God speaks to each of us according to the nature of our understanding, whatever its limitations. Our task is to remove some of the limitations, reshape our understanding and better connect to the divine creative impulse.