Origins of technology

I worked several years counselling people for all kinds of things. Unwanted problems, upsets, attitudes - you name it. Many study problems as well. One of the things you learn when you help other people effectively, is how incredibly bright people actually are. I learned this as a high school teacher too - very early on. Kids are smart. Here's a tip: "you're stuck on some problem, don't know what to do? - ask someone - they'll tell you what it is." The human search engine is out there just waiting to be used.

New kid on the block. "Here's how you hold the ball to throw a curve." Then they watch you till you get it right. It's an entre technology - baseball. I spent an entire lifetime learning engineering in two languages. You'd be surprised how important fresh water is in Israel - or the number of tests you have to run on a camera that went to the moon on the Apollo shot and still sits there today! Different technologies - each, easily as important as winning a world series. You see how quickly they came up with a vaccine for the covid-19 virus? - and got about 300 million shots in people around the world already? Impossible - it's like watching the parting of the Red Sea - can't be done - and yet it does get done. i find myself asking - "why all this?" - what am I doing here? Yet, we're, all of us. on this same voyage. You see this when you teach it. What's going on? We are! we are going on...

I can recall finishing my studies of Chemical Engineering in Israel and getting caught up in the study of communication and scientology while still living in the student dormitory in Be'er Sheva. It was summer and I had been busy manufacturing little souvenir brass plates with little wooden table legs that were miniature tea tables that are so common in the middle east. I was able to etch the plates rather than work them with chisels and bang out patters, which allowed them to be completed very quickly. i tried selling them at a local souvenir shop and was surprised at how much money the proprietor gave me for them. Another Chemical Engineering student from Chile helped me find brass and acid I needed to make the little tables and volunteered to help me finish the little leg sets as well. In time he started asking me about scientology and I told him what L had heard on the radio where they had scientologists talking about e-meters and word clearing. I had a negative impression about it and let him know. I was invited to a party and told that a scientologist would be there. The scientologist was a math professor for the university and asked me about my opinions of scientology and invited me to try out the e-meter which I had been critical about and give me a demonstration "session'. I was highly impressed by the accuracy of the session and the care about definitions and the end result was a sensible way to handle problems and upsets in life which was very new for me at the time. The other student went on with his wife to England to study and I followed about a year later with my own wife and child. My brother had moved to London about two years earlier than us. I often wonder about that as well as moving to Israel. These were both life changing large moves. There was lots of social motion in the 60's and 70's in the US and world. LSD and marijuana and even wide usage of much more serious drugs, Hippies and flower children and the Symbionese liberation army and Patty Hearst. But, hey, the generation before mine went through a lot more motion than we did, tens of millions died horrible deaths in the war - millions in gas chambers in Europe. They had psychoanalysis and Freud. We had yoga and L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics. I could have become an orthodox Jew - there's wisdom there that's lasted thousands of years on this Earth - it's all documented - the good and the bad. You wonder about causes and events and where to spend your money and who to vote for. And there's answers in Scientology and there's answers in Judaism and psychoanalysis. We don't really have a national religion here. In fact, we're probably successful because we don't take sides here and just let people be whatever they like to be and stop killing each other for differences of opinion. When you get right down to it, you, yourself should be master of your own destiny and your "way' is the right 'way" for you! Every person is unique - absolutely different - perfect in themselves - infinitely fine. How in the world did that happen?

                                   We All Still Love You Harry 

Harry Adelman was a computer hardware engineer who had worked out a digital coding scheme that would replicate real biological tissue using molecular scanning techniques which he protected for his own use and which he developed into a three dimensional reconstruction system which he claimed could "copy and paste" real biological specimens of living tissue". The paper had resulted in dozens of senior technicians at AGH nearly choking to death due to laughter. His presentation at AGH totally fell apart due to the reactions of the audience - all senior technicians mind you - and he left abruptly leaving only what appeared to be two "eggs' and a 'cucumber" on the lectern. "Forget your lunch Harry?" - to screams of laughter and the sound of a slammed door.

   Harry was no fool. He knew exactly what he was doing and why they were laughing at him. Sure it hurt. These were the guys who were supposed to be his friends. He grew up with them, went to school with them, played with them on the beach and sailed with them out on the ocean. He was born in Miami before things fell apart in the US, was in High School when the President was shot. What a shock that was. Cuba and Oswald, live on TV. The world had turned into a TV show. What was real? He watched Apollo 11 lift off at Cape Canaveral: 

He was totally exhilarated. This was real! This was good. The ground shook. The engines roared and the ship rose.

Few people realize how much development there has been in the field of electronic computing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGk9W65vXNA

...watching the above video might give you an idea of where the electronic computer started and what it looked like. I studied my first circuits course at the Moore School. I think the ENIAC is still in the basement somewhere. I know one of Edison's first successful light bulbs is. Our High School Class went to Exide Battery and saw the Eniac in action, Amazing - whirring spools of tape - buzzed and spun - an entire large room - air conditioned to handle the heat generated by thousand and thousands of vacuum tubes. Incredible. Your iPhone does way more today. In fact, a simple calculator can out perform the ENIAC. Things have changed that much. I worked for UNIVAC in Blue Bell, PA on third generation random access memories. Magnetic wire. So we had something like a large wide book case about seven feet tall as opposed by the large air conditioned room for the ENIAC. UNIVAC is now Unisys and they make the bar codes and machinery that is used to check the prices on the items you buy in the supermarket and other places. Time flies when you're having fun. Still - compare the iPhone with the first apple computers that could handle - what - 120,000 bytes of data or somethin like that. Your cell phone handles giga bytes - that's about a billion bytes - or about a billion words.

     Harry Adelman not only knew how a computer was made, he designed their uses. He designed and set up programs that even the public could use. One of the earlier problems that still exist today is storing and retrieving data. Pictures, and particularly videos, like the one about the ENIAC above need a storage capacity that's really enormous - so the storage area must be close to as small as it can get - like molecular scale - which is as small as we even know about. This was Harry's area of expertise and what he would give his famous lectures about - till he disappeared. Some really feared that he did actually disappear into one of those tiny universes until he started sending notes back to us. "It's alright - don't worry - I'm OK - we're all OK - I promise you everything will be alright. I just don't want to be bothered right now!" H. A." What did he mean - "We're all OK"? - and that's where the real trouble began. 
 

Setting up Shop on Mars

                                                  Setting up Shop on Mars

You may not remember learning how to walk, but most of us do learn this and it is not always so easy at all. You fall down a lot and if you're lucky, you'll have parents around to help you get up and start all over again. You take one step at a time, and darn it, you find yourself further along than when you started. This is one of life's great lessons and it can't be overestimated in importance! 

Imagine - looking up at the planets and deciding to get on up there somehow and not quitting until you were there! Try jumping up three feet. Mars is 50 million to hundreds of mjllions of miles "up", depending on what year it is! There's no air up there either. Carbon dioxide atmosphere. Can't breathe it! So what? We're going to colonize it.

 

                                                 The World's First Recount

   This had never happened before - certainly not at Heston Elementary School. This was new. 

You had to be there. I had been elected President of my class every term now for two years. 

There was absolutely no question that I would be elected again. My little girl friend assured me 

with a wink of her pretty little eye that it was in the bag. She had a lot of pull. She was very

pretty. 

   I began our weekly meeting as usual - old business - new business, and of course our new 

election came up. No problem. I requested by show of hands how many of our classmates

preferred myself as President of our class again. A much smaller number than usual raised

 their hands. "Hmmm", I thought as I counted perhaps 12 students. Next. I asked by show of 

hands who preferred my opponent as our next President. "Whoosh", there was .an audible 

excitement and what seemed a small breeze created by hands reaching high up into our 

classroom. I counted carefully about 16 hands. "What", I thought, is going on? I didn't know 

what to do.

   Surely, there was some kind of mistake. I reached for an answer and said: "I think I counted

wrong - let's try that again". I actually said that or something very close to that - right off the 

top of my head. Don't forget, this was fifth grade and, as far as I could tell, totally uncharted 

territory. I learned something that day. Something I will never forget, and I'm writing this so 

you don't make the same mistake. Not ever - ."Don't ever question the way people vote".

   I asked the students who wanted me to be class President to raise their hands again. This

time about 8 students meekly raised their hands.You guessed it, my opponents votes were

about 22 - including my girlfriend. They all made the nastiest faces at me you ever saw - no 

winks - no smiles and that was that. 

   I won the rest of the elections till sixth grade was over and we graduated. I found out later 

what it probably was. The boy who won was a really good guy and deserved a term to be 

President of the class. He really liked that. I should have known better.

 

                                                     Election Coincidences

     There are two major coincidences in my life which beg mentioning here. One is that I attended 

Wharton (a college at Penn) at about the same time as Donald Trump. I actually only took one course at 

Wharton - it was required that engineering students like myself had to have two liberal arts courses - non 

technical courses - in order to graduate, so I signed up for a course in "Criminology" at Wharton. Two It 

Things I remember that impressed me there. One, was that all the crime statistics from Chicago hadn't 

been accepted by the FBI since the prohibition, Al Capone, days. The other was a story our instructor 

told us about the class being held up with guys holding bananas in their hands. This was to show us the 

problems about witnessing crimes. No one reported the bananas! This made us laugh at the time! I look 

at today's election problems and still smile at these memories.

     The other coincidence I recall f? rom earlier days was from elementary school where I had been 

elected four times in a row as president of our class. Here I was at our fifth term, conducting a new 

election, which I assumed would have the same results. No such luck. In complete bewilderment, I 

counted the raised hands of kids who voted for my opponent and then myself. What? No way! My 

opponent had more votes!!  So, I told them that we would do this over again (recount?) and we did. 

This time, my opponent had many more hands than before - which goes to show you what happens when

you question democratic opinion. Ha Ha on me! Well I lost that election, but went on to win the next too

and we graduated.

                                                             n'took

   n'took looked out at the strong yellow sun of July and was thankful for the warmth. He was also thankful for his fur coat of elk and his sealskin boots. This far north and protection against the cold and wet of winter was just about as important as breathing. The tundra was deep green and he watched it growing before his eyes and smiled. "This is a good day mother, we are lucky to be Inuit people and safe from the dangers of the wild people of the south". His mother smiled and reminded him of the stories of their history, and defeating the thieves and murderers of the south using their knowledge of the snow and cold to confuse and blind their enemies and then slay them with their bone tipped spears. n'took was proud to be Inuit and a good fisherman who the others valued to be in their company on their fishing trips. He loved the fresh smell of summer and the growing grasses, the cool breezes blowing across the tundra. He loved the gentle quiet of the night and the security that thousands of years of experience at living here had brought to his tribe...