From: "Les" <hlhowell@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Long long ago, I thought that the computer would be a mind lever. A
means of multiplying the power of the mind. But it has not met that
promise.
Think of it more generally as a lever. The higher the IQ the closer
to the brain the lever fulcrum sits. So for some people a finger
can move the world and for other people their world moves the finger.
Then break it out to include factors for computer-phobia....
In practice it's not a one way lever. It amplifies stupidity as much
as it amplifies intelligence. It amplifies productivity as much as it
amplifies Congressional pork. (1000 page laws are a crock, especially
when most of the lines are single like pork allocations. But that's
to be taken as exemplifying the "lever" action here.
This mental lever amplifies whatever force is applied. If the force
is creative writing, you get more output from your favorite authors.
If the force is music, you get - oh never mind - that's a field that
decayed. If the force is cupidity you get phishers. If the force is
a vague fear of "complicated machines" you get computer-phobia in
full bloom.
If you think of it in those terms the lever works but it's a two
edged sword that cuts both ways.
...
I created a program to convert simulator data into digital patterns
and timing for the 80 percent of all patterns on typical devices. No
one bought it. Instead they hired us to convert their programs. Again,
on digital programs pattern conversion is a biggie. So we converted a
pattern every 8 hours. In two weeks my program geneated more than 8
Gigabytes of program patterns. We charged them something like 2K per
pattern for the conversion (about 84K in two weeks). But no one would
buy the converter.
I did it three more times each time with the same result. In the
end, my software earned more than $8,000,000,000.00 in 15 years. I
think I paid for my self and a couple of other guys. But none of it was
perfect. It came very close, but took some extra effort to finalize the
product. Each program took me three to eight months to write. Some
times with help sometimes entirely by myself. Most people cannot think
two or three abstractions away, so it is not easy, but it can be done.
Our computers still do not help us get information from our minds into a
form useable by others. In fact I found that much of my time was spent
working around machine limitations. I wanted to get some result from a
non-linear combination of multiple inputs, and it was nearly impossible
to get a "partial response" from the software that would help me with
the problem. Unfortunately I am unable today even to describe precisely
what I needed, or how that might be obtained from a computer. But if
the kids don't get exposed at a very grassroots level to the machine,
not scripts or Basic, but at bits and bytes and math to make them do
things useful, how can they ever proceed to build upon the foundation we
have laid. Moreover, how can that partial response or full response to
partial data ever be created? How can our mind levers ever multiply our
mental force?
Could you have done all that without the computers? It leveraged YOUR
brain power and that of your colleagues. That's enough to show your point.
As three being no purchasers on the programs - that DID give you an
effective monopoly on the conversion process. There was more corporate
income that way. {^_-} The non-purchasers fit the "You can lead a horse
to water but can't force it to drink" model, doesn't it?
{^_^}
