Coincidental Floss: Thoughts

Childhood's End: Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - 2008)

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:39:33 GMT

Being called Hal, spending so much of my life intertwined with computers, and having been born in 1968, the year that the film version of the now late Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in theaters, it was inevitable that people around me would associate me with the fictional HAL9000 computer. I meet a lot of people in my line of work, and it seems that about half of them get a self-satisfied conspiratorial sort of twinkle in their eyes as they suggest the connection - "Oh, Hal ... and you work in computers ... have you ever seen ...?" A few take it a step further, confiding authoritatively the old myth that HAL was so named because he was one (letter) better than IBM, alphabetically speaking. If I don't like the person, which is pretty rare, I'll point out that HAL was actually an acronym for "Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer", usually pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose and spitting a little on the S's to complete the image of irretrievable geek.

The one connection I've found most entertaining is the one that no one has pointed out to me but me: In the mythology of the various books and films, HAL9000 was first activated in 1997 (1992 in the first film) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The very first iteration of what would become Microsoft Flight Simulator was born there, too. Original developer Bruce Artwick graduated from UI in 1976, and his company, SubLOGIC, was based in Urbana-Champaign, releasing the first version of Flight Simulator for the Apple II in 1979.

Maybe that's too much of a stretch, for most people, and I should simply attribute any connection with my not-quite-namesake to my extraordinarily placid demeanor and my constant stubborn refusal to open any pod bay doors, anywhere, at any time.

Regardless, I've been a fan of Clarke's writing, and, to an even greater extent, an admirer of his mind, for as long as I can remember. He had a permanent spot, now sadly vacant, on my list of people I'd have loved to have met. As it happens, there weren't that many degrees of separation between us - you can even find both our names on the same page of supporters of the X-Prize Foundation here. (You'll find mine towards the bottom, due south of the important people.) Last summer I was lucky enough to meet and spend time with Rob Godwin through a close mutual friend. Rob is the CEO of Apogee books, one of my favorite things about Burlington, Ontario. Clarke was a friend of Rob's family and a supporter of his business. Rob has posted a touching memorial page here.

As Rob said, we have lost far, far more than an inventive and well respected writer, we've lost one of the truly great minds of our time. I leave it up to the likes of Kira, Kiersten, Annika, Quentin, Charlotte, Garrett, or any of my other honorary nieces and nephews as yet unmet (or even unborn) to grow up and help fill the gap.

Another Hero, Gone

Thu, 03 May 2007 17:10:44 GMT

It was just a month ago that I had the exceedingly rare pleasure of shaking hands with Mercury/Gemini/Apollo astronaut Wally Schirra, and I've just learned that he passed away last night at age 84. He lived a remarkable life, to be sure, and he's earned his rest.

The Earth is a poorer place today, as, this time, he won't be coming back.

It Was Twenty (Five) Years Ago Today ...

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:55:38 GMT

(From the Archive - 12/08/05)

. . . that this man killed this one. That was, and is, sux.

This is not a happy anniversary for me. The Beatles, more than any other band before or since (despite some spirited competition), inspired me, entertained me, comforted me, and provided a soundtrack for so much of my life. They're a little before my time - I was 2 when they broke up, and 12 when Lennon was killed - but my Mom and two older brothers played little else around the house. At least when my poor Dad - "Turn that crap down!" - wasn't home.

Growing up, it felt like there was a Beatles song for everything, at least everything that happens in puberty. I can remember sitting in my bedroom in the 8th grade, my headphones up to 11, listening to You're Gonna Lose that Girl, psychically singing along, sending angry mental messages to Steve Lytle hoping that he might walk away from the lovely Kelly Vaughan . . . and then switching tracks (and albums) to I'm a Loser, when he didn't. I've Just Seen a Face helped me hold on to the chaste excitement of meeting Lisa Bonney - I was 15 and we never saw each other again, since she lived 45 minutes away by the car that neither of us could drive. Heather Graham (no relation) and I promised to remember the Things We Said Today. Jennifer Eaton always said she'd remember me When I'm 64, so long as I'd indicate precisely what I meant to say . . .

Day Tripper helped teach me to play the drums, and later, the bass guitar. Let it Be and Hey Jude, the piano.

Good Day Sunshine and Penny Lane invariably make me instantly happy. In My Life and Julia make me wistful, and, if I'm not careful, I'll tear up a bit, since they both, in their way, connect me with my late mother, among others that are gone or remain.

John, Paul, George, and Ringo were lightning in a bottle - each of them undeniably and equally remarkable in their "own write", but, in combination, something happened that was far greater than the sum of its parts.

As a kid, even though they'd broken up, the Beatles were constants. Thankfully, the music still is, even though Chapman took John Lennon in 1980, and cancer took George Harrison 20 years and 51 weeks later, destroying my plans to meet them all just once and be able to say "thank you". My brother met Sir Paul (and the late Lady Linda) on an airplane once, and hopefully passed the message along well enough for both of us.

As much as I love the music, I disagree with many of the messages . . . I don't think that All You Need is Love, for example - aside from the obvious bits about food, shelter, and Hot Tamales, I need Reason, and Productivity. While I like the politics in Revolution and Taxman, the lyrics of the simplistically beautiful Imagine are more Lenin than Lennon, and paint a picture that isn't Utopian, as far as I'm concerned.

Irregardless, to use the vernacular of the peasantry, Lennon's assassination was a tragic, terrible, and very personal loss for me, not to mention a few hundred million other people around the world. I cried my eyes out 25 years ago, and still choke up when I remember, and when I, if I dare say it, Imagine what might have been.

Chapman's act represents the empty and short-lived triumph of ugly and irrational brute force over kindness and creativity. Chapman doesn't deserve to be remembered, but history dictates that he will always be a footnote as the story of Lennon and the Beatles grows ever more remarkable with time. Lennon may or may not have been a hero, depending on what you ask of your heroes, but Chapman is undeniably a villain.

John Winston Ono Lennon didn't deserve to die, any more than Mark David Chapman deserves to live. I'll leave it to gentler souls to Imagine " . . . a brotherhood of man" . . . Today, I mourn a little, and Imagine . . . justice.

Monday Mourning

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:50:47 GMT

From the Archive - 10/17/2005

It was a lousy way to start a week, and a terrible reason to get back to posting here after an 11 day absence . . . I found out this morning that two students from Seattle’s Aviation High School, Brittany Boatright and Kandyce Cowart, were among the three people killed in the crash of a Piper Cherokee 140 near Paine Field in Everett, WA on Saturday. The two were participating in an EAA-sanctioned “Young Eagles” flight – a program in which young people are matched with willing and experienced pilots to give them their first flight. To date, the program has flown more than 1.2 million students – before last Saturday, those flights had a perfect safety record. Those statistics are admirable, even incredible, but they’re not of much comfort today.

Our team has a close relationship with the staff, faculty, and students at AHS. They use Flight Simulator in a number of ways in their curriculum, and they’re brought here to Microsoft in groups meet the team and tour our facility. In addition, I sat on an advisory committee to advocate for the school to representatives of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and served on a panel of judges for students’ final project presentations as part of their History of Aircraft Design class. My proudest moment, however, came just 5 weeks ago, when I was honored to be the keynote speaker for the opening day of their second school year, welcoming a student body that had just doubled to two hundred. When the principal introduced me as, among many other things, “ . . . one of the school’s best friends”, all I could think was “Well, the feeling is mutual.”

I have friends on the board like Erik and Ron, friends like principal Reba and visiting teacher Gus . . . I’m sure they’d all agree, however, that it is the students that are most remarkable. Friends of mine that I’ll mention only by the nicknames I’ve assigned them, like “Monkey Story”, “Falco”, “Extra Canopy Bug Guy”, and, umm, “Andrew”, and of course, my key operative in the student body, “Cheesy”. These are not average high school students by any measure – they are among the most intelligent, engaged, focused, enthusiastic and (they may not like me for this) mature and polite people I’ve ever known, of any age.

Like most people, sometime in my earlier-thirties, I woke up in the morning with an official case of adult cynicism, and that’s when I started using phrases like “these kids today”, “when I was your age”, and “I fear for the future”, and actually meaning them.

What a pleasant surprise, then, to meet first a hundred and then another hundred teenagers and be so quickly and easily proven completely wrong.

And then . . . what a tragedy when their numbers are suddenly, randomly, and senselessly down by two.

I didn’t know Brittany and Kandyce personally, but, if they attended the first day of school, they heard me say, in among my other rambling and tangential remarks, how lucky they were – lucky to have found an amazing school, lucky to have found a way to wrap their education in passion, and most of all, lucky to have the leadership and experience of the newly-minted sophomore class to guide them. It was hard this morning not to feel especially bitter about that, asking myself if I still thought any of them were lucky. Of course I do, just as I feel lucky to count an entire school full of amazing people among my friends. And just as I would have felt lucky if I had gotten the chance to meet Brittany and Kandyce before they . . . left.

It sounds like a terrible cliché, but Aviation High School really is like a big family – more to the point, they’re like a friend’s family that welcomes you as one of their own, without the baggage, and that you spend time with by choice, not simply because of an accident of birth.

Being a family, they will feel these losses more strongly than some schools might. Thankfully, being a family, especially one of such unusual character also means that they will find that much more strength, and be in the position to help each other cope, to see each other through.

One of the many things that seems so unfair is the fact that they didn’t need a tragedy to bring them together – they were already close, already strong. One of the many things that makes me feel so terribly guilty is that it did take a tragedy to move me to write about the school here. My friends deserve better.

We don’t know yet what caused the crash, and may never know all of the details with any certainty. Eventually, that will matter, but not today – no amount of investigation, no detailed analysis will restore three lives ended early. There is some comfort in the old and tired bromide that says that Brittany, Kandyce, and the pilot, Mr. Hokanson, died doing what they wanted to do. Right now, that doesn’t do much to offset the shock of a happy and exciting beginning turning so abruptly into a dreadful and tragic ending. But, over time, it will help.

According to one media outlet, the AHS students’ most recent quote of the week was from the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, side one (back when albums were albums and had sides), track 2 – “With a Little Help from My Friends”. I applaud their taste, not leastwise because they chose a song that’s not only before their time, but before mine, making me feel at least a little younger in the process. With that in mind, I’ll close this with the clumsy and hastily assembled words I wrote for the card that accompanied the flowers we had sent to the school this morning:

“To the staff, faculty, students, and families of Aviation High School:

None of the best things in life are without risk, but that lesson should never have to come at such a terrible price. You will all get by with a little help from your friends – just please remember that you have friends here, too.”

I assume that information about preferred remembrances will be forthcoming, and I will do my best to promote and support those efforts as they emerge. In the meantime, I’d recommend that anyone that is so inclined consider doing whatever they can to support and promote the cause of aviation education – the Richard Harvey Scholarship would not be a bad place to start.

UPDATE:

This article mentions that:

"A fund has been established to help the families of the two Aviation High School students who died Saturday in a small plane crash. Donations may be made by check to ``Brittany Boatright & Kandyce Cowart'' and deposited at any branch of U.S. Bank."

The US Bank account number for the fund is: # 1535 5735 1472.

For those who want to remember the pilot, Eugene Hokanson, as well, I'd recommend a donation to and / or membership in the EAA.

My thanks to all who have written and / or commented with words of support.