Happy Birthday Apple Computer, Inc! It's 30 years since April Fool's Day, 1976.
I was 11 years old. I'd grew up on Apple Computers. I never got my hands on an Apple I, but I saw one of the original ads from those days of Sir Isaac reposing under a tree. He was about to be bonked and would change the world.
Centuries later, Wozniak & Jobs would guarantee to change the world as well. With a twist of Yankee ingenuity and California cool.
I remember the Apple II, the Apple III, the IIc, the Lisa - upon which I created my first commercially-sold graphics for Carnegie Mellon University.
And of course the Macintosh.
I fell in love with Alice. It was poetic we could see her through the looking glass of black-and-white pixels.
After college I bought a Macintosh Plus. It was stolen out of my Astoria, Queens apartment. So I bought a Mac II.
Yet no sooner had I plunked down my $7,200 for a fully-tripped-out system (4mb of RAM at the time alone was $2,000!) than I moved from NYC to Silicon Valley.
1989. I read The Macintosh Way on my way over on the plane. I intended to have a great trip to the SF Bay Area.
I met Guy Kawasaki (who had moved on to ACIUS) and shook his hand. To thank him for writing the book.
I got a job at ComputerWare, the best Mac dealer in the Bay Area at the time, until 1991.
Apple had indeed changed my life.
I had a wonderful stint at the Apple System 7 AnswerLine 1991-1992. A magical moment. I moved on to Cisco, though, where I fondly watched from afar.
Many folks might not remember this, but Cisco was a Mac shop in those days. At least in Customer Service c. 1992-1994. Windows 95 knocked them off the desktop. (The engineers were, of course, hard-core Unix and Open Source wonks.)
So, fast forward through my era of having to put up with mockery of others with Windows95. I kept my six-color-blood until the logo turned blue.
I had a PowerBook early in my Cisco stint, and went through many different machines: 680x0s, G3s and G4s.
Now dual-core Intels? iPods? Cool!
Huzzah & Happy Birthday!
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Monday, March 13, 2006
Kevin Sites in Chechnya and I Killed an Ant
I have been following the Hot Zone now for some time. This week Kevin Sites is reporting from Chechnya.
My thoughts, prayers and well-wishes to all those in war-ravaged situations or who have suffered because of such violence and trauma. I grew up playing wargames. Yet I always saw the cost of war.
Maybe it is time for other forms of socio-political games that don't necessary take the world to such desparate depths. Designing a "peacekeeping game" sounds intriguing to me now.
In fact, I'm in the R&D phase of this already. I am going to design a game to help explain how we can solve some of these problems using game theory.
Already I contacted another game publisher with more traction in the board game industry, and they liked the idea. I'll design it, and they can sell and market it through their channels.
Some day, I will present to you what I have planned. First I'd like to get the complete prototype put together.
I proposed this game even before the death of Slobodan Milosevic. It was in my head when I spoke to folks at the Shield Conference in San Ramon in February. I have to thank Chris Salander for the recommendation he gave me regarding taking the idea to the next level. Chris has odd and quirky ideas about wargames. After all, this is the fellow that wrote the miniatures army lists for prehistoric man.
Yes, from the dawn of time we have been fighting, killing each other and dying. We are simultaneously fascinated and disgusted with the idea.
For my own part, when I was doing research for this the other day at Hobee's, reading the articles about the death of the former Serbian leader, an ant was crawling upon my page. I was very careful about it, but it kept crawling under the page and back on it, and all over the place right where my arm could brush over it and kill it.
Now, this might sound odd, but though I have killed a lot of ants in my day, accidentally and on purpose, in this case, for whatever reason, I saw this ant not as a pest, and not even as a pet, but simply as a fellow living creature. Perhaps reading about genocide will make me care more for other living creatures.
As I sat there drinking my tea and getting my head around the timeline, tragedies and turmoil, I wanted this ant to live. Sadly, I then interceded in its life, trying to get it from being squashed accidentally under my arm.
My intercession, however, was indelicate. When I tried to put it down, I think I dropped it from too far a height. When I deposited it onto the place where I wanted it to be safe, it was crippled. I felt terrible! Nooo!!! I was trying to help. I didn't mean to hurt it!
I felt like Lenny Small from "Of Mice and Men." I pet it too hard.
I eventually put it in a planter outside, yet I realized that I had done too much to it. The poor thing was dead or near dead regardless of my intentions to help it out and protect it. What was utterly ironic was that, had I left it alone and not tried to move it, it probably would have fared far better.
In the overall karmic scheme of things it is, of course, "only an ant," and they eventually die anyway. Yet I felt how I caused it to suffer, against my intentions and cautions. Conversely, imagine how easy it could be to kill things if that was one's conscious intent? "It is only a Muslim." "It is only a Serb." "It is only a Croat." The division that led to such real-world disaster made them less than ants. They were "the enemy." There was a conscious plan to exacerbate the situation and alienate the enemy.
So today, while a man who never apologized to anyone for the death and suffering he caused to millions is mourned by loyal supporters who really didn't mind that he ordered or tacitly supported the commission of genocide, I feel remorse after killing an ant accidentally.
My proposition is that we can get our species to act less barbaric than our prehistoric ancestors. If we can evolve ethically as much as we have technologically, then humanitarian disasters can be minimized because of human policing against the most grevious of excesses of malice and violence.
As a game designer, my challenge is to create a game where peacekeeping, ethics, and morals are reinforced. At least for the basic game. In the "advanced" version, the players could be given the roles of those who are oppositely inclined: those motivated by power, domination, and darker passions.
For now, I'll keep the rest of the plan under wraps. It's something I'm thinking about in odd hours when I am not working or doing school work.
I'll be off to the GAMA Trade Show (GTS) in Las Vegas this week. Tuesday-Thursday. I'm hoping to get back in touch with folks I haven't seen or spoken to in some years. The last thing to report is that I've been in email contact now with Steve Gilbert, who I collaborated with back at West End Games on "Me and My Shadow Mark IV," for Acute Paranoia. It was great to hear from him again!
My thoughts, prayers and well-wishes to all those in war-ravaged situations or who have suffered because of such violence and trauma. I grew up playing wargames. Yet I always saw the cost of war.
Maybe it is time for other forms of socio-political games that don't necessary take the world to such desparate depths. Designing a "peacekeeping game" sounds intriguing to me now.
In fact, I'm in the R&D phase of this already. I am going to design a game to help explain how we can solve some of these problems using game theory.
Already I contacted another game publisher with more traction in the board game industry, and they liked the idea. I'll design it, and they can sell and market it through their channels.
Some day, I will present to you what I have planned. First I'd like to get the complete prototype put together.
I proposed this game even before the death of Slobodan Milosevic. It was in my head when I spoke to folks at the Shield Conference in San Ramon in February. I have to thank Chris Salander for the recommendation he gave me regarding taking the idea to the next level. Chris has odd and quirky ideas about wargames. After all, this is the fellow that wrote the miniatures army lists for prehistoric man.
Yes, from the dawn of time we have been fighting, killing each other and dying. We are simultaneously fascinated and disgusted with the idea.
For my own part, when I was doing research for this the other day at Hobee's, reading the articles about the death of the former Serbian leader, an ant was crawling upon my page. I was very careful about it, but it kept crawling under the page and back on it, and all over the place right where my arm could brush over it and kill it.
Now, this might sound odd, but though I have killed a lot of ants in my day, accidentally and on purpose, in this case, for whatever reason, I saw this ant not as a pest, and not even as a pet, but simply as a fellow living creature. Perhaps reading about genocide will make me care more for other living creatures.
As I sat there drinking my tea and getting my head around the timeline, tragedies and turmoil, I wanted this ant to live. Sadly, I then interceded in its life, trying to get it from being squashed accidentally under my arm.
My intercession, however, was indelicate. When I tried to put it down, I think I dropped it from too far a height. When I deposited it onto the place where I wanted it to be safe, it was crippled. I felt terrible! Nooo!!! I was trying to help. I didn't mean to hurt it!
I felt like Lenny Small from "Of Mice and Men." I pet it too hard.
I eventually put it in a planter outside, yet I realized that I had done too much to it. The poor thing was dead or near dead regardless of my intentions to help it out and protect it. What was utterly ironic was that, had I left it alone and not tried to move it, it probably would have fared far better.
In the overall karmic scheme of things it is, of course, "only an ant," and they eventually die anyway. Yet I felt how I caused it to suffer, against my intentions and cautions. Conversely, imagine how easy it could be to kill things if that was one's conscious intent? "It is only a Muslim." "It is only a Serb." "It is only a Croat." The division that led to such real-world disaster made them less than ants. They were "the enemy." There was a conscious plan to exacerbate the situation and alienate the enemy.
So today, while a man who never apologized to anyone for the death and suffering he caused to millions is mourned by loyal supporters who really didn't mind that he ordered or tacitly supported the commission of genocide, I feel remorse after killing an ant accidentally.
My proposition is that we can get our species to act less barbaric than our prehistoric ancestors. If we can evolve ethically as much as we have technologically, then humanitarian disasters can be minimized because of human policing against the most grevious of excesses of malice and violence.
As a game designer, my challenge is to create a game where peacekeeping, ethics, and morals are reinforced. At least for the basic game. In the "advanced" version, the players could be given the roles of those who are oppositely inclined: those motivated by power, domination, and darker passions.
For now, I'll keep the rest of the plan under wraps. It's something I'm thinking about in odd hours when I am not working or doing school work.
I'll be off to the GAMA Trade Show (GTS) in Las Vegas this week. Tuesday-Thursday. I'm hoping to get back in touch with folks I haven't seen or spoken to in some years. The last thing to report is that I've been in email contact now with Steve Gilbert, who I collaborated with back at West End Games on "Me and My Shadow Mark IV," for Acute Paranoia. It was great to hear from him again!
Friday, March 03, 2006
The Overnight
I am marching in The Overnight this coming summer. It is a march for suicide prevention. During college, the woman who sat next to me in my illustration class committed suicide. For Molly's memory, and moreso, for her surviving family and friends, and for all the Molly's of the world who we can be there for in the future — to restore to their life hope and joy — please give generously.
-Peter.
-Peter.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
In the Heart of Silicon Valley
I'm sitting here in Panera Bakery in Cupertino, on Steven's Creek Boulevard not far from Apple Computer and De Anza College.
This place is WiFi 802.11B enabled. Hi-speed wireless. But today I am posting "lo-tech," in relative terms using my Sprint Treo phone. Yes. There are many ways to the Web. Information superhighways and spiderholes and capillaries.
In Panera with me are a pair of gentlemen who are planning to wire the world one cafe, one business, at a time. It reminds me of that original Apple pledge to get a computer to everyone, one person at a time.
Around me are no less than three laptops. And there are a few other people who are "computer-free." A busy high-tech professional. Oh! Wait! There's his own Treo hiding behind a paper bag and a bunched up napkin.
And in front of me an older woman has a casette recorder and an earbud. Even if she's not digital overtly, here's a woman who is plugged in. Ah. Now I see. A blue zipped-up bag. Laptop-shaped.
This place is WiFi 802.11B enabled. Hi-speed wireless. But today I am posting "lo-tech," in relative terms using my Sprint Treo phone. Yes. There are many ways to the Web. Information superhighways and spiderholes and capillaries.
In Panera with me are a pair of gentlemen who are planning to wire the world one cafe, one business, at a time. It reminds me of that original Apple pledge to get a computer to everyone, one person at a time.
Around me are no less than three laptops. And there are a few other people who are "computer-free." A busy high-tech professional. Oh! Wait! There's his own Treo hiding behind a paper bag and a bunched up napkin.
And in front of me an older woman has a casette recorder and an earbud. Even if she's not digital overtly, here's a woman who is plugged in. Ah. Now I see. A blue zipped-up bag. Laptop-shaped.
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