the tweney review

Ron Avitzur got laid off from his job as a software consultant at Apple in 1993. But he refused to give up on his project, so he just kept coming in and working on it. Eventually he got the software–Apple’s Graphing Calculator–QA’d, translated into 20 languages, and bundled into shipping Macs, all without actually being on the Apple payroll. Amazing!

“The secret to programming is not intelligence, though of course that helps. It is not hard work or experience, though they help, too. The secret to programming is having smart friends.”

The Graphing Calculator Story

William Alwyn Bentley spent four decades around the turn of the century — the last century — photographing snowflakes. He worked in snowstorms, collecting flakes on a blackboard and then carefully transferring them to microscope slides with a splinter of wood, holding his breath while photographing so as not to melt the flake. Largely self-taught, Bentley is the one who first said that no two snowflakes are alike. His photographic plates are now owned by the Buffalo Museum of Science, which has put 154 of them online. Beautiful, sublime images–and surprisingly, many do not look like the classic “snowflake” pattern (aka “dendritic crystals” in Bentley’s language).

The Bentley Snow Crystal Collection

A spooky looking me, from the Mobile PC moblog.

U. Pittsburgh Linguist Scott Kiesling has researched how young Americans use the word “dude:”

… the four-letter word has many uses: in greetings (“What’s up, dude?”); as an exclamation (“Whoa, Dude!”); commiseration (“Dude, I’m so sorry.”); to one-up someone (“That’s so lame, dude.”); as well as agreement, surprise and disgust (“Dude.”).

Skeletal systems of cartoon characters by Michael Paulus. Eerie!

“Jesus stated the wise principle that one should ‘calculate the expense’ before undertaking an important project. (Luke 14:28) Can that principle be applied to mobile phones? Certainly.”

Young People Ask… Do I Need a Mobile Phone? - Jehovah’s Witnesses Official Web Site

The Jehovah’s Witnesses … international telecommunications experts. Who knew?

Scot’s blog turned me on to the Baggertransport 2001, an enormous, countryside-devouring, strip-mining behemoth. The photo gallery is awesome–picture after picture of the metal monster roaming the German countryside, terrorizing highways and houses and attracting throngs of awed peasants.

Yesterday I interviewed Tim Leatherman, the guy who invented Leatherman tools. Yes, there really is a Mr. Leatherman! He is still running his company, based in Portland, OR. He’s a very down to earth guy, and a really determined inventor–it took him 3 years to build the first prototype and another 5 years to get the first customer. After that, the business really took off; more than 30 million of the things have been sold since 1983. No surprise, either–they’re super cool, and wildly useful, tools. For the interview, you’ll have to wait to see the March issue of Mobile PC.

In case Santa is reading this blog, my favorite Leatherman is probably the Blast …