• Archives

  • Categories:

  • Other profiles

Halloween 2021

Sunday, Nov 7th, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Halloween is certainly different when you have kids in your life. And different again during a pandemic!

First, there’s decorations. I am not a crafty person and decorating for holidays was never really my thing. But I now have a toddler who loves making art, and holidays are the perfect inspiration. Plus, when I was a kid I remember how much of a positive impact celebrating the holidays had on me. Every year my mother would put our much-loved paperboard cutouts in our windows. I had my favorites, and it really helped set the tone for a memorable season. So, decorations, it is!

With decorations in mind, Adam and I put together a couple creations, one with some typewritten lyrics incorporated. I also brought out some Halloween-y toys and a dish for candy, and our au pair spent time with Adam putting up plastic toy bats and spiders around the family room.

We also carved pumpkins again this year. It’s not something we did while living in San Francisco, partially because living in a high rise didn’t exactly make it easy to showcase our beautifully carved pumpkins, but mostly due to my travel schedule. For years, October was a busy travel month, and most years I was traveling for conferences on Halloween. I had Halloween in Hamburg, Copenhagen, and while pregnant with Adam, in Nashville. With kids, it’s a holiday I’ll definitely be spending at home for the foreseeable future.

Up until the morning before the pumpkin carving I still wasn’t sure what I’d carve. It’s such a magnificent opportunity just once a year, I don’t want to waste it! But given our Star Wars theme costume-wise, I finally settled on creating an R2-D2 pumpkin. I spent a few minutes scouring the internet for a design, and all of them seemed too complicated for someone who is not artistically inclined. I searched for some other Star Wars options, but finally came back to designing one on my own. I think it came out nicely, so I’ll create a template when I can make some time.

Nearly 11 month old baby Aaron came close to the pumpkins to check them out, but mostly sat in his high chair, watching with fascination as we carved.

Adam is currently going through a “ew, yucky” phase where anything messy is subject to rejection. That means pumpkin carving was not on his to-do list. I encouraged him to help, but he wasn’t super keen on “getting yucky” by helping me yank the guts out of a pumpkin. Naturally, he was totally into it when we got out the knives, hah! But since we aren’t horrible parents, we kept his collaboration knife-wise to a minimum.

Our au pair from Brazil joined us in the fun, and had never carved a pumpkin. She went with a conservative choice of Jack Skellington, and knocked it out of the park. She later expressed regret at not selecting something more difficult!

Adam’s first Halloween he was about 10 months old, which wasn’t really old enough to do trick-or-treating (he didn’t eat candy yet!) so the primary celebration we had was going to the village and walking around with all the other families and seeing their costumes, and we sported our own costumes and took pictures. In 2020 there was a pandemic, which drastically limited options, we stuck to setting out candy and just taking some pictures, since going door to door was still pretty unsafe.

This year, we started feeling a little safer at outdoor events. On Saturday we went to a truck-or-treat put on by a local real estate agency. It was within walking distance of home, at a park we’re familiar with, so we figured if it was too busy, we could easily come home. It turned out to be nice. Adam got to get candies from a half dozen cars parked there, and they were giving away pizza and popcorn, two of his favorite things!


Paused on our walk home from the truck-or-treat

Sunday we went to another event in a park. This time was with a local mom group that I’m part of. The event had been rescheduled from the weekend before due to rain, so it was more than I planned to do in one weekend, but I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. The four of us hopped into the truck and drove out to the park in Hayward to meet up with other families. This park had a couple playgrounds and so we got to enjoy snacks with the boys. MJ mostly carried little Grogu (Aaron) around, while Princess Leia (me) followed The Mandalorian (Adam) all around the park.

Grogu also got to check out the swings.

While The Mandalorian stopped for a snack.

Things were still a little uncertain for trick-or-treating. We put out a table where people could freely retrieve their own candy.

Our neighborhood was a mix of people not participating, people putting out unattended tables, and a few giving out candy at their door while masked. Our au pair joined us (dressed as Rey!) and we did a 30 minute walk up and down our street. It was short, but Adam is still not really old enough to have much candy, and even that far for a not-even-three year old took quite a bit of wrangling! It was a lot of fun to take him out for his first proper trick-or-treating, once he started understanding it, he really got into it.

Finally, as the evening wound down I got to have a bit of fun re-enacting a Star Wars scene with my costume and my pumpkin.

In all, it was a tiring Halloween, but one full of great memories! I suspect this year may be the last we’ll be able to dress up Adam how we want to, he may actually have opinions about his costume next year. We still have a couple of years for little Aaron though.

Filed under: castro valley, events, family, kids, life

Punch Card Wreath

Friday, Oct 29th, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

A few weeks ago I mentioned my punch card earrings, and someone on Twitter mentioned punch card wreaths. Wreaths? It turns out they really are a thing. In a little booklet called “Make It with Punched Cards” published in 1971 it goes through about a dozen things you can make with punch cards, and one of them is a wreath. I snapped up a copy on Etsy for $8.76 shipped, and hit eBay to get some punch cards.

The first step was creating a “cardboard doughnut” and that meant waiting for a box that had a flat space big enough to make a 14 inch circle. I ended up going with one with a flap, which worked out fine because it wasn’t very creased. I used a sharpie, tack, and string to make the circles and then scissors for the outer edge, and an exacto knife for the inside hole. It took a few minutes, but went well. I am not much of a crafter, so I take nothing for granted!

Then it took me a couple weeks to start the actual wreath. You see, I have two very small children, and not a lot of free time! I was able to create the 50 punch card petals required for this project during some meetings at work (don’t tell!). I did quickly discover that each petal only really takes half a card, so my 53 punch cards went twice as far as I expected! I still have plenty left for my next project.

The stapling and decorating really had to be done when I could focus on it, meaning carving time out of my precious evenings. I really wanted it to be done by Halloween, so I stepped things up last week and got 20 petals stapled around the edge.

And eventually another 20 petals….

And then I got there with the final 10 on the inside circle!

Toss some silver garland on there, and a store-bought Halloween accent, and voila! My office door was ready for Halloween!

I have another store-bought accent queued up for Thanksgiving, but I may need to make my own for Hanukkah. As someone who is not very crafty, it’s been really fun to have and share.

Filed under: craft, tech

Autumn harvest, a hammock, and a radio

Wednesday, Oct 27th, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Last weekend we had one of the biggest rain storms I’ve ever seen here in northern California. Admittedly, the bar is pretty low. Even on “rainy” days the rain tends to be little more than a drizzle, and sporadic at that. This storm brought winds and about three inches of rain, which meant we spent a lovely day indoors doing crafts in preparation for Halloween and watching movies.

But that rainy day was an anomaly in an otherwise beautiful autumn here. The weather has started to cool some, but I’m still going out to parks with the kids every weekend. On Saturday mornings we go to the farmer’s market, and it turned out to be very eventful one morning when a bee kept landing on Adam’s hand, and then stung him! I didn’t see the moment it happened, but I think curiosity got the better of him and he must have tried touching it while it was on him. The good news is that he doesn’t seem to be allergic, but he did cry for two hours while I went through a whole list of home remedies to ease his pain. Thankfully, he was fine after a nap, and when we went to the park the next day he noted the bees, and mentioned his wound, but didn’t seem to have an irrational fear of them.

We’ve also been doing some seasonal activities. There’s an apple tree in our back yard that we don’t pay much attention to, but Adam has taken a shine to it and has been eating apples while he’s out there. So the other day I took the boys out back to pick a few to bring inside.

We also made our way to a local pumpkin patch and mini carnival. There were a handful of little rides for kids and snacks, along with a whole area where you could pick out pumpkins. I shifted my work schedule some that day so our au pair could join us to get a real US Halloween + autumn experience. It was also nice for me to be able to bring the boys out to such a place. Growing up, I could see my family going but only to take some pictures. We didn’t have a lot of money, and something like this would have been quite the extravagance. My parents worked hard and kept us clothed and fed, but I’m grateful that we have the means to do more than that. We went on several little rides and Adam and I made our way through a fun house. Having a toddler to run around with really is a lot of fun. The tantrums and boundary-testing is a challenge for sure, but I’m really loving this age.

I’ve also spent a little time outside on my own here and there. I was taking out the trash one night and thought about how I just wanted to sleep outside. I haven’t actually slept outside yet, but I did buy a hammock so I could steal away some moments with a book or podcast in a cozy, relaxing spot.

With the pandemic waning some, I’ve also done some working brunches and lunches out on my own lately. I had pizza in an empty outdoor seating area in the village recently, and going to brunch on Friday mornings when I am meeting-free and can catch up on some reading for work has started to become a thing.

We also decided to go over to the back yard of one of my colleagues for Navaratri celebrations. The outdoor nature of our visit was both in observance of the pandemic, but also because Adam doesn’t have any experience in other peoples’ homes, let alone one that’s not child-proofed! He was still a little tornado in the back yard, but at least the damage he could do was limited. We’re not going to throw open our social calendar now, but we really have been isolated these past 18 months, and a single visit with a fully vaccinated family finally seemed within the realm of safety for us.

In hobby news, I got a couple ham radios! A local acquaintance repairs them and offered to give me one, along with related equipment, I could use to get started. So one morning last month I drove up to Oakland to pick them up. The next step is actually operating. This has been a bigger challenge than I anticipated. We’re working through some sleep issues with Aaron and I’ve been feeling a little too overwhelmed to set everything up and make time to say hello. Hopefully that will change soon, and I’ll have the tools I need for when it does!

Filed under: family, food, kids, life, radio

DIY Automan Autocar

Friday, Oct 22nd, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Last month I wrote about my “The Computer’s Voice” Movie Marathon that I did, and that led to an acquaintance pointing out the Automan TV show from 1983-84. The show is ridiculous. The premise is a computer scientist cop who creates a physical hologram who helps him fight crime. The technology doesn’t make sense, the plots are overly complicated, and it’s simply not a very good show. But it’s fun. As silly it is sometimes, it really broke my heart when I loaded up the final DVD and finished watching the series.

Plus, I had company! The Continuum Drag podcast was watching them too. A few days after each pair of episodes I watched, I would load up the next podcast on my walk or run, and voila! Some folks to enjoy the pain and laughs with. They were definitely harsher on it than I was, but I think I’ve come to be more comfortable with camp and older shows as I’ve gotten older. I also deeply appreciated how bad all the computer scenes were, so I had a fondness for the show that I think is hard for someone who doesn’t work full time in tech to appreciate.

But my favorite thing about the show? The Autocar. It’s instantly recognizable as a Lamborghini Countach LP400, the car that, to this day, I think of when I think of “the car of the future.” I don’t know why the Countach landed in my head like that, but it probably is the most iconic car of the 1980s.

The car graces the DVD cover:

And Shout! Factory (who was responsible for the DVD release) put a lovely clip up on YouTube:

Cool. But then, our friends at Continuum Drag tweeted about Automan merchandise and made me want an Autocar of my own! At first, I publicly mused about 3-D printing one, but after looking into designs and pricing, I started looking at toy cars that already exist and could be repurposed, so that’s what I decided to do.

First stop, eBay! I picked up a Matchbox 1982 Lamborghini Countach LP500 for about $10, shipped.

A few things about this model for this project:

  • It’s green. Looking at the listing again, you can tell from the photos, but I guess I wasn’t looking that closely
  • It has “Lamborghini” scrolled across the sides
  • It has a spoiler
  • Technically it’s the LP500 rather than the LP400, but I am pretty sure the exteriors are the same

My first decision had to be whether I wanted to repaint the whole thing black. I decided against it. I’m not very good at painting (as you will see), and I worried that I’d botch it, and it would just end up looking awful. Plus, this toy is the most fun when the lights are off anyway! And the spoiler? I’ll just have to live with it.

So, paint. I learned from my baby mainframes the best paints to use for this kind of work were acrylics, and I went with Golden Artist Colors.

In the baby mainframe project I learned that putting on a coat of white paint over the black did wonders for having the subsequent color put on. Now, this is also true of the glow-in-the-dark paint, but it turns out the Light Ultramarine Blue I was using doesn’t need a white base coat. I could have saved myself a lot of time and ugliness if I had skipped the white base coat. Oh, well.

But as I said, a base on the green was important for the Spacebeams Aquaris glow-in-the-dark paint. When I put the glowing paint on without a base, it barely showed up. So the good news is, if you could put the blue coat on nicely, you could afford to be a little sloppy with the glowing paint. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at any of it, so my Autocar is a cute hobby craft, rather than a work of art. The glowing paint also is mostly transparent over the blue, but not totally, so it did make for a slightly toned down blue in the light.

But once the lights were off, I was totally in love! The colors were perfect!

It’s my very own toy Autocar!

Oh, yeah, I also got a t-shirt.

Once this was all complete, I felt a bit silly about it all. I’m a 40 year old woman with two small kids, and very little time to myself. This is what I spend it on? But this project is so very me that I kept me entertained and grounded through a transformative time in my life. It’s silly, but it’s mine, and right now I need more that’s just mine.

Filed under: craft, tv

My 40th Birthday

Sunday, Oct 10th, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

I turned 40 last month.

I’ve never been super bothered by getting older, and have found that in general, I’ve enjoyed life more as time has gone on. Still, it is a mid-life milestone, and I had few things pegged to it. I wanted to be done having children by the time I was 40 (success!) and I wanted to be in a satisfying, but still growing, place in my career (success!). I also wanted to be a published author, so it was nice to get one of my now rare royalty checks just a few days before my birthday.

My life right now is not without challenges, especially with two small children at home and a continuing pandemic outside, but I have a lot to be proud of and grateful for. Every challenge we’re facing today does have a long term solution, and on hard days I just need to remember to focus on that.

Nice dinners or long weekend trips have been our traditional go-to things for birthdays. Both of these were difficult or impossible during the pandemic, but we knew of something that wasn’t: renting a suite at the A’s baseball stadium! We did it in early August, and while it’s not a relaxing time with two little ones, it is a fun thing we knew we could enjoy safely as a family. We did decide to keep the windows closed this time though. It was a shame not to be able to hear the game and fans as directly as having the nice breeze come in would allow, but the last game we went to proved that Adam wouldn’t shy away from trying to throw things, or himself, out the window if given a few seconds of chance. Much less stress with the windows closed!

MJ really outdid himself with it too. He printed a custom banner to decorate the suite!

Knowing how much I love kitsch and sugary grocery store cake, he got me the BEST baseball cake! Truly, I am totally a child when it comes to birthday cake.

He even rented a spot on the huge game board to wish me a happy 40th birthday during the 4th inning!

To top it off, the A’s won. It was a tiring afternoon for all of us, especially since Aaron is a bit more mobile now, but it was a lot of fun.

On my actual birthday I took the day off from work and took the morning to myself.

First, I ran/walked a 5K so I could award myself a medal I had laying around in my desk.

When that was complete, I treated myself to some pancakes at the local outdoor brunch place, and rounded out the morning by reading in my hammock out back.

For lunch, MJ and I drove out to Dublin where I stopped at a craft store to pick up an order (toddler art stuff!) and made a side stop at a book store. We then picked up pizza (for me) and BBQ (for the rest of the family).

That afternoon I was surprised by our former au pair coming over and doing a little celebration together with balloons and cupcakes, a lovely surprise. Our current au pair also gave me a present “from her and the boys” that was a super cute framed photo of the boys that they helped her paint.

So here I am, 40 years old. Not so bad so far! And the one big thing I learned from my day off is that I need to do some of this stuff more often. I am being worn super thin with my commitments to work and family right now, but I need to take care of myself too. I’m not getting any younger, and I’m a much better wife, mother, and friend when I’ve had time to recharge.

Filed under: family, kids, life

Typecast from my 1938 L C Smith & Corona

Wednesday, Sep 29th, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

“A typecast (blogging) (a.k.a. typecasting or typecasting blog) is a form of blogging by media type and publishing in the format of a blog, but differentiated by the predominant use of and focus on text created with a typewriter and then scanned rather than text entered directly into a computer.” via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typecasting_(blogging)


Before and after the refurbish by Berkeley Typewriter


1938 L C Smith & Corona Super Speed on my desk!
Filed under: life, typewriter

I 3D-printed an IBM LinuxONE!

Tuesday, Sep 21st, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Several months ago I 3D printed an IBM z15 pencil holder. I used a design that had been floating around, so it wasn’t perfect, but it was a nice little model. I ended up following up with a design team inside of IBM and got a more perfect version that they were OK with me sharing the with community.

But I already had a z15, so I wasn’t going to use this STL myself. Or was I? I clearly now needed a LinuxONE!

A colleague (thanks Joris!) hollowed out the STL to make it cheaper to print, and I removed the Z. Voila! I had a LinuxONE file to send off to get printed.

In the future, I may try to get it printed in the color I actually want, but I went for a quick quote and cheapest printing option that made sense from Xometry. I also used their tool to shrink it a little so it was the same size as my z15.

(As an aside, I’d love to own a 3D printer some day, but they’re expensive and require maintenance and all kinds of things I don’t currently have time or space for. Maybe some day!)

Since it came in white, I had to spray paint it just like the first (see my previous post for paint details).

Then I had to put down a coat of white in the inset areas, since the orange paint wouldn’t show up well on the black.

I went with the Orange Golden Artist Colors acrylic paint, the same brand and type I used with the z15.

The orange ended up being quite a bit brighter than the real LinuxONE, but I’m OK with that. I’m using it in a lot of photos and social media, so it’s fun that it’s more visible. That said, the “LinuxONE” and “IBM” text was the trickiest part about this model. When I shrunk the design, the IBM logo got a bit too small, and I didn’t have anything for LinuxONE. Ultimately, both spots were too small for proper logos, so I kinda just winged it with “IBM” and just drew a couple of lines to represent the spot where the LinuxONE branding should go.

It turns out OK! I still need more practice on miniature painting, but it’s not meant to be a perfect model, it’s just a bit of fun.

So I had a bit of fun, first with some cloud and Linux photo shoots!

And one with the System/360 bannerhead I have (grandpa!)

And finally, in action. I “brought” them along to the recent IBM Z Day we hosted, and included them in the pictures I took during the event.

Want to join in the fun? Grab the STL file and print your own!

Filed under: computers, mainframes, tech, work

Seasonal smoke, high holidays, and getting back outside

Saturday, Sep 18th, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

We were having a delightful summer. Back yard tidied up enough to play outside. Regular cadence of farmer’s market on Saturday morning and playground on Sunday morning. Every weekend we’d also look up local garage/yard sales to walk to.

Then the smoke started to roll in on August 18th. Our cars and outdoor furnishings quickly developed a thin layer of ash and we had to stay indoors.

Admittedly, we’re getting off easy so far this year. I rarely smell the smoke, and the PM 2.5 AQI levels for wildfire smoke pollutants are regularly between 50-100. Still not what I want to expose the either the baby or the toddler to very much, but it’s not the directly unhealthy or dangerous range we dealt with last year. Still, we’re staying indoors a lot more, and that’s been tough. Adam doesn’t like being cooped up, and I’ve realized just how important all those walks I was taking with them are to my fitness and health. The air has started to clear this week, but there are still fires and if they flare up again and the winds shift, I will need to make sure I’m getting in some exercise again. Hello again, treadmill!

I wrote about getting my amateur radio license and my movie marathon, and honestly that’s all I’ve packed my free time with. Most recently I started watching the 1980s series Automan and then listening to the Continuum Drag podcast as they make their way through the series too. The podcast has definitely made watching the series a lot more fun and social.

I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to keep the kids engaged as we’re stuck indoors, and I’ve been delighted to see how quickly baby Aaron is growing and hitting milestones. In our cooped up period these past few weeks, he’s become quite the crawler! And he stands while holding things now!

I’m probably not fully succeeding in meeting all the needs of a mischievous toddler (honestly, who can?), which is how I ended up going through our trash can on a Tuesday morning. The night before we noticed that one of the baby monitors was missing. I figured Adam had just stashed it somewhere, but after essentially turning the house upside down on Monday night, I had to accept that he probably threw it away because he thought it would be funny. Thankfully, I found it in the trash before the trash truck came. It was gross, but after taking it apart, carefully cleaning it, and letting it dry, it seems to work fine.

Adam and I also are continuing to do art, but the other week we added baking into the mix (see what I did there?). First it was by making challah, and most recently honey cake for Rosh Hashanah. He’s only two, so obviously it’s me doing most of the work, but it’s been fun to include him as we measure and mix together the ingredients.

We also did some holiday-inspired art!

As for the holidays themselves, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were once again observed via live stream. It looks like a few people made it to the synagogue, masked and vaccinated, but hundreds of us joined virtually. It’s sad to not see everyone in person for a second year, but just like last year, it did make things a lot easier. A baby and a toddler don’t make leaving the house easy, especially for extended periods. Staying safe at home certainly was convenient.

We also took the afternoon on both days to visit parks. On Rosh Hashanah our au pair and I went over to the playground, where we bumped into the local Chabad chapter, and I got to socially-distanced chat with a Jewish mother in their community. On Yom Kippur MJ joined us and we all went out to Lake Chabot Park to soak in the sun and let Adam kick a soccer ball around in the grass.

With the clear skies, we’ve also spent the last couple of weekends going to yard and garage sales again. Mostly it’s because it gives us a safe destination for walks (helps me stay motivated!) but also because the kids do seem to like to see Things when we go out. Stuff-wise, I rarely buy anything, but we did snag a refrigerator toy last weekend that both the boys are really enjoying.

Work has been incredibly busy. We put on our flagship event for IBM Z last week, so August through September is a mad scramble to finalize the schedule, make sure the speakers are happy and have what they need, and handle all kinds of surprising logistics (even for a virtual event!). A non-trivial number of evenings I end up working after the kids go to sleep just to make sure everyone has what they need. Mix in taking a day off for Rosh Hashanah and another for Yom Kippur I really had my work cut out for me. We nailed it though, I was really happy with my track and the event did very well. The virtual Open Mainframe Summit is next, which I’ve been handling IBM’s presence for, and was taking up considerable amounts of time as I got the booth materials together and make sure we hit all the key deadlines. That’s coming up next week.

Today I got to enjoy another beer festival! This time Beers without Beards which had a beautiful assortment of beers, including Two Lights from Allagash, which I’ve wanted to try since it came out. Realistically, it’s tricky to fully take in these virtual beer festivals because I have a couple of little humans to care for during the day, but having the live stream on while we went about our day has been a nice change of pace. I really enjoyed the segment from Allagash, and it was delightful to hear about some of the history of our beloved Russian River Pliny the Elder. As for actually drinking, I can work my way through the beer collection in the evenings over the next few weeks. I’m enjoying the Two Lights right now, which is pretty great for a lager!

Pandemic-wise, I’ve hinted throughout this post how we’re still staying close to home. It really did weigh heavy on my heart to stay home during the holidays again, and MJ just canceled his plans to go to his cousin’s wedding in early October. I’m lonely, and I miss everyone. I am eager to see approval come through for vaccinations for the kids, because that is when I think we’ll be in a more reasonable place as we continue to evaluate our safety. In the meantime, we’re all doing the best we can over here.

Filed under: beer, castro valley, family, kids, life, spirituality

“The Computer’s Voice” Movie Marathon

Thursday, Sep 9th, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

Several months back I read A Grand Success! and wrote about the little private film festival that took me on as I read about Aardman’s work through the years. In these pandemic times, it was rather fun!

I seem to have stumbled upon a similar situation with The Computer’s Voice: From Star Trek to Siri by Liz W. Faber. I don’t know what I expected from this book, but it quickly became clear that without seeing the films and shows she referenced throughout the book, I’d struggle to properly appreciate it. As it was, I found the phrasing and prose of the book a bit of a struggle because it feels rather academic to me. I also don’t really understand enough about things like psychology to properly understand everything she discussed. Still, it was worth reading for me, and it is a fascinating tour through the intersection of feminism, sexuality, and science fiction.

The first chapter went well, I’d already seen 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Trek: The Original Series, but then things got tricky! I’d never seen any of the movies/shows mentioned in the next chapter, so I had some catching up to do. Dark Star was on a streaming service we subscribe to, and I was able to digitally rent Moon. Finding the Quark television series was a little trickier. It’s not available streaming anywhere, and the DVD was expensive in many places. I ended up finding the series DVD for less than $20 with shipping on a somewhat sketchy movie website, but it came through, I got my copy!

It was about at this moment when I realized I was having a lot of fun.

Dark Star is a campy classic, and everything about it is ridiculous, including the sultry voice of their computer. Moon was quite good, and I’m surprised I hadn’t seen it before. In stark contrast to 2001, the computer ends up being an unlikely ally to our protagonist. And Quark was just silly, it’s hard to say whether it’s bad or not because it was intentionally bad to poke fun at other space shows of the age, but I did chuckle quite often while watching it. There’s a robot throughout the eight episodes that it lasted, but it was the actual talking computer, Vanessa 38-24-36, from the final episode which was mentioned in the book. She was awful, but she was the villain of the episode and so that was to be expected.


Vanessa 38-24-36

But more importantly than these first few films and shows, it turns out, this book was a gold mine of other science fiction recommendations!

Nearly half of them I’d already seen:

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
  • THX 1138 (1971)
  • TRON (1982)
  • A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
  • Iron Man (2013)
  • Star Trek:The Original Series (TV series)
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation (TV series)
  • Eureka (TV series)
  • Big Bang Theory (TV series)

But there were plenty I hadn’t seen:

  • Quark (TV Series)
  • Colossus – The Forbin Project (1970)
  • The Andromeda Strain (1971)
  • Dark Star (1974)
  • Rollerball (1975)
  • Demon Seed (1977)
  • Electric Dreams (1984)
  • Fortress (1992)
  • Smart House (1998)
  • Moon (2009)
  • Her (2013)

Rollerball is apparently a bit of a classic, but the computer segment of it was quite brief and the computer wasn’t very good (in keeping with its place in this dystopian setting). It was a cool looking computer though, and very different from the walls of blinking lights that most movies use to portray super computers.


Zero from Rollerball (1977)

Also, fun fact, as they walk past Zero throughout the facility, you see product-placement Sperry Corporation computers. The book is what clued me in to this fact, plus that Sperry as a corporation didn’t last long once IBM released the IBM System/360 and /370, the direct predecessors of which I work on in my day job at IBM. What fun I am having! (Sorry Sperry Corp.)


Sperry-IBM quote from The Computer’s Voice

I was surprised that I hadn’t seen The Andromeda Strain, though I’m certain I’ve read the book. It was a solid movie with a pretty cool looking computer room!


Compute room from The Andromeda Strain

Smart House was a Disney Channel Original Movie and it was dreadful, but almost worth it for the control room for the home automation system. Almost.


Control room for the home automation system in Smart House

Of all the movies I watched, the most pleasant surprise was probably Colossus: The Forbin Project. The setup of a super computer in charge of the missiles during the Cold War was too perfect, I really enjoyed this film. It’s a shame that it wasn’t available on any streaming service, having to buy the DVD is quite the barrier to seeing it for most people, and most people should see it! Plus, I learned from the book that the computers filmed were real, provided by Control Data Corporation (CDC) as product placements.


Colossus!

The next movie on my list was Fortress. I don’t like prison movies/shows, so this one was tough for me. The computer in this movie was sadly not cool to look at, the interface was a split keyboard and a wall of monitors. No blinking lights! But the computer can also override the wishes of the “warden” and goes on to control a fleet of robotic cameras that travel around the facility, militant cyborgs, and pretty much everything else in the facility (vehicles!), so that’s pretty cool.


Zed-10’s prison security camera from Fortress

I didn’t read the descriptions of the movies since I was planning on watching them anyway, so I was moderately horrified at by Demon Seed. As the title hints at, the computer impregnates a human. There was a lot going on in the 1970s, haha! But the computer, Proteus IV, looks really cool and it’s a super bizarre movie.


Proteus IV

Her was a very cerebral one. The computer in this movie is an evolved personal assistant, and in the course of the movie you discover that there are people here and there who fall in love with them, including the protagonist. Oddly, during this pandemic time when we’re all so isolated, it did make me think long and hard about what people need, and I joked that I was very confused about emotions after watching it. The computer interface is usually just a small smartphone or earpiece (boring! but appropriate), and it’s voiced by Scarlett Johansson, a voice that will be familiar to many viewers, so that also added an interesting dimension, much like Kevin Spacey being the computer voice in Moon.

Electric Dreams is another in the field of computers and love, but it’s much less subtle. The movie came out in 1984, so very few people had personal computers, and I’m sure it must have felt quite novel and futuristic to have what we now consider the standard CRT monitor, computer, and keyboard setup. Watching it now, it feels old. Much like Tron, the movie comes from a place where most people didn’t really understand computers, so they could do playful things that didn’t make any sense (throwing champagne on your computer is not recommended). Still, the computer was effectively “on-line” which was a rare concept at the time, and it controlled his home automation system, all things I’m sure people wanted but ended up being quite the future-facing idea! The movie was also so so so 1980s. The music was the biggest focus, aside from the computer, and it was fun seeing so many shots of 1980s San Francisco, where the film is set.


Edgar from Electric Dreams looks very familiar!

Finally, one of my favorite movies was in this book! And I took the opportunity to watch it again: A.I. Artificial Intelligence. I think the movie was a bit weird to ever be very popular, but it really struck a cord with me. The talking computer in this one is voiced by our beloved Robin Williams, and I really enjoyed the characters and the whole story. Also, I’m not much of a crier, but this movie gets me every time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this little movie and show marathon, but I think the best part about it was connecting with other SciFi fans on social media. My mainframe pal Ray Mullins told me about the Colossus book, which turned out to be a trilogy of books! I got old paperbacks of all three. On the topic of Colossus, there is quite the computer geek cult following of the movie, so it was also fun to engage with folks who are into that. I may have to get a t-shirt.

Most recently, my infrastructure pal Sarah Elkins pointed me in the direction of the Continuum Drag podcast where they just started talking about the show Automan (1983) which I immediately bought the DVD set of for the 13 episodes. It arrived today. Sounds like this movie marathon has taken on a life of its own, and I have a fun journey continuing ahead of me!

And many thanks to author Liz W. Faber for putting me on this path to begin with.

Filed under: tv

I got my amateur radio license!

Friday, Sep 3rd, 2021 by pleia2 | 0 Comments

I have a memory of sitting at our family computer happily chatting away with some friends on IRC, when my father came in and started to talk about ham radio and how you could talk to people from all over the world!

“Dad, I’m chatting with someone in Sweden RIGHT NOW.”

As a teenager, it was my job to think everything my parents did was, at best, out-dated and irrelevant. I largely ignored the dirty old radio equipment that was piled in our garage, and I never actually saw my father operate. My mother doesn’t believe he ever had a license, and I never managed to find him in the dozens of historical call sign directories I looked at, but it easily could have been one of those hobbies from his 20s that he did with some buddies.

A few years later I was living in Philadelphia and had started using Linux. The overlap in Linux and amateur radio at the time was extensive, and I quickly learned that a lot of my techie friends were in to both. Part of it comes from the hacker, tinker culture that lead my friends to get into electrical engineering, but Linux actually enables you to use amateur radio is novel ways, so it’s all linked. Ultimately, getting my license ended up on my bucket list, as a way to connect with my deceased father, and because it looked interesting and fun. A few years later, I married MJ, who has had his amateur radio license since he was a teenager.

But many things in life are interesting and fun! So while I’d visit Philadelphia every year and attend FOSSCON, where my friends would ask “gonna take the test this year?” I’d just laugh and say, “maybe next year!” I did still want it, but it never became a priority, until 2020.

2020. That Year. First, we were living through the fourth year of the worst presidency of my life. I still feel like I was living in some weird reality that made a cartoonish rich guy from the 1980s into the 45th president of the United States. As a wealthy white woman, I was pretty immune to his policies, but my family is Jewish, and his policies directly hurt my loved ones. I watched people move out of the country due to legitimate fear for their lives and livelihood. I had colleagues in the industry who were separated from their families due to random changes in Visa policies. Hate crimes rose, and misinformation online flourished. Then the pandemic hit and federal response was reckless. Then we had the worst fire season in California history. When we woke up to orange skies here in the bay area on September 9, 2020, many of us were at a low point.

What does this have to do with amateur radio? Civilization is fragile. As we lived through rolling blackouts and bare shelves at grocery stores, it struck me how quickly our intricate web of things we use every day can collapse and leave us helpless. For some people this meant stocking up on toilet paper and buying more guns. For me this meant learning how electricity works and how to communicate simply over radio waves.

Practical things aside, getting my license was a clearly-defined accomplishment that I knew I’d enjoy, and it was something that is very me. Over the past three years, so much of what I’ve learned outside of work has been in the care of my home and children. It’s easy to lose yourself when you have kids, and I’ve definitely been struggling with that. Plus, for brief moments around discussing sleep schedules, discipline strategies, and meals for the kids, MJ could help me study or answer basic questions about electricity and operating procedures. It’s been nice to spend a little time being just our nerdy selves again.

Finally, with the pandemic, many clubs have started doing tests virtually. You join a video call, share your ID to prove you are who you say you are, show off your room to prove you’re not hiding the answers anywhere, and then share your screen as they watch you take the test. This was major for me. No need for me to go to an event or anything, I could take my test, and moments later scoop up my toddler and be back to mom mode! Parents, this is a great opportunity.

As for studying, I had a bit of fun with that too. In addition to MJ helping me out, I did a lot of studying on my own. First, I bought a paper copy of the No Nonsense Technician Class License Study Guide by Dan Romanchik. He gives the PDF away for free but having a disconnected way to start my studying was very helpful for me. Then, I got the Mometrix Ham Radio Technician License Exam Flashcard Study System. I set the giant pile of cards just outside the laundry room, and every time I walked by (A LOT!) I would pick up a few cards and run through them. Genuine mom hack right there. Finally, I used HamStudy.org extensively, especially in the final month before my test. Between desktop version and a few minutes here and there on my phone, the app was how I finally got good at passing the practice exams.

And since I don’t like being on the phone all the time with the kids, I would also sometimes use the cards when I was playing with them, with varying results. Sometimes I’d return to a bit of a mess!

In learning about schematics, I also got to spend a little time on “toddler art” that had us using some stencils, so I got to make batteries and resistors, and my toddler made some circles and squares. This beauty now hangs on the door to my home office.

I also took a bit of a side trip down phonetic alphabet lane. I never learned the proper civilian phonetic alphabet, and while you’re not tested on it, the use is encouraged in amateur radio. So I was shopping for a poster for Adam to learn the alphabet, and I realized I could learn too! I ended up buying a design that had large, clear letters for Adam, with small print phonetic alphabet, and Morse Code dots and dashes for good measure. I got it printed and laminated at a local print shop, and voila! We could now learn together! It’s actually working, just by having that poster around and glancing at it every day, I have most of the alphabet down.

The last thing I did to conclude this adventure to get my license was to sign up for my exam. With two little kids at home, it was incredibly easy to keep putting off studying and learning everything. Every day I’m too tired, too busy, just need a little more rest, 20 more minutes of TV. A date on the calendar really made me focus and prepare. It worked! On August 26th, I logged onto a video call with my pals from the Philly club and had the test administered. I passed with 34/35 correct!

The next day I got an email from the FCC with my call sign. I’m KN6QGG!

And MJ got me a cake!

Many thanks to my Philly crew who never gave up on me and nagged me year after year to get my license, especially Jim Fisher (AJ3DI) who has been with me on the whole journey. He gave me tips and nudges as I needed them.

I am happy with how this all went. If I were to do it again and had more time, I would have broken out my Discover Electronics Kit because I think some more hands on electronics fiddling would have been more fun and helped me understand the basic concepts more quickly. But hey, I still have the kit, so I can tackle that at another time!

Next is actually operating. I haven’t thought a whole lot about what I want to do, mostly because I am still in this early parenthood haze where I have very little time, but the first step will be getting a radio. I’ve already had a local acquaintance offer to give me a spare he has, we just need to figure out a time when we’re both free and I can pick it up! I’m sure I’ll find something delightful and clever to do with it.

And some day, while my sons are exploring some super cool virtual reality world with their pals on the Mars colony, I’ll tell them about amateur radio so they can roll their eyes at me.

Hopefully they’ll eventually come around.

Filed under: computers, radio, tech
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »