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The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

lunduke.substack.com

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Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#51

Post by BoxOfRain »

austinjp wrote: post #46
BoxOfRain wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to improve my handwriting some years ago but didn't really commit to it, the upshot of that is that my handwriting kind of looks like a Victorian child's. It's 'loopy' in that old-fashioned way but the shapes aren't regular and controlled enough to be considered good handwriting.

If you're right-handed, I highly recommend learning to write in italic. That's with a slight tilt to every letter, from bottom left to top right. Unless you hold a pen in an unusual way, this should be an easy movement. You might want to start by just writing a line of conjoined wwwwwwwwww or mmmmmmmm. Then tweak the movement when you introduce individual letters, wewnwy, etc. I did it years ago to increase my writin…

I love the look of italic handwriting from the examples I've just looked at! I'll definitely look into it.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#52

Post by phire »

pingpongrandom wrote: post #49
susam wrote: post #31

The log book entry that says, "First actual case of bug being found", indeed always seemed like a piece of humour to me. The presence of the word "actual" in the entry makes sense only if the term "bug" to mean defects is already established in the industry. If this log book entry really were the first time a bug was found in a computer, it would have merely said, "a bug was found", not "first actual case of bug". Im…

Yep, nobody got presented awards for the "First World War".

People did actually start calling WW1 "The first world war" long before WW2 started. There is even few instances of that terminology going back to 1914.

They were pessimistic there would be more.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#54

Post by AlbertoGP »

a-dub wrote: post #47
AlbertoGP wrote: post #34

Grace Hopper telling the bug story, saying that [ THIS PART MIGHT BE WRONG, SEE BELOW: she was there but ] the bug was extracted from the relay and the note written in the logbook by “the operator”: > “ We were building Mark II on the summer of 1945 [...] Mark II stopped. We finally located the failing relay, it was one of the big signal relays, and inside the relay, beaten to death by the relay contacts, was a moth…

i don't remember hopper being part of the story (although i've never been one for names). the story claimed it was the first ever computer bug. the fact that edison used to have to pick them out of telephone and telegraph equipment doesn't refute this for me, unless you want to make some claim that manually switched telephone/telegraph networks were actually computing something.

> the story claimed it was the first ever computer bug.

About this part, the comment by eesmith (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32518611) cites a page at Harvard University saying this:

> “Before 1944, electrical engineers already used the term «bug» to refer to hard-to-find physical defects that hindered the operation of an electric device. The Mark I team appropriated the term for unexpected problems in the «coding» of a problem. Above are cartoons drawn by Grace Hopper of the different types of bugs encountered during her work.”

> https://chsi.harvard.edu/harvard-ibm-mark-1-language

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#55

Post by Narretz »

phire wrote: post #52
pingpongrandom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, nobody got presented awards for the "First World War".

People did actually start calling WW1 "The first world war" long before WW2 started. There is even few instances of that terminology going back to 1914. They were pessimistic there would be more.

Couldn't it also have been called "First World War" because it was the first war where fighting happened

- over multiple continents - with huge number of countries participating - at the same time - as part of the same conflict

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#56

Post by gumby »

mrhektor wrote: post #21
The_Stone wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly enough, I went through school before then and learned cursive and I only use it on receipts and the occasional bank check. It has little to do with cursive being taught and more to do with cursive, and handwriting in general, being irrelevant.

You're probably right, besides aesthetic value, writing on paper has little utility left

Faster and with better retentIon when taking notes in meetings (or classes).

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#57

Post by alibrarydweller »

mrhektor wrote: post #9

I'd just like to say that Thomas Edison's handwriting in his letter is absolutely beautiful. It almost looks like it's been typed out on a computer using a funky font. It's funny how the handwriting of almost everyone I know is quite bad these days. My own is almost illegible! I wonder what everyone thinks about this general degradation in penmanship? I guess it's not really needed in this day and age, but there's so…

I learned handwriting in schools (early 90s) and like many it turned into absolute chicken scratch by high school as with many.

Somewhere between high school and college I decided it was worth fixing and after a few years it got much better, continuing to improve for the next ten years or so.

I'm really glad I did it - my notes flow more easily, my written correspondence impresses and I have the common sense to simply hand print when one shot understanding is more important than aesthetics.

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#59

Post by ListeningPie »

alibrarydweller wrote: post #57
mrhektor wrote: post #9

I'd just like to say that Thomas Edison's handwriting in his letter is absolutely beautiful. It almost looks like it's been typed out on a computer using a funky font. It's funny how the handwriting of almost everyone I know is quite bad these days. My own is almost illegible! I wonder what everyone thinks about this general degradation in penmanship? I guess it's not really needed in this day and age, but there's so…

I learned handwriting in schools (early 90s) and like many it turned into absolute chicken scratch by high school as with many. Somewhere between high school and college I decided it was worth fixing and after a few years it got much better, continuing to improve for the next ten years or so. I'm really glad I did it - my notes flow more easily, my written correspondence impresses and I have the common sense to simpl…

How did you go about improving it?

Re: The story of the first “computer bug” is a pile of lies

#60

Post by Cthulhu_ »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #41
mrhektor wrote: post #9

I'd just like to say that Thomas Edison's handwriting in his letter is absolutely beautiful. It almost looks like it's been typed out on a computer using a funky font. It's funny how the handwriting of almost everyone I know is quite bad these days. My own is almost illegible! I wonder what everyone thinks about this general degradation in penmanship? I guess it's not really needed in this day and age, but there's so…

I tried to improve my handwriting some years ago but didn't really commit to it, the upshot of that is that my handwriting kind of looks like a Victorian child's. It's 'loopy' in that old-fashioned way but the shapes aren't regular and controlled enough to be considered good handwriting.

You can always get a job as a doctor writing prescriptions, lol.

More seriously, I've always had bad handwriting; I even had extra lessons to try and improve dexterity and whatnot. I did look at old school stuff at some point and it was relatively neat compared to my current handwriting - I've definitely regressed.

I don't even know why. I don't believe my small motor skills are that bad. Laziness? Not paying enough attention while writing?

Anyway typing is more my jam.

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