Steve, You should write a memoir.
Frank ----------------------------------- Frank Wimberly My memoir: https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly My scientific publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 Phone (505) 670-9918 On Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 10:42 AM Steven A Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > Frank - > > It is fascinating to hear that you were in the "belly of the beast" if > only for a short while. I suppose we have all been in the belly of *some* > beast in our various times. > > My earliest years were without a telephone in the house (camp-trailer in > the woods) followed by several party lines (shared in 2 cases amongst other > USFS families in forest-camp compounds) and understanding that the magical > rings and voices coming from the handsets in the house were modulated > (whatever that meant to a 3 year old) over the insulated bundles of wires > running from tree-to-tree and pole-to-pole... It wasn't hard to > understand the idea that if voices could travel over single wires, that any > one of us on a party line could pick up and hear the other's voices during > a conversation or even that the volume/static on the line would abruptly > change if someone picked up (say to listen in?). It made perfect sense > that such resources (wires on poles) were very scarce and needed to be > shared... I had heard of operator-assisted calling which made great sense > (patch panels) but the idea that the pulses sent via the spring-loaded > rotary dial could "tell" a electromechanical switch (my father showed me > the one in the main location at the second forest camp when I was about 5) > and I remember watching/hearing a call go through it... relays opening and > closing as ring pulses went through... > > One of my friend's father was the local telephone lineman and he was busy > all the time either going out on trouble calls or doing maintenance on the > switches. Realizing that in a community of roughly 300 (600 in the county > at the time!) was keeping one man busy (more than) full time doing this was > my first taste of "infrastructure". I don't know what kind of backup he > had... I never saw anyone else working with him nor heard of anyone else > employed... though I do know sometimes there were company trucks parked at > the fenced yard next to his house... probably for new line buildout? > Another father of a friend owned/operated the local "vending" routes which > included soda machines, candy machines and best of all pinball machines. > HIs territory must have been pretty wide because our 300 town only had one > soda/candy machine at each of 2 gasoline stations and 3 pinball machines at > the drug/variety store. I got to see the ones in their shop behind the > house under repair opened up and really got a kick out of trying to "trace > the logic" of a coin-drop/lever-pull, delivery-chute... and even better, > the complex logic of a pinball machine. Yet another father drove the > propane delivery truck (he had a boss who drove some, but he was the main > driver) and another who ran the local branch of the power - coop along > with his wife. They had more trucks that came in from the next large town > (60 miles and maybe 1000 people?) to do major repairs/upgrades, but he was > out in his truck all the time fixing/installing *something*. Several of > these men ran an ad-hoc cable network in the core of the village... > nothing came in by antenna and I guess they had their own up on a mountain > with a rebroadcast system... the network was down as much as it was up > and while *some* of the customers had to have been paying customers, it was > these guys who somewho cooperatively kept it going. I *knew* that someone > besides these men were *designing* and *building* the systems they > maintained (thought the cable TV thing was more DIY). > > Many years later, we moved to a large town/small-city (2 supermarkets, a > dozen motels and gas stations?) and our neighbors at the edge of town owned > the local AM radio station... they solicited me to clean the station every > Saturday and after a few months of that I graduated to typing up station > program logs and then began to operate the station under supervision... > they were largely "automated" which meant 4 big carousels with 4-track > endless loop (similar to 8-track) cartidges that we would load with music, > PSAs and commercials which were then "programmed" by inserting pins in > different patch-panels... there were two modes... for example, the system > that took over on the top of hour for the network news would inject one of > a small handful of instrumental tunes that could be faded/interrupted > at-will to flip over the newsfeed. The rest of the time, the system had a > priority stack and the commercial/PSAs stack had priority in the sense that > it wanted to play out it's queue within the allotted time (usually one > hour) no matter what... while the music queue would simply play whenever > one of the others were not... only rarely (due to bad planning) would a > commercial or PSA go unplayed. Not every hour was different, but there > were periods (8-12AM, 1-5PM, 6-10PM) that had a particular character and > there was some variation within it. By the time I was 15 (Freshman in HS) > the station owners saw my diligence and curiosity (the Station Engineer > would take the time to explain most everything there to me in as much > detail as I had time for) and offered me a nighttime live show which I ran > for most of my HS years. I always had the option to fire up the automated > system, as I was also trying to do my homework during that time. I went > in to the station before 4PM to handle the 4-6 news programs (I can still > hear Paul Harvey ringing in my ears) and then the (automated) 6-7 PM > "sundown serenade" curated by the wife but executed by me (most of the > time). At 7 we rolled into "the Night Show" which was conceived by the > owners to be something for the "youth crowd". It was nominally a Rock show > but was really Top-40 by their measure... We had the full array of classic > rock vinyl in the shelves and I was allowed to use (most of) it but there > was the top-40 billboard charts to be serviced which meant a lot of > pop-rock and country-rock and pop-pop. > > Yet another exposure to the complexities of "programming" and "logic" from > a somewhat different perspective. The engineer at the time had been on > the predecessor to the NIF fusion project in Livermore (MFE?) > (designing/building the capacitor banks) and clued me in a lot of things. > He was a greasy-haired wiry little hippy that drove an old italian > convertible (very finicky with dual carbs...) and had a penchant for > visiting the bars/brothels in Mexico (this was a border town) and probably > got rolled by someone at least once a year... and had the stories (and > scuffs) to tell about it. He taught me binary logic/arithmetic and showed > me how that related to the somewhat similar/different discrete/analog > systems behind the carousels (all the electronics were exposed, so you > could trace wires and watch relays open/close) and even taught me the > basics of analog circuits including soldering, relays, power > amplifiers/transmitters. Later, as I went into the all-digital world of > Computer Science, It was as if I was learning about Mammals after growing > up among only Marsupials. Of course automobiles had their own share of > analog-discrete logic with an HV (timed) side and a 12V mostly continuous > (but with switches/relays) side. This was the 70s and the autos of > interest were mostly from the 50s/60s. > > I went to LANL in 1981 to work on the Proton Storage Ring which was in > some ways the epitome of an anolog/digital hybrid systems with huge > subsystems being HV and HF while others were "utility" (110/60) and yet > others were TTL. The place was "in flux" all the time... with magnetic > fields (intended and unintended) coming and going effecting everything. > It was a quite the milieu. Moving to HPC was both a relief and a whole > new world... even though I still worked with some analog systems, they > were much less dangerous and much less high speed... the digital stuff was > lickety-split (by those days standards) and the introduction of vector and > parallel (and eventually distributed) processing was new and interesting. > By the time I was mentoring others (90s), the backgrounds were almost > exclusively digital and most if not all of the "kids" that came through had > never even worked on their own cars, much less vending machine or automated > tape carousel logic. > > As Y2K approached, a consultant from SAIC was working in my general > area... we became friends... but his role and way of thinking was > incredibly foreign to me. One of his roles (he felt like a plant from the > military-industrial into the military-scientific establishment) was to > consult on Y2K readiness. My system at the time had been hand-built on > top of UNIX (replacing a VMS system that was falling apart every day) by a > small team (3-5 of us) and while I did not know every line of code in the > system (I had written a good portion of it), we had coding practices and > standards and code-reviews and I was roughly 99.9% confident that we didn't > have a single 2-digit date in the system, nor did we depend on any > libraries or system code which did. The open-source/community nature of > BSD Unix meant that everything we relied on and trusted without inspecting > personally had been inspected by hundreds or thousands of others. The Y2K > problem had been discussed a lot and there were plenty of procedures in > place to encourage (though never ensure) that every code-team/system had > expunged any possible Y2K bugs. My SAIC buddy talked in SLOC and had > metrics up the wazoo about things which almost exclusively did not apply > (well) to our systems as-designed and as-built. There may well have been > (especially in the Business Processing side of the house) some big > risk/holes, but I knew my system intimately and the other major/similar > systems (slightly larger development teams with more turnover) were well in > hand. > > We (the three major systems) also had on-call responsibility and were used > to being called at 3AM if something wasn't right.... *we* had been trained > by the operations staff to not leave them hanging... they could be pretty > easy-going/helpful with those of us who answered our phones and were > easy-going/helpful with them, but the few who thought they shouldn't have > to help stand up a system they built when it fell over (or sprung a leak) > at 3AM on a holiday discovered quickly that they would not be let off > easier just because they were reluctant or pissy about the call. Bottom > line was that we (developers) knew that our systems had to run 24/7/365 and > the 00:00:01 01/01/00 was just like any other day, and if/when/as the > dominoes might start to fall, it was OUR job to be right there standing > back up any of OUR dominoes that might fall on their own or be knocked down > by others. There was a little rivalry between systems (operations as well > as development) but for the most part of someone else's system was falling > down and making a mess (creating possible/implied bugs in other systems) > we all pulled together pretty well. I don't know to this day if my SAIC > friend understood how coordinated and intimate we all were, because he kept > on predicting gloom and doom for us as the date approached. As it was, > there wasn't even much scurry as the calendar/clocks cranked over Y2K, and > I don't remember any acute problems. We (wanted to?) believed that the > ADP side of the house had no end of problems due to their heavy dependence > on commercial systems/layers/middle-ware/vendors. As I remember it, Y2K > was pretty much a flop everywhere. > > All this in response to "IT is Not Sustainable". I would claim that > virtually NOTHING we build is sustainable... or at least there is a huge > spectrum. Engineering can be incredibly robust within it's design > parameters, but is often incredibly fragile when confronted with a > unexpected conditions... Evolved systems are also simultaneously fragile > and robust. They are robust within the "basins of attraction" implied by > the ecosystem they operate within but once pushed out of those robust > regions they can self-destruct quickly... I've been studying (very loosely) > the myriad examples of species extinction and habitat loss and cascading > failures (in progress and/or impending) in our ecosystems and am appalled > at how unprepared we (humans, engineers, even scientists) are to apprehend > the fragile interconnectedness and "designed for near-optimal-conditions" > we have set up. Not precisely a house of cards, a line of dominos, a > stack of Jenga sticks, but not precisely NOT those either. > > My recent trip to Europe/Scandinavia opened my eyes to some things I was > previously under-aware of. The evolved-engineered systems of polder and > canal and dike and hydrology in the Netherlands is perhaps the most > impressive. Realizing that they started significantly holding back the > north sea during the "little ice age" (dikes and polders had started > earlier, but this was when they really came into their own?) helps me to > appreciate the difference between what they have done there over centuries > vs what our own Army Corps has done in less than 100... and most to the > point, the ways a whole culture can adapt to things including their own > engineering given many generations, but how we "moderns" don't have time to > adapt culturally to the changes. We DO adapt (the talk of telephones and > the earliest examples leading up to a global wireless, > multi-system-technology mesh/grid being an example), but it isn't clear to > me that our adaptation is *deep* enough to be robust... > > Another example in less detail is what has been come to be called "the > Nordic Secret" which is roughly the response of Scandinavia to the > enlightenment followed by the industrial revolution and perhaps most > acutely the post WWII industrial/cultural explosion in the west. In many > ways they follow the rest of the West, but it seems they may actually know > "a secret" about sustainability, both industrially and culturally. > > The "Endogenous Existential Threats" of our time are many/myriad and to > the point... Endogenous... self-generatated... and while we may be taking > down a lot of the biosphere-as-we-know it with us, the biggest tragedy > seems to be set to land ON us, and those closest to us (our domisticates > and the remaining large mammal species)... though that also may simply be > an anthropocentric view. > > As Dave's title says "IT" is not sustainable... you name the "it" and it > very likely has a lamer lifetime than you imagine (my Y2K anecdote > notwithstanding)... > > I WILL say that despite my neo-Luddite rants, I've become more of an > Eco-Modernist of late... not necessarily wanting to trust that we can > "technology" our way out of the disasters we are creating with our > technology, but recognizing that perhaps we have little other choice > (culturally)... and that we must *try* to walk the tightrope of using > "fire to fight fire" but with (perhaps) a lot more self-awareness than that > which we used to paint ourselves into this (mixed metaphor of a) corner. > > </ramble> > > - Steve > > > On 12/26/19 9:08 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > > > "CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) has set a goal to reduce power consumption on its > public switched telephone network by nearly 22,000 megawatt-hours a year, > reducing greenhouse gas emissions as more customers migrate to VoIP and > mobile voice services. > > Although CenturyLink is growing its IP-based voice service, this project > is focused on consolidating more than 400,000 legacy PSTN subscriber lines > across 50 Class 5 voice switches. " > > > They're called class 5 because of 5ESS which is the most used class 5 > switch at CenturyLink. > > Sorry, but I had to clarify this. > > > Frsnk > ----------------------------------- > Frank Wimberly > > My memoir: > https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly > > My scientific publications: > https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 > > Phone (505) 670-9918 > > On Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 8:43 AM Frank Wimberly <wimber...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> June 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message). 5ESS >> used in a mobile telephone network. The 5ESS Switching System is a Class 5 >> telephone electronic switching system developed by ... >> ----------------------------------- >> Frank Wimberly >> >> My memoir: >> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly >> >> My scientific publications: >> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 >> >> Phone (505) 670-9918 >> >> On Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 8:36 AM Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com> >> wrote: >> >>> Frank writes: >>> >>> >>> >>> “This was the telephone network in question.“ >>> >>> >>> >>> With the mobile carriers and VOIP, I wonder how much of that code is >>> still used? I once worked for a small company that wrote software to do >>> billing for long distance telephone carriers. I was amazed by the >>> seemingly arbitrary complexity. Complex at a policy and >>> inter-organizational level, not just the software. >>> >>> >>> >>> Marcus >>> >>> >>> >>> *From: *Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of Frank Wimberly < >>> wimber...@gmail.com> >>> *Reply-To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < >>> friam@redfish.com> >>> *Date: *Thursday, December 26, 2019 at 5:39 AM >>> *To: *The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group < >>> friam@redfish.com> >>> *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] IT is Not Sustainable >>> >>> >>> >>> At Bell Labs we sure didn't pay anyone by LOC. We also had code reviews >>> and software tools to enforce standards and very high pay. With a brand >>> new PhD I made more than all but the 3 most senior members of the CS >>> faculty at Pitt where I was a grad student. This was the telephone network >>> in question. >>> >>> >>> >>> Despite the high pay I disliked software administration methodology. >>> The disagreements between the software tool developers (version control, >>> integration of subsystems, compilers, etc) and the implementors of the >>> applications, such as call processing, were epic. Recall that Bell Labs >>> invented C and Unix. After 18 months I returned to Pittsburgh to work at >>> Carnegie Mellon in Robotics for two thirds the salary. >>> >>> >>> >>> Number 5 ESS was first deployed in March 1982, 4 years after work >>> began. I suspect that it didn't have 200 million lines of code then, but >>> close to it. Maybe Dave doesn't consider it an IT project but many of the >>> software tools that were developed were included in later Unix releases, I >>> believe. >>> >>> >>> >>> It's going to be a beautiful day in Santa Fe. >>> >>> >>> >>> Frank >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ----------------------------------- >>> Frank Wimberly >>> >>> My memoir: >>> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly >>> >>> My scientific publications: >>> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2 >>> >>> Phone (505) 670-9918 >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Dec 26, 2019, 1:28 AM Gary Schiltz <g...@naturesvisualarts.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> Spot on. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Dec 26, 2019 at 2:29 AM Marcus Daniels <mar...@snoutfarm.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> Most programmers won't struggle to rationalize or improve code written >>> by other people. The problem is that people are selfish. They think >>> that their 10K LOC problem is beautiful and nimble, but that 1M LOC was >>> once that too. It's the behavior of teenagers. >>> >>> On 12/25/19, 10:47 PM, "Friam on behalf of Russell Standish" < >>> friam-boun...@redfish.com on behalf of li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote: >>> >>> It's all about the LOC! Actually, I kind of agree - having worked on >>> some MegaLOC codebases that functionally seemed to be no more complex >>> than a 10KLOC project I'm involved in, the 10KLOC project is much >>> more >>> nimble - compile times are far less, making changes to the code >>> easier >>> and bugs less troublesome to winkle out. >>> >>> I've also refactored or rewritten pieces of code to slash the LOC by >>> a >>> factor of 3 or more for that particular section (eg 3KLOC -> 1KLOC) - >>> but usually when bugs and problems kept on cropping up in that >>> section. >>> >>> Even though the LOC is an entirely bogus measurement - if you paid a >>> programmer by LOC, you'd get boilerplate and crappy comments. >>> >>> -- >>> >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> Dr Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) >>> Principal, High Performance Coders >>> Visiting Senior Research Fellow hpco...@hpcoders.com.au >>> Economics, Kingston University http://www.hpcoders.com.au >>> >>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >>> >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>> FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> >>> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >>> >>> ============================================================ >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >>> >> > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
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