Really nice walk down memory lane. I remember fidgeting with HyperCard in college. It actually was not released when I got my Mac SE and I had to go back to the campus computer store with a certificate to get the box. It really was the first UI oriented language for the masses, so much it messed up with my mind as I was learning Pascal style programming and this weird notion of resource forks and other minutiae to create a program. So programming was trapped in the realm of the “console” but with HyperCard it was graphical from the beginning. Unfortunately, I had the artistic skills of a rock.
The platform that most makes me think of HyperCard now is not the web but PowerPoint. You can point on objects and they can go to other slides IIRC.
We really haven’t progressed that much more have we?
You are right. I bought (well my parents did) and it came with a complimentary upgrade. We installed the chip and it was great but the driver was not universal so it printed out with a slow stretch so the lines would go downward on the right side. We took it back for tech support and it turned out it was a software issue. My first lesson in debugging goes up the stack. (I was like 13 I think)
The cognitive non-realization seems very similar to Dunning-Krueger, the ability to comprehend the limits of the own ability to change their actions. The compulsives continue to believe they are doing the right thing despite data to the contrary.
OWI has a lot of robot arms. I built the wired controller version of this. As a software engineer building this gave me a lot of appreciation for making physical things. Trying to create a computer controlled version is tricky since you need something to indicate the current position of the arm.
The clover was a magical device. Andy Rubin, of Android/Danger fame, was a huge coffee aficionado and would have all sorts of coffee machinery in the Android offices at Google. When we were in a partnership with the team, when we had to meet if I could help it, it would be at the Android offices just so I could get a cup of clover brewed coffeee. The most satisfying part of the ritual was after the coffee was brewed, the piston would push up the spent grounds to the top of the clover and you would use a rake shaped squeegee to clean the grounds from machine in a motion that resembled tending a zen garden. Aeropress is a rough approximation of the richness of the resulting brew. But it was a delightful machine. Shame Starbucks could not make it more ubiquitous. Bulk filter coffee is just faster. On an unrelated note, I am surprised the author didn’t mention Philz which is pourover using Mr. Coffee style filters. The volume
Of coffee used for a cup a Philz is epic.
I first encountered Lapham in the Notebook column of Harper’s while avoiding studying in the magazine room at Uris Library. often Learned more about understanding the world from his missives than my coursework. He will be missed, the cliche of understanding the past is key to understanding the future was never more true.