Meta 45

Meta.  Today it's been 45 years since the 24 February 1981 birth of Trvth.  I reflected on this a bit at the 40-year mark here.

I noted then that on 22 July 2019 I had counted 5450ish published Trvth entries.  Since that 2019 date another 1697 have been published, for a grand(?) total today, 24 February 2026, of 7147ish.

The most recent 4753 are all available at trvth.org beginning 3 March 2005 (more than 20 years on the Interwebs)

And, for your amusement, I present from the archives the original Trvth:

***** appearances ~appleman / chanute ~2/24/1981 ~13:50

While nothing may seem to be as it first appears, there
are in fact some things which appear to be as they are,
amidst the other things which only appear to be as they
aren't.

Illinois 5K

Today I ran the Illinois 5K as part of the Christie Clinic Illinois Marathon 2025 Race Weekend, alongside Mark Trott (one-time /afrotc on CERL PLATO).  Not a lot of preparation ahead of time, so our time was unremarkable, but it was a fun run.  

Memory Lane

Today I had the pleasure and honor of spending a couple of hours over lunch at Papa Del's with some old PLATO folks.  I hope it sparks warm memories when I name drop Josh Paley, Steve Peltz, Susan Wrightson, G. David Frye, Ray Thomsen, Quentin Barnes, and James Quisenberry. 

There was reminiscing, with tales of Dr Bitzer and CERL PLATO.  And there was catching up with past lives, current activities, and future plans.  Many familiar names were mentioned.  A get-together like we had today reminds me of just how many smart people were drawn to PLATO.  It's an amazing community.

RIP Dr Don Bitzer

I just learned an hour ago that yesterday [10 December 2024], Don Bitzer, creator of the PLATO system, and friend to us all, passed away at age 90 in North Carolina.

I'm at a loss for words at the moment and can't think of much to say that I didn't say in my book, which, in hindsight, may kinda sorta be the closest attempt at a biography of Don, but I will say that I never ever met a more generous, supportive, enthusiastic person in the world.  He and his wife Maryann, who passed away in 2022, were incredibly generous.

He was an inspiration to us all, and to the world, which he made a better place.

-- Brian Dear, author of "The Friendly Orange Glow", announcing the passing of Dr Donald L Bitzer

[Meta - I got my start in computing through the good graces of Dr Bitzer in March 1974, and it led to my lifelong career.  And of course "trvth" itself originated on the University of Illinois PLATO system in notesfile =pad in February 1981, and has always been maintained on some PLATO system, somewhere.  Currently these posts are hosted in notesfile =pad on the "cyber1" CYBIS system (more info at cyber1.org).]

Analyze

You cannot analyze data you don't collect.

-- Don Appleman, while working for NovaNET a few decades ago, and occasionally since, on the subject of how much data (usually on work done and throughput) should be collected by software

Bookends

Back in 2001, I was in my 8th year of working for NovaNET, the descendant of CERL PLATO.  Each year the company hosted a national gathering of its customers and employees in Phoenix.  As a long-time Cardinals baseball fan, I noted that the Cardinals would play the Arizona Diamondbacks, in Phoenix, during the conference.  I bought a ticket for the Diamondbacks home opener, Friday April 6th 2001.  

At the game that night, the Cardinals fielded a much-heralded rookie right fielder (later first baseman) by the name of Albert Pujols, who, at 21 years old, was playing in what I think was just his third MLB game.  In the 4th inning, facing Armando Reynoso on a count of 1 ball and 2 strikes, Albert Pujols hit his first career home run, a 2-run shot that tied the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUvUUQfYdRo

Fast forward to this weekend, and my daughter (who was 2 when that first home run was hit) treated me to a Labor Day Sunday game at Busch Stadium, as the Cardinals faced their arch-rival Cubs.  The game started more than an hour late due to rain, and it drizzled off and on, but it was well worth it.  Albert Pujols didn't start the game, but in the bottom of the 8th inning of a scoreless game, he emerged from the dugout to hit a pinch-hit, 2-run home run, and the Cardinals went on to win 2-0.  It was Pujols' 695th career home run as he aims for 700 before retiring at the end of this season.  There's a lifetime between those 2 home runs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqcLl9QSJgU

This post made possible by my daughter.  Thanks, kid!

Jeopardy W00t!

Props to Eric Ahasic, the current Jeopardy champion who has accrued $133,801 in winnings in his first five days on the show.  He will try to continue his streak next week.  He is the son of friend and former co-worker Tom Ahasic.

Meta 40

Meta.  It occurred to me the other day that the 40th anniversary of the first Trvth note (on the CERL PLATO system, while I was working as a GS-9 Programmer for the Department of Defense at Chanute Air Force Base, Rantoul, IL (3330th Tech Training Wing)) was at hand.  I recollected it being May 1981, but a check of the archives shows a February 1981 entry as the first.

Anyway, 40 years.  In July 2019 I counted 5450 ish published, and it's been about 500 more since then, so now 6000 ish published.  The most recent 3500 ish (with titles that aren't "trvth", and images for each) are at trvth.org

***** appearances ~appleman / chanute ~2/24/1981 ~13:50
While nothing may seem to be as it first appears, there
are in fact some things which appear to be as they are,
amidst the other things which only appear to be as they
aren't.

Plot Twist

Since turning 60 a couple of years ago I've had a retirement plan targeted at age 68, six years from now, retiring with 16 years pension credit at the University of Illinois, on top of 26 years of existing credit with Social Security.  The university has been hit hard by costs related to the pandemic, and they're aiming to cut long-term employees with a cash incentive for those already eligible to retire.  As it happens, I'm eligible to repurchase 4 years pension credit from past employment at the Beckman Institute, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and 40 years ago when I worked on the PLATO computer system.  For me, the incentive is pretty much the same as the cost to repurchase that pension credit.  By retiring and taking my pension now, I'll be making more in 6 years than if I waited and retired in 6 years.

As a result of this arithmetic, I will be retiring from the university on July 1st of this year, at age 62.  I'll need to make some money to supplement my retirement, and to delay taking Social Security for a while.  Over the next 6 years, I plan to greatly expand my martial arts practice in Monticello.  I didn't expect an opportunity to reinvent myself at this point in my life, but I'm happy to give it a try.

Today is my birthday, and my last day, June 30th, is 8 weeks from today.

Meta

Today's meta-trvth, from a response I wrote to a "trvth" note on cyber1, after I mentioned that I had 3050 Trvth's published here at trvth.org:


pad/cyber1 7/22/19  9:40pm don appleman/cerl/cyber1

According to my records, there were about 4700 published
Trvth notes in the archives that I saved the day NovaNET 
was decommissioned.  Of those, 2300 were published at
trvth.org, so about 2400 were present on NovaNET prior to
trvth.org.

So, 3050 + 2400, around 5450 ish published?

There were also about 2400 unpublished potential-trvth's
on the NovaNET system which are also archived, and not
counted in the above totals.

It takes 20 years to get 5000 weekdays, but this journey
started in 1981.

Orange Glow

Orange dots beckon.  They welcome with temptation, power, and promise.  All 262,000 of them reach out with their unearthly glow.

-- P. Gregory Springer, as quoted in Brian Dear's "The Friendly Orange Glow -- The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture", released 14 November 2017