Our First Computer Program Was....

April 9th, what a day, what a day.  Did you know that the father of computer age was born on this day in 1919, no it wasn't Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.  It was John Presper Eckert, Jr. 

 In 1946 Eckert and John W. Mauchly unveiled ENIAC, the first feneral-purpose electronic digital computer.  It weighed 30 tons; filled an entire room; and used some 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, and 10,000 capacitors.  They began the worlk in 1943 at the University of Pennsylvania for the U.S government, and by December 1945 the machine solved the first problem on the U.S. government's mind.   What do you think it was?  Hunger? Environment?  Medicine?  No, it was the f*(king hydrogen bomb.  That's right, that's what the government wanted calculations for to ensure the computer age started with a big prick-sounding bang.  

Statue at Lin Moniang Park in Tainan

Food for thought:  if the U.S. had been a matriarchy society rather than a patriarchy society, do you really think a bomb would have been our first calculation request?  Of course not.  It would have been something like world hunger or polio.  Thank god the age of matriarchy has become.  Speaking of which, April 9th is the day in pagan times that we celebrated the Goddess A-Ma (Matzu).  Yes, the guardian of the sea and protector of all fishermen and sailors.  Altars are dressed with offerings of fresh seafood and flowers; candles are lit and sweets of all kind are presented.

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In the year 2011 the population of Iceland said no for the second time to the International Monetary Fund.

The Fund and the European Union had decided that Iceland's three hundred twenty thousand inhabitants should be liable for the bankruptcy of its bankers, for which each and every Icelander owed a foreign debt of twelve thousand euros.


Such socialism in reverse was rejected in two plebiscites.  "The debt is  not our debt.  Why should we pay it?"

In a world unhinged by the financial crisis, this small island lost in the waters of the North Atlantic offered us all a healthy lesson in common sense.
 (Galeano, Children of the Day)


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"He eats simple fare, but he is a great man."  This is a good proverb that we all should follow.


When you could have walked for a while but instead drove, your legs began to weaken.  In the same way, when we become used to luxuries and the trappings of wealth, we begin to forget simple living and lose our inner joy and peace and freedom.


-- Father Tolstoy