IMAGINATIVE E-MAIL (18 april 2006)
You may wonder what the following paragraph means:
That's ain't committing tickets sound millions clown years seems next chanting Needy thought pool pencil brain housewife flew surprise percent poses Mars meant, administering More Checkout serious Attorney mother largest There's package: rapidly Ahead lobby its one-way Says ordered mail smashing told world Bank Want weeks possibly react, passing alumina, Close showed Crash, walls peak museums reloads brought An bit styrofoam cuts outBefore you assume this blogger is even crazier than you'd always assumed him to be, the above lines have been taken from a piece of spam: by adding text that has nothing to do with the message, the spammer tries to make the impression of being a bona fide e-mailer.
This Easter weekend, I found a message in my mailbox with the following content,
Judge Larson explicitly stated, "Eckert and Mauchly did not themselves first invent the automatic electronic digital computer, but instead derived that subject matter from one Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff".That was all; the message contained neither introduction nor subject line, and since at first glance it looked as incoherent as the spam paragraph shown above. I'd almost reported it as spam. But suddenly I realized that this might be a somewhat belated response to a weblog I'd written a few weeks ago that dealt with a book about the invention of the computer ( click).You can believe Mauchly invented it if you want. You can believe in global warming (or cooling, for that matter... that one will probably cycle back around in a few more years). You can believe that the world is flat, that storks bring babies, in Santa Claus and Rudolph, and the Easter Bunny too. Lots of people believe a lot of crap that's simply not true.
Jim Atanasoff (e-mail address not quoted here)
If you're really interested in the truth and not just repeat judge Larson's disputed pronouncement, you could look up the name Atanasoff at Google. And you'd find there is quite some difference of opinion as to the importance of John Atanasoff in the history of computing. For instance, what to think of the fact that Atanasoff's computer did not implement any "branching"? And what is the difference between Atanasoff's machine and other "dedicated" machines built before? Or what to think of the fact that Atanasoff failed miserably when he was given the chance to build the computer he claimed to have invented?
Regular readers of this weblog will know I'm not exactly a champion of firm beliefs. In other weblogs (click, click) I clearly mentioned other parties that claim to have invented the computer.But all this does not stop e-mailer Jim Atanasoff from using his imagination freely and from comparing my doubts to firm belief in storks bringing babies, the close relationship between Santa and his favourite reindeer and - in line with the season - to the Easter bunny.
To somebody with such a huge imagination I would say: "Why not make it into a profession? The way you talk may be far from scientific, but you do have a very imaginative mind!"
