🎭 Theatre Writeups, 🛣️ Highway Updates, 📰 Musings on the News, and other 🗯️ Rants and Roadkill Along the Information Superhighway
Just learned that Dennis Ritchie, one of the co-creators of both Unix and C, has died. Arguably, this is someone who had more influence than Steve Jobs; without his work, we wouldn’t have had all the Apple products (many of which are Unix based or written in C), or even the Microsoft products (which I recall are written in C as well).
That should make it three, coming after the death of Steve Jobs and Gene Schultz.
As the digital universe is now aware, Steve Jobs passed today. Although I’m not a Mac person, I do have memories of working on an Apple ][ during my years in the UCLA Computer Club, and using Xenix and the Lisa OS on some of the early Lisa machines at Quadratron, as well as an early Mac during my BLACKER days. A few years ago, I got an iPod, and it has been an extension of me ever since.
Thank you, Steve, for your gifts to our world. The technology, the creativity, the inspiration. You will be missed.
I think parenting these days has gotten extremely lack—at least parenting of politicos and corporate folk. I’m seeing more and more spoiled children behavior out there. Don’t believe me? Here are two examples:
P.S. Speaking of children, the creator of programs that many of us older folk loved as kids has died. Sherwood Schwartz, creator of those thoughtful social explorations about blended families or the behaviors of stranded castaways, is dead at 94.
I’ve recently learned of the death of Bob Morris.
You’re probably going, “Bob who?”. You might know his son Robert Tappan Morris better—he created the first big Internet worm. But Bob is arguably more important. He’s one of the creators of Unix; he’s also a genius in the area of cryptography. I met Bob when he was working at NSA—he was a TRB member, and I often presented to him. I remember him chain-smoking away, asking the occasional insightful question.
We’re losing them one by one… the pioneers of the computer industry. It is the passing of a generation.
The remaining lunch-time links don’t form a unifyable theme, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth following:
From an announcement about the death of Jane Russell:
Russell’s provocative performance in ‘The Outlaw’ — and the studio publicity shots posing her in a low-cut blouse reclined on a stack of hay bales — marked a turning point in moviedom sexuality. She became a bona fide star and a favorite pinup girl of soldiers during World War II. Troops in Korea named two embattled hills in her honor. …
A piece of California history has died—someone who so embodied health that you thought he would live forever. I’m speaking of Jack LaLanne, dead at the age of 96. I remember Jack’s fitness shows, which I seem to recall were on Channel 9. From simple basic calesthenics and good eating, Jack taught that anyone could become and stay fit. If you go to a health club today and use exercise machines, you have Jack to thank. If you watch an exercise video, again, you have Jack to thank. If you like to drink whole fruit juices, that’s Jack again. He was a pioneer in the fitness field, and continued to do feats of strength until just before his death.
Jack, I’ll exercise tomorrow in your memory.
You may have noticed I’ve been obsessed of late with the death of Debbie Friedman, and I’m sure many of you don’t understand why. One remembrance by Rabbi Paul Kipnes put it in a way many will understand: she was the John Lennon of modern Jewish music—someone who changed the face of the genre significantly with her music. Do read her obituary (linked above); there’s a great tribute video here.
But Debbie’s death wasn’t the only one. Here are two more of interest:
The singer was much-married. She wed producer Hubbel Robinson Jr. in 1948; pianist Lou Busch in 1951; John Richard Moore, a founder of Panavision, in 1958. Her most sensational marriage, however, came late in life when she met and married the much-younger, gay porn stay Jack Wrangler in 1994. The union proved her longest. Wrangler reportedly protested, “But I’m gay!,” to which Whiting reportedly replied, “Only around the edges, dear.” He went on to produce and direct many of her cabaret shows. They stayed together until his death in 2009.
