I graduated in 1970 with a bachelors in Industrial and Systems Engineering. I took classes in the late 1960's about how to design controls for everything from machine tools to aircraft and of course automobiles and back then the controls in most cars were fairly standard. Remember the foot switch for high beam headlights? TOUCHING and FEELING the location and shape of a control was an important part of any human/machine interface.

We have come a long way baby -- in the wrong direction. I have looked at new cars several times over the last few years, and would not buy any of them at half the price they are asking.

It is like playing a game of rolling Russian Roulette with all bullets loaded except for one cylinder. There is a fortune to be made for some Tort Attorney out there over this!

I only have one IOT device, which is a security camera. I set up a VPN on my home network that can NOT connect to my regular home network. The Camera talks to the Mother Ship and I can log into it to see the feed or recordings. So far so good.

Darwin among the Machines by George B. Dyson.

Copyright 1997 by George B. Dyson

ISBN 0-7382-0030-1

Due to some really back-ass-ward way of doing date compares in some very old mainframe COBOL programs where I worked we had a real Y2K incident that deleted a large number of "beyond retention date" records that should not have been deleted. This was in the mid 1990's (reasonable given a five or seven year retention period).

Of course we were able to restore from backups and within a few days found the bad date compare and fixed it, but we started looking for other similar code in every other program that was used.

Gave us a real head start on cleaning these up and had no problems at all after the turn of the magic date.

I have been looking for some good quality retro-reflectors (e.g. Corner-Cubes) that are small enough to put along the bottom and top of my windshields. That way at least some of what I am forced to cope with is reflected back to the source.

Negative feedback can cure many problems, but has to be carefully applied.

The current headlights on most on coming traffic are too bright and blinding NOW. Whether they are not aimed correctly or are already on HI beams all the time.

If I could find good quality clear retroreflectors I have thought about putting a line of them on my dash board so that what I am seeing would be reflected back to the source.

Before I mostly gave up driving at night I noticed that when out in a very rural area with no street lights I could see fine on either my LOW or HIGH beams in my 2001 car. It was only on highways WITH street lights, even divided highways, that on coming traffic was constantly blinding me for extended periods.

In 1971 and 1972 F4 aircraft were being directed to targets using LORAN (this was long before GPS) that were located by seismic sensors on the Ho Chi Minh trail under triple jungle canopy in monsoon weather and and the bomb release point was determined autonomously by computer.

I know. I maintained this system until it was discontinued in 1972/p).

I am 77 years old and have filed Federal Tax Returns since my first Job and since I have retired. However, twice in my life time the IRS has declared me DECEASED. Both times they owed me a large refund. The two instances were EXACTLY 7 years apart which is their records retention standards. I am expecting it again in 2025 since that will be another 7 years since the last time. I wonder if I stopped having deductions made or making periodic payments next year whether the results would be any different.

I worked for over twenty years as an analyst and final QA tester for a large system of COBOL programs that ran payroll and other critical systems for an employer with about 90,000 employees. When first turned over to me for final testing I NEVER failed to break a COBOL program the first time I tested it.

I am a 77 year old geek, who did NOT take typing in high school. However, when I started college in engineering I got a portable typewriter and the typing book that was used in the city schools at that time. I practiced some, but not enough to really think I could type. However, I was able to write reports and other papers using all ten fingers on more or less the right keys. I also had to keypunch my programs on two different model keypunch machines and for the PDP-8 lab we used what I think was an ASR 33 TTY for punching our ASCII tapes. This was all between 1965 and 1970

After graduation I enlisted in the Air Force and my first assignment during the Vietnam War was to punch the cards needed to update the data base on the system that monitored sensors along the Ho Chi Minh trail. This was a daily update just before dark and it HAD to be right. I punched and verified every card.

My next assignment found me using both keypunch machines and terminals for a Univac 1108/1110 computer and terminals connected to a DEC PDP-10. For each one of these the keyboards, other than the letter keys, were often very different.

In 1976, after service, I worked for an organization that had both dumb terminals connected to and IBM 360 system, more keypunch machines and a bit latter IBM 3270 green screen terminals for programming.

I was in that last job for several years before my boss even had a hint that I did not touch type. I could WRITE or COMPOSE on any keyboard with very little problems but the one skill I never learned, nor really ever needed, was the ability to transcribe from a document, either hand written or typed, using any of the multiple keyboards that I had to use regularly.

Where I worked in the late 1990's we discovered a "Y2K" problem about five years earlier. Due to some creative programmer deciding to add five years to the current date in order to test for a five year record retention requirement a lot of things happened five years prior to the actual date. This subtle clue gave us the incentive to go over ALL the code in use with a fine tooth comb over the next five years and fix any such issues.

However,Upper Management decided that, on that fateful New Years Day, it would be ALL Hands on Deck regardless of whether they had any direct part in the five year project called Y2K remediation.

By noon on Jan. 1, 2000 it was obvious enough for even managers to realize that the apocalypse had not happened. However, for the first and ONLY time in my career I actually got paid for coming in that day!

When I filed my 2013 taxes I was told I was Deceased and could not file. I was getting a refund so it mattered. It took about a year for me to get it corrected and get my refund WITH NO INTEREST.

Exactly 7 years latter (including 2013) in 2020 when I filed my 2019 taxes I was again declared Deceased. This year was an even larger refund but the IRS was "Closed or COVID" that year. I contacted my local Congressman's office and they worked most of the year to get me the refund, but did not want to pay any interest on the time they thought I was dead. I, and my Congressman's office worked on this for an additional 5 or 6 months before they agreed to pay the interest.

Note the time between the two times I was dead. Seven Years! That matches the retention period for tax records. I suspect that whatever was done in 2020 to "fix" the problem got deleted in 2019. Next year is 2025 and if I live that long I fully expect to have this happen again.

They REALLY need to upgrade their systems.....

I was late in learning to drive a stick shift and now that I am getting much much older I tend to go with my automatic especially when in heavy traffic. However, there have been a number of instances reported in the media of another really nice advantage of having a stick shift.

Most car jacking attempts are by males that are in their teens or early twenties and I really get a good laugh when I see or read of then attempting to car jack a stick shift. Most can not drive them !

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." As a 77 year old retired engineer I had too many times where I not only sympathized with Dilbert but empathized with him. Politicians and Lawyers argue. Mother Nature strictly enforces.

Engineer: "If it's not broken don't try to fix it."

Marketing: "Change everything so we can sell more to people that already have what we sell now."

The "Carl and Jerry" column from the March 1961 issue of Popular Electronics was all about this topic.

I have been wondering if there was any news since then.