[ale] Missing photo

Fri Oct 1 12:32:44 EDT 2021

Leam,

By the way, I have been meeting a lot of people of "a certain age" lately who started learning computers while in uniform.

One lady, who is now a senior librarian in Indiana, started by being trained to be an operator, then a programmer, then the head of a large data center in the Navy.

She, like I, got to meet Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper "back in the day".

The computer industry had a lot of computer people introduced to computers through the armed forces.

Warmest regards,

maddog
> On 09/27/2021 7:04 PM Leam Hall <leamhall at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>  
> maddog,
> 
> Hall is my last name too, hence my pleasure at seeing your work in print. I made a few LWs at Javits, but only because I lived in the Philly/Princeton area at the time. I've been a lackey-level Linux/Open Source guy for a while; ghost wrote part of one book, did technical review on some others. Nothing as good as what you've done.
> 
> For a long stretch of time I signed my name with all lowercase, for a mildly similar reason. I wanted to wrangle my ego into submission, and used the lowercase to remind me to value others more and self less. It took me a long time to find my niche; the other (usually smarter and younger) folks had done CS in college. I learned vacuum tubes and worked on five bit code machines while wearing a uniform, and had to spend scarce extra money on O'Reilly books.
> 
> Leam
> 
> 
> On 9/27/21 3:42 PM, jon.maddog.hall at gmail.com wrote:
> > Leam,
> > 
> > Actually "Hall" is my last name.  "maddog" (always all lower case, even at the beginning of a sentence) is a nickname, and typically used all by itself.   I keep it just to remind myself not to lose my temper....although I admit that it gets harder and harder to remember not to lose my temper.
> > 
> > I am fairly sure that we have met.  Your first name is very familiar and in the early days of Linuxworld I was fairly prominent in helping IDG put it together.   I was at all the Linuxwords.  Santa Clara, San Jose, Moscone and (on the East Coast) Javits.
> > 
> > I was also to a lot (if not all) of the Atlanta Linux Showcase events (including the disastrous one in Oakland, California that was a month or so after September 11, 2001) and the Linux Expos that were in Raleigh.
> > 
> > And in all of those I am happy to say I never had to wear a Tuxedo.
> > 
> > As a side note, in the early days of computer tradeshows everyone showed up at the booths in business suits (male and female).   Standing for hours on the show floor in uncomfortable clothing and shoes was brutal.  The venues sometimes offered padding underneath the carpeting to help the marketing and engineering people staffing the booth....but of course that was "extra" and many booths did not have it.
> > 
> > As shows like Uniforum started to specialize in Unix, I tried to convince our marketing people that "No one trusts a person in a suit to know anything technical", but they INSISTED that everyone dress up in suits.   And this was true of every company, including Sun.  Even as the customers (and particularly in Silicon Valley) came dressed in t-shirts, shorts and sandals.
> > 
> > Then one event the people from IBM came in dressed in with embroidered golf shirts, slacks and comfortable shoes.
> > 
> > At the next event ALL of the booths had people dressed in golf shirts, slacks and comfortable shows.....because (after all) if *IBM* does it, then it MUST be ok!
> > 
> > md
> >> On 09/27/2021 1:58 PM Leam Hall via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>   
> >> On 9/27/21 12:07 PM, jon.maddog.hall--- via Ale wrote:
> >>
> >> ... < some cool stuff >...
> >>
> >>
> >> To which I reply:
> >>
> >> I remember flipping through the LJ pages and thinking "maddog? Great last name, I wonder if I'll ever meet him?" Not sure we ever met, though we might have passed by each other in one of the few LinuxWorlds I attended before the suits took over.
> >>
> >> Thank you for a lot of good information over the years!
> >>
> >> Leam
> >>
> >> -- 
> >> Systems Programmer         (reuel.net/resume)
> >> Scribe: The Domici War     (domiciwar.net)
> >> General Ne'er-do-well      (github.com/LeamHall)
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> 
> -- 
> Systems Programmer         (reuel.net/resume)
> Scribe: The Domici War     (domiciwar.net)
> General Ne'er-do-well      (github.com/LeamHall)