Ideas from Mark Stout

Now this is an idea I can get behind. The idea of the person next to me talking on their cell phone during a flight is repulsive.  They likely have to yell to be heard, and the coverage is likely to be spotty and frustrating (more yelling). But texting?  That would be awesome. No yelling. Buffering of messages should coverage be momentarily lost, and people can stay in touch. Heck, I text more than I call now, and I'm a boomer.  X-Gen and Millennials will likely have no issue with this. Delta announced they will offer free in flight texting!

The writer that may have influenced me the most, is one whose books I have never read. Jerry Pournelle has passed away at age 84.  He authored countless sci-fi books.  He is known for writing the first book using a computer; a computer that is now in the Smithsonian. It was his column for Byte Magazine in the 80s that caught my interest. In his monthly Chaos Manor column, he told his tales of woe for that month getting the computers in his home to work properly.  He struggled with early networking, balky printers, buggy software and all the struggles those of us from that era knew all too well. I recall some computer publication wag as saying Apple should send a copy of Chaos Manor to every one in the country.  It showed just how much easier those early Macs were to the PCs of the day running Windows. I still remember Pournelle's Law : check the cables first.  Too often they are the culprit, but often the last thing we check.  My cable tester is m...