Sorry I missed sending yesterday's post, everybody. I don't think that's ever happened before. It was just a really busy weekend, and a very, very long day Monday that began about the time the sun came up and ended just a few minutes before midnight. But you seem to have gotten through your day just fine without me. Good for you.
As for today, well, inventors and engineers have referred to "bugs" in their machinery for more than one hundred years, but the term didn't enter the jargon of computer programmers until 1947, when an actual bug - a moth, to be precise - was found stuck to one of the components in the Mark II unit at Harvard.
The engineers pulled it out and taped it to their log book, noting it was the first case of an actual bug being found. Very shortly after that the terms "bug" and "debugging" became standard programmer lingo.
A photo of the bug in the logbook can be found at the National Museum of American History.
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HOW TO SURVIVE WITHOUT THE INTERNET
Read what's in your mailbox, not your Inbox.
Go to the drugstore. Apparently they still publish something called magazines.
Write a letter to the National Bank of Kenya and ask if there are any unclaimed million-dollar accounts owned by people sharing your last name.
Go to the grocery store and fill your shopping cart with cans of Spam.
Carry a keyboard with you so instead of having to talk to people face-to-face, you can pretend you're instant messaging them.
If your Wi-Fi doesn't work, try actually talking to your Wi-Fe.
Look, just have a pizza. You can order one from the pizza parlor's websi---oh, wait. Well, just call them. You can get their number from Goog--oh, uh, never mind.
[with thanks to Chris White's Top Five for the Internet; edits by Mark Raymond]
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WORDS for YOUR WEEK: "The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble usually shoots back." (Author Unknown)
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Mark's Musings is usually sent every weekday via email. Download your own bug-free subscription by clicking here.
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