Don’t debug the computer, debug the building

Tuesday, December 27th, 2005
I received this e-mail from the campus computing center:
Faculty/Staff/Students:
Due to fumigation of the computer building, the computer system will be shut down beginning December 23rd through December 26th.  The system will be turned back on on December 27th.   Thank you for your understanding.
I wonder what operating system they are using? No, best not to go there.

Perhaps this is only funny to me because I remember listening to Commodore Grace Hopper explain the process of debugging a computer.

If this makes no sense, but you are still remotely interested in why I would find fumigation and computer debugging funny, click on the link at the end of this post and search for the word "debugging."

Here's a comment I wrote about Grace Hopper, from last year's A-List:
Commodore Grace Hopper - As the mother of modern computing and the first tech evangelist, you remain an inspiration to me. I still miss the elegance of COBOL and how much of an improvement it was to program in common English - even on Hollerith cards. I remember your speeches, your story about the first computer bug, and time I met you in Washington D.C.. I know that if you were alive today, you would be blogging now as prolifically as you spoke then. I still have the nanosecond that you gave me over 20 years ago. It hangs on the wall in my office.

(I hope to blog more about Grace Hopper in the future. Meanwhile, here's an excellent biography of Grace Hopper, by Marianne McKenzie.)

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