Heiser Christmas Letter 2020

“With all due respect, it’s time to start asking what your country can do for you.”

– Ed Markey (D-Mass)

Pandemic Report

We have been blessed to experience minimum disruptions from the pandemic. We just have to be patient and follow common-sense health precautions. Dick has been enjoying webinars, YouTube and audiobooks, along with frequent walks in Kenneth Hahn Park. YouTube recommends an inexhaustible fountain of videos, related to what you’re watching and your viewing history.

The virus has unfrozen many systems, freeing up the possibility of change and growth. “8 Can’t Wait” sent an email urging eight common–sense policies for police–community relations, like banning chokeholds, mandating body cameras and transparent disciplinary records. The next day, they came back, “We apologize! We’re way behind the curve! We need to be much more progressive.” The widespread response to George Floyd’s killing is transformational. Lenin said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Scott Galloway says the virus is an accelerant for trends that have already begun. Of course, some of these trends are harmful, like populism, inequality, guns and outrage.

We are very concerned for the people who have lost jobs, health insurance, childcare, housing and for those who have contracted the virus. We are glad for thoughtful guidance from Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, John Campbell and Derek Lowe. It’s a shame that we can’t quickly test people regularly or wear masks; that would let us get back to business, and save lives.

Gap Year?

Dick’s favorite new commentator, Scott Galloway, inspired Dick to plan his year as if he were a 2020 high school graduate: he plans to take a sabbatical. That’s academic–speak for a gap year. An 18-year-old should consider postponing expensive tuition outlays and hands–on courses for a year or two, accumulating transferable credits online at a community college. Some community colleges can even guarantee transfer to the University of California system for students who follow a careful curriculum (Loretta did this.) Students should ask colleges for additional financial aid.

Dick wants to return to being a docent at the Weisman Foundation when it reopens, but in the meantime, he’s exploring new ideas, reflecting, branching out, thinking about writing something. This is the perfect time to rethink, experiment, grow.

Here’s what David Amkraut had to say in a letter to the editor:

“Rather than being deprived of education because of campus closures, students have been granted a priceless opportunity. Now, they are free from all the problems that afflict government schools: teaching to the test, mediocre textbooks, political correctness and all the rest. Instead, suddenly liberated and with ample time and few amusements, students can drink from the springs of knowledge as deeply and widely as they wish. At their fingertips is the best of literature, history, politics, biography and autobiography, art and science and every useful subject and skill. It’s all available free online or inexpensively. I hope these lucky young people seize their once–in–a–lifetime opportunity.”

Versatility

Here, praise for the story of art forger Wolfgang Bertracchi, who can paint masterpieces in the style of many other artists. His forgeries are not copies, they are new works! His forgeries of Max Ernst and Heinrich Campendonk have been considered superior to authentic works.

Forty years ago, at the Esalen Institute, Dick got to witness Luiz Gasparetto make lightning sketches with both hands at once, in the style of dozens of impressionist and modern artists, by tracing his vivid visualizations.

Talent

There’s an enormous range of abilities in computer programming. Of many remarkable computer programmers Dick has met, three are particularly noteworthy:

Richard Wallman is a bear who lives in the woods. He’s a big guy with a beard. He ran tax preparation operations for Warren Dawson, a Norwalk CPA, on rented mainframe time. They ordered a deluxe version of the Altair personal computer from Dick’s computer store. It was the most extravagant computer we ever sold, with everything, including two terminals and two printers. It took us a long time to build it. We couldn’t deliver it until September, so we expected they would miss the upcoming tax season. Richard took the computer to his cabin in Oregon to port the mainframe tax software to the Altair. But he returned in January with the converted tax software as well as a two–user operating system for the Altair, so that two people could enter data at a time, or print two returns at a time, or a combination. Nobody ever did this until more powerful computers came along. What was his secret sauce? Taxes aren’t about fixed–point numbers or floating–point numbers, they’re strings of digits. Richard wrote routines to add strings and multiply strings which exactly correspond to the numbers that appear on the tax return, so you don’t get confusing results caused by rounding. This was a powerful lesson about getting the data representation right.

On the airport bus at the close of the 1987 National Computer Conference, the driver opened the door for one last–minute passenger, who had a cool new laptop under his arm. He won it that afternoon at the ACM Scholastic Programming Contest. Contestants were given a coding assignment to manipulate a cryptogram. The champ coded his submission in Fortran, a very unusual language choice. It’s bizarre to operate on text with an algebraic language, but even the wrong tool can accomplish amazing things in talented hands. If all you have is a hammer, use it to beat the crap out of obstacles. Bill Gates once said, “you think you’re pretty good, but then you meet someone who’s better, and now you think, ‘now I’m really good,’ and you meet somebody who’s better…”

In 1990, high school senior Ben Weiss produced a report on fractal geometry to win the annual Rockwell Science Fair. He wrote a program that produced fractal images, Julia sets and fractal landscapes. His report was laser–printed and included fifty pages of beautiful code and color photos of the computer screen. The night the Rockwell winners were announced, twenty finalists’ projects were on view, and we roamed around to check the competition. Dick overheard a judge comment confidentially on Ben’s project, “There’s no way the kid could have done this work himself.” But he did. Later, Ben wrote graphics tools, the healing brush tool and Frax, a dynamic fractal explorer app that works so fast, it glides like magic.

Recommendations

Predictive typing by words rather than by letters, is so satisfying; software guesses can seem magical. It makes us aware of how predictable we are. Dick uses Google’s Gboard on his phone.

We have a folder of top–notch fine art on our computer as screensaver, and The Great Wave by Hokusai as desktop. We’re always looking at beauty.

We’re enjoying punditry from Scott Galloway, Fareed Zakaria, Malcolm Gladwell, Yuval Harari, Michael Lewis and David Brooks, and the Netflix dramas The Queen’s Gambit and The Crown.

Now would be a good time to take the nuclear “football” away from the President (any President!) along with launch–on–warning policy. Nobody should have only ten minutes to decide the fate of the world. The Button is a new book by William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina. If you’ll promise to read it, Dick will send you a copy! The authors explain, “The whole concept of sole authority is built on the false assumption that Russia might launch a surprise first strike. The Cold War ended 30 years ago, and we now know that Russia never seriously considered a first strike against the United States, for the same reason that we never seriously considered a first strike against Russia: it would be national suicide.”

We are grateful for good health, leisure and friends, and hope you will be safe and healthy in the coming year!

☮ ☯ Peace & Love! May your 2021 be a better year!