Real-life experience #1:

Seven years old.
Breakfast by myself, cold cereal.
Add sugar -- too sweet.
Hmmm...
Add salt -- sweet and salty.
Add more sugar -- still too sweet.
Add more salt -- far too sweet and too salty.
Yuch!  Throw down sink.

Conclusion:  sugar and salt do not cancel each other out.

Fourteen years old.
Junior High Wood Shop.
Rack with about 16 different kinds of handsaws.
Learn their names.
Can't learn their names; they're all saws.
Learn Their Names.
Study; memorize hard.  F.
Learn Their Names.
Study rack; look at saws and names.
Hard; they're still all saws. C-.
Good boy.

Conclusion:  saws are still saws.  (I do remember keyhole saw, though.)

24 years old.
First computer; Exidy Sorcerer II.
David Ahl's BASIC Computer Games.
Customize Hangman using Exidy graphic characters.
Store graphic image in 2-dimensional array.
Don't work -- spacing messed up.
But it's right!
Days go by.  Try this; try that.
Still don't work.
Still right!
Try replacing empty elements with ASCII 32's vice ASCII 0's.
Works!

Conclusions:

1) there is a nothing you can see and is there
2) there is a nothing you cannot see and is there
3) there is a nothing that is not there at all
4) nothings are different

Early thirties.
Try writing magazine articles.
Forth_Dimensions accepts article for publication.  Never published.
Run accepts article for publication.  Pays me!  Never published.
Compute rejects proposed series of articles.

Sends me plane tickets to interview for technical editor or some-such.

Conclusion:  ???  (If you can figure it out, please let me know.)

 Currently:

   I work for DBA Systems, Inc. as a "Staff Scientist".  I program, analyze algorithms, process images, document, and answer technical questions.

   My interests include Forth, image processing, the Amiga computer, science fiction/fantasy, and, still, writing.

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 Bix resumé resurrected by Joanne Dow, Amiga Exchange Editor and Wizardress

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