A Memorable Semester

On the day after Christmas, as I drove up to the Comp Sci building emeritus prof Dr. I  drove over to ask how the semester went.

Although a dozen things contented for comment, I chose the word "memorable".

At the end of Christmas day I was able to congratulate myself for not whining on and on about the semester's frustration.  Not a single word.  There wasn't much opportunity.  Nobody asked, hey how was your semester and I didn't prompt the question by asking, "Doesn't anyone want to hear how my semester went?"

Today I told the prof that only one student in my Computer Architecture recognized the name Linus as belonging to Linus Torvald and not Linus from Charlie Brown.  He shook his head and said, "Yeah, they don't know history."

Linus Torvald	Linus van Pelt

I wondered about it during the semester. Was it important? It is unlikely that their lives would be saved, when challenged in a dark alley to identify the person who originated the Linux operating system, but it might be something which would come up in a technical interview. Being unable to identify the person responsible for one of the seismic shifts in computing would be a serious mark on an applicants escutcheon.

Given the opportunity, the next time I teach the class I will probably have a 50 question trivia quiz worth a total of 5 point toward the final just to expose them to tribal legends of Computer Science. Most people with a computer can identify Steve Jobs, but the geeks should recognize "The Woz".  Those students with dreams of entrepreneurship and dreams of entrancing venture capitalists should certainly know the name, Ronald Wayne.  Anyone involved in computer graphics should recognize the name of Playboy’s Miss November 1972, Lena Sjööblom .