Podcasts about UNIVAC

Bilgisayar... Tüm dünyayı baştan aşağı değiştiren bir icat. Belki de tarihin en önemli kesiflerinde biri. Fakat bu devrim bir anda olmadı elbette. Basit bir hesap yapma aracından, yapay zekaya kadar uzanan bu serüven, insanlığın kendini aşma çabasının da hikayesiydi aslında. Hiçbir Şey Tesadüf Değil'de bu teknolojik devrimin arka planına odaklanıyoruz. İki bölümden oluşacak mini bu mini serinin ilk ayağındaysa, hayatımızı değiştiren bu teknolojiyi en ilkel günlerinden itibaren incelemeye çalışıyoruz.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

3-Minute Warning w/ univac, dAs + pxe...audio / playlisthttp://feeds.feedburner.com/RadioTroubleArchives

2-hours of live improvised experimental radio sound-art broadcast live from the Chakra Chimp Research Kitchens of Northern California-land.  UB Radio Salon #872 - Netcast on DFM Radio TV International (www.dfm.nu)  DFM RTV INT • 29 SEPTEMBER 2024 • The Fourth Sunday Players present: “RAVE....This item belongs to: audio/ubradio_salon.This item has files of the following types: AIFF, Archive BitTorrent, Columbia Peaks, Item Tile, JPEG, JPEG Thumb, Metadata, PNG, Spectrogram, VBR MP3

3-MINUTE WARNING! (univac, pxe & dAS)audio / playlisthttp://feeds.feedburner.com/RadioTroubleArchives

2-hours of live improvised experimental radio sound-art broadcast live from the Chakra Chimp Research Kitchens of Northern California-land.  UB Radio Salon #853 - The Night (Alone) Part 3 featuring the Fourth Sunday Players: univac, Austin Rich, dAs, pxe....This item belongs to: audio/ubradio_salon.This item has files of the following types: AIFF, Archive BitTorrent, Columbia Peaks, Item Tile, JPEG, JPEG Thumb, Metadata, PNG, Spectrogram, VBR MP3

Each week on ‘The Returns,' we pull a different episode from our archive to put our present politics into historical context. The election of 1952 brought all kinds of new technology into the political sphere. The Eisenhower campaign experimented with the first television ads to feature an American presidential candidate. And on election night, CBS News premiered the first computer to predict an American election — the UNIVAC. Safe to say, that part didn't go according to plan. But election night 1952 is ground zero for our current, political post-truth moment. If a computer and a targeted advertisement can both use heaps of data to predict every citizen's every decision, can voters really know things for themselves after all? This episode first ran in the summer of 2020.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

2-hours of live improvised experimental radio sound-art broadcast live from the Chakra Chimp Research Kitchens of Northern California-land.  UB Radio Salon #837 -  The Fourth Sunday Players with Austin Rich & univac (remote), pxe and dAs.  Netcast on DFM Radio TV International (www.dfm.nu)  D....This item belongs to: audio/ubradio_salon.This item has files of the following types: AIFF, Archive BitTorrent, Columbia Peaks, Item Tile, JPEG, JPEG Thumb, Metadata, PNG, Spectrogram, VBR MP3

UB Radio Salon #837 – The 4th Sunday Players w/ Austin Rich & univac (remote)… 28 January, 2024 on DFM.nu Featuring a performance by The Fourth Sunday Players. Enjoy! https://ia601306.us.archive.org/19/items/ubradio_salon837/ubradio_salon837.mp3

La irrupción de la Informática en la historia humana ha sido sin duda un hito trascendental, transformando radicalmente la manera en que vivimos, trabajamos y nos comunicamos. Desde los modestos inicios hasta la era actual de la inteligencia artificial, la Informática ha impulsado avances revolucionarios redefiniendo nuestra comprensión del mundo y consolidándose como la columna vertebral tecnológica de la sociedad moderna. Su impacto perdurable se refleja en cada una de las facetas de nuestras vidas, desde la Ciencia y la industria hasta la cultura y el entretenimiento. Sin duda, se trata de una de las grandes revoluciones de la historia humana. En este primer programa que dedicamos a la Historia de la Informática hablamos de los orígenes difusos, al principio del S-XIX, hasta la llegada en 1951 del UNIVAC, la primera Computadora comercial que sin duda supuso un antes y un después, Todo ello de la mano de Javier Palanca, Gustavo Aranda y Damián López. Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Giving Everything For X-Mas (by univac & Austin) Austin's Annual Holiday Program For Mid-Valley Mutations takes an unusual turn, as he desperately tries out something new, in an effort to make his show the best in the tri-county area. It's a Holiday Horror Story, written by univac and Austin! Guest voices! Music! And a story … Continue reading Giving Everything For X-Mas (by univac & Austin)

2-hours of live improvised experimental radio sound-art broadcast live from the Chakra Chimp Research Kitchens of Northern California-land.  UB Radio Salon #828 -  Novem-Drone II w/ univac & Austin Rich (The 4th Sunday Players)...  Netcast on DFM Radio TV International (www.dfm.nu)  DFM RTV I....This item belongs to: audio/ubradio_salon.This item has files of the following types: AIFF, Archive BitTorrent, Columbia Peaks, Item Tile, JPEG, JPEG Thumb, Metadata, PNG, Spectrogram, VBR MP3

UB Radio Salon #828 – Novem-Drone II w/ univac & Austin Rich… 26 November 2023 on DFM.nu Enjoy! https://ia800503.us.archive.org/28/items/ubradio_salon828/ubradio_salon828.mp3

This Halloween episode is packed with chilling tales and thought-provoking discussions. We're thrilled to have Nick Espinosa, join us to shed light on some spooky tech topics. From the ghostly existence of  UNIVAC's early computers to Elon Musk's ambitious plans to oust cash, we've got plenty of intriguing corners of the tech world to explore.We also put the spotlight on some sobering realities in our digital age. The misuse of facial recognition technology, data breaches posing threats to national security, and the potential fallout of digital identities. With important entities like the UK Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense falling victim to breaches, we try to underscore the gravity of these issues and why they should concern us. Our whiskey of the week is a treat waiting to be discovered - will it get two thumbs up? We also dive into the quirky history of National Doorbell Day, the haunted Buffalo Trace Distillery, and more.  Plus, we take a trip down memory lane, revisiting tech failures - the HD DVD, 3D TV, Blackberry, Amazon Fire Phone, and 8 Tracks.Episode 177: Starts at 1:28 Welcome to TechTime Radio's 2023 Halloween Edition! With our special guest Nick Espinosa, who will help us explore the spooky side of technology. Our theme for today is much like "Five Nights at Freddie's," with scary mechanical robots taking over not just a pizzeria but the world. We will discuss some of the most spine-chilling topics in the tech world. First up, we will explore whether AI is Frankenstein's monster or just the introduction to Skynet. We will also discuss whether UNIVAC's ghost still haunts old computer labs, as one of the earliest computers ever built was considered the scariest predictor of future events. Additionally, we will be talking about the Zombie Internet, Elon Musk's attempt to get rid of cash, and vampire hackers who are sucking money from businesses and governments.TechTime Radio with Nathan Mumm, the show that makes you go "Hmmm" Technology news of the week for October 29th  – November 4th, 2023--- [Now on Today's Show]: Starts at 4:10--- [Top Stories in Technology]: Starts at 5:32Sam Bankman-Fried Denies Knowing FTX Money Was Missing, as he concludes his testimony - https://tinyurl.com/3syefn8f Universal Orlando Resort Tests Facial Recognition Technology for Guest Entry - https://tinyurl.com/mrxbwrmm Elon Musk gives X employees one year to replace their bank accounts - https://tinyurl.com/2p4bzrrx --- [Pick of the Day - Whiskey Tasting Reveal]: Starts at 21:43Colonel E.H. Taylor, Jr. Single Barrel | 100 Proof| $70 MSRP--- [Ask the Expert - Nick Espinosa]:  Starts at 25:01Nick talks about his three most scary technology breaches of the year in our Halloween Special.--- [This Week in Technology]: Starts at 40:17November 4, 1952 - UNIVAC Computer Predicts Presidential Election--- [Marc's Whiskey Mumble]: Starts at 43:14Marc Gregoire's review of this week's whiskey--- [Technology Fail of the Week]: Starts at 47:32This week's “Technology Fail” comes to us from The Technology Graveyard: With 5 Hunting Failures whose ghosts still haunt us today.--- [Mike's Mesmerizing Moment brought to us by StoriCoffee®]: Starts at 51:10Question: What was the scariest story of the year?--- [Nathan Nugget]: Starts at 53:34ZOMBIE Internet – The best two Wi-Fi Routers for 2023.--- [Pick of the Day Whiskey Review]: Starts at 54:41Colonel E.H. Taylor, Jr. Single Barrel | 100 Proof| $70 MSRPMike: Thumbs DownNathan: Thumbs Down

50s: Constancy, GI Bill, Levittown, Sputnik, Korean War, Univac, DNA discovered, Joe McCarthy, Hungarian uprising, Montgomery bus boycott 60s: Kennedys shot, King shot, Woodstock, the Beatles, Watts riot and cities burn, Cuban missile crisis, Viet Nam, Bay of Pigs, first televised presidential debate, USSR had hydrogen bomb 70s: Kent State shootings, Watergate, Nixon and Agnew resign, Mars landing, Viet Nam ends, gay liberation movement 80s: CNN begins, Iranian hostages released, Falklands war, Sandra Day O'Connor first female on Supreme Court, Sally Ride first woman astronaut, Challenger explodes, Macintosh computer, Cold War ends with Reagan/Gorbachev, Berlin Wall falls, intense materialism and consumerism, MTV emerges 90s: LA riots, Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine shootings, Persian Gulf War, TWA flight 800 is blown up, relative peace and prosperity, end of USSR, rise of the Internet, Dow Jones clears 2,900 for first time 00s: Al-Qaeda attacks world trade center and Pentagon 9/11, Department of Homeland Security established, invasion of Iraq, Nancy Pelosi first woman Speaker, Michael Jackson dies, economic collapse, Y2K a flop, Barack Obama first black president immediately receives Nobel Peace Prize, Great Recession, Tesla launched 10s: Black Lives Matter, Brexit, occupy Wall Street, launch of the iPhone 4, Trump elected, natural disasters, Boston Marathon bombing, LGBTQ, Ebola, Prince dies We've come from a period of constancy to a period of continuing turmoil; from privacy to omnipresent publishing and exposure; from civility to rudeness and aggression; from support for the law to defund the police; and from respect for institutions to near-anarchy. This is not merely the changing of generations or progress or evolution of thought. It is a decline and declivity into amazing self-absorption, disdain for differing opinions, and really a wallowing in ignorance. Our primary institutions of the conveyance of values have all decayed: the schools, organized religion, the intact household, statesmanship. Is this a natural sign of the times, or more like the old trope that the first generation founds a business, the second modernizes and expands it, and the third, having no such hunger, runs it into the ground? The US is about 240 years old, which is one-thousandth of one present of the tenure of the dinosaurs on earth. They were erased by space junk, or they'd still be here. Will we be erased by junking our values?

There's still more to talk about with the UFO's.  I'm kinda pissed because I see this all over the news and stuff now and I hate even resembling those mainstream followers.  And they're following me!!!  This is like ChatGPT all over again.  Oh well.On this one there's really no old songs but I talk incessantly. It's like I'm getting paid by the syllable!!  There's an instrumental Univac song.  That's in there.  To be honest, sometimes it's like an endurance test writing, recording and mixing these shows but it makes we wonder.  It makes me wonder if I'm not just driving myself mad, and if I am, why do I enjoy it so much?Support the showhunchbunny.com

Grace Hopper was a Navy officer, a teacher, a computer programmer and a legend in the tech field. We look back on her life and achievements.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

UB Radio Salon #802 – The 4th Sunday Players: REUNION (w/ Austin Rich + Univac) • 28 May 2023 on DFM.nu Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon802/ubradio_salon802.mp3  

For those of you who didn't read the title, this is the second episode of the trilogy!!  I almost wrote thrillogy, which would've been a typo but this episode is a thrill ride of sorts.  Not only do we look deeper into the world of John Cage and the "70s version" of the TV Show Match Game but we hear songs from Univac that were heretofore unheard of, except at the time of the recording.  But almost immediately after that it was like they never existed.  It should be noted, John Cage was never on Match Game but Marvin Hamlisch was, so we'll call it even.547 DaysWelcome to 547 Days, the podcast that gives you an inside look at two musicians...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showhunchbunny.com

(Reupload From 2019) Episode 198: The Life & Times Of John McAfee John McAfee is a world-renown computer scientist, activist, business leader, and cryptocurrency evangelist. McAfee's career spans nearly the entire history of computing, with McAfee working for industry giants like Xerox, NASA, Univac, and Lockheed Martin. In 1987 he founded McAfee Antivirus, and under his leadership, the company executed a meteoric rise to the top of the computer security industry. Always at the cutting edge, McAfee now applies his passion, energy, and vision to evangelizing blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption. Speaking to a massive audience, McAfee's tweets have earned the reputation of moving entire markets. McAfee uses this reach to encourage individuals to look beyond investing at all of the positive social change made possible by the blockchain. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michaeldecon/support

Many years ago I purchased a vintage "tape recorder" at a second hand store.  In it was an old cassette tape that someone had forgotten to take out.  It was a tape of four people working on a skit or a play or something where they were acting out a scene.  They must have taped it so they could write down their ideas, or remember them.  Who knows?  Either way, I play segments from that tape on this show!!  I also have a bunch of recordings that I came across including these weird 4 track tapes that had all these retuned guitar compositions on them.  I threw that in there too along with some Univac and Medalo Bops.  I can't even think about all the entertainment packed up in this episode without getting super excited to listen to it.  Why fight it?  I'm going to listen to it right now.  Let's go!Curiously Specific Playlists Paul Bratsch and Josh Franke create custom music playlists for those unique situations...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showhunchbunny.com

Prolific Irish producer Autumns explores elements of dub + sonic experimentation in his music. His guest mix explores that dub side, w/ cuts from The Prince Stoner, Lee Scratch Perry, Steel Leg, Scientist, General Strike, A Certain Ratio, The Fall, and to close, a few of his new tracks. With music from The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion + Techno Animal. Norwegian noise artist Lasse Marhaug. German dread bass don Christoph de Babalon. The insane metal of Zeal + Ardor. Rolling dubweight/tech from Facta, + Notte Infinitia. New LCY, Univac, Deathbed Tapes, Ian Nyquist, and Echaskech. As well as Reeko, Regis' CUB, Fret, FFT, and Natural Sciences. Episode playlist - https://darkfloor.co.uk/mantisradio349 Support us - https://patreon.com/mantisradio

This week Leo Dion joins Tim to discuss his career as Server-Side Swift developer, speaker and podcaster. They discuss some computer and development history, the future of Twitter, as well as, the upcoming Reality Pro AR/VR headset rumoured to be coming from Apple. Leo makes gets an early start on the best sandwich. Special Guest: Leo Dion.

UBRadio Salon #785 – DFM netcast 29 Jan 2023 – The 5th SundAI with univac, austin, pxe, dAs + special guest Mike Dringenberg Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon785/ubradio_salon785.mp3  

paypal.me/LibroTobias Esta semana en nuestra “Sección principal” prosigo con el repaso, a lo largo de toda la temporada, de la saga “La torre oscura” de Stephen King. En este cuarto programa de literatura hablamos de “La Torre Oscura IV: Mago y Cristal”, que hace un alto en el camino hacia la torre para hablarnos del pasado de Roland. Además en nuestra sección “El callejón oscuro” os traigo a Lam Kor-wan, uno de los 2 únicos asesinos en serie que se conocen de Hong Kong. Apodado como "el asesino de los contenedores", mataba a mujeres a las que desmembraba para guardar los órganos reproductivos femeninos en distintos Tupperwares. Finalmente en la sección “¿Qué fue de?” esta semana os hablo de Grace Murray Hopper, una matemática y militar estadounidense, primera programadora que usó el Mark I y desarrolló el primer compilador en 1952 y los lenguajes de programación Flow-Matic (1957) y COBOL (1959-1961) instalados en UNIVAC, primer ordenador comercial. Link a la lista de canciones que aparecen en la novela “Christine” de Stephen King creada por nuestro amigo Víctor Trabadelo: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7lQl3tB7M54tvqCs9E7ovz?si=E-xH6El5RuWQwveJtjIWRw&utm_source=native-share-menu&nd=1 Tiempos: Sección principal: del 00:05:00 al 01:50:40 Sección “El callejón oscuro”: del 01:50:41 al 02:32:19 Sección “¿Qué fue de?”: del 02:32:20 al 03:14:14 Presentación, dirección, edición y montaje: Asier Menéndez Marín Diseño logo Podcast: albacanodesigns (Alba Cano) Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Like in flour and lumber milling, Minnesota companies once dominated the field of supercomputing. Firms like Univac, Control Data and Cray Research built some of the fastest computers in the world. But their success didn't last, despite the growth of the computer industry overall. Evan Ramstad joins host Eric Roper to discuss the origins of these companies, and why they faded from the spotlight. LINKS: Minnesota companies once dominated the supercomputer industry. What happened? (November 2022 Curious Minnesota story)

En este episodio entrevistamos a Iñaki Torre Fica y Nicholas Saunders, miembros de la Escuela de Doblaje de Canciones y autores del Manual de traducción y adaptación de canciones para doblaje y teatro musical (2022). En los «Minutos divulgativos», hablamos con Blanca del nuevo proyecto de investigación UnivAc que trata sobre la accesibilidad en la universidad. En el «Laboratorio audiovisual», Damián nos presenta Internet Download Manager para descarga de videos y subtítulos en la web.Ooona La mejor herramienta en línea para crear, traducir y editar subtítulos y closed captions. Consulta el episodio subtitulado en nuestro canal de Youtube.En sincronía by Damián Santilli, Blanca Arias Badia & Guillermo Parra is licensed under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional License: https://bit.ly/3jXTwjB

UBRadio Salon #779 – DFM netcast 18 Dec 2022 – TAPE… with austin, univac, dAs and pxe on DFM.nu Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon779/ubradio_salon779.mp3

UBRadio Salon #776 – DFM netcast 28 Nov 2022 – NOVEM-DRONE with univac & Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon776/ubradio_salon776.mp3    

No episódio 1, o UNIVAC acertou a previsão de que Eisenhower ganharia as eleições de 1952. Na Filadélfia, a empresa celebra seu sucesso e uma ressaca de champanhe toma conta do edifício Remington Rand. Mas na IBM, uma empresa que não permite que seus funcionários bebam, eles trabalham furiosamente. E Watson Jr está pronto para lançar o 701 no mercado em poucos meses. Visitar o 701 logo será uma das grandes atrações da cidade, e os Watsons e a IBM estão satisfeitos. Eles sentem os motores da IBM acelerando de novo. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

O que significa uma participação de mercado de 16% quando o público pensa que você tem mais? Um possível processo antitruste, se você for a IBM.Watson Junior vê um possível processo como uma forma de sair do controle do pai. Watson pai vê sua empresa esfarelando nas mãos de um garoto que não consegue lidar com isso. Mas quando o processo antitruste acontece em 1952, Junior está no comando. Ele realmente pode dar conta do negócio que tanto quis?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

UBRadio Salon #771 – DFM netcast 23 Oct 2022 – OWNN Upgrades & Repairs with univac, Austin Rich & Crendeena Portsmith on DFM.nu Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon771/ubradio_salon771.mp3  

Dassler shoes was started by Adolf Dassler in 1924 in Germany, after he came home from World War I. His brother Rudolph joined him. They made athletic shoes and developed spikes to go on the bottom of the shoes. By 1936, they convinced Jesse Owens to wear their shoes on the way to his gold medals. Some of the American troops who liked the shoes during World War II helped spread the word. The brothers had a falling out soon after the war was over. Adolph founded Adidas while Rudolph created a rival shoe company called Puma. This was just in time for the advertising industry to convince people that if they bought athletic shoes that they would instantly be, er, athletic. The two companies became a part of an ad-driven identity that persists to this day. One most who buy the products advertised hardly understand themselves. A national identity involves concentric circles of understanding. The larger a nation, the more concentric circles and the harder it is to nail down exactly who has what identity. Part of this is that people spend less time thinking about who they are and more time being told who they should want to be like. Woven into the message of who a person should be is a bunch of products that a person has to buy to become the ideal. That's called advertising.  James White founded the first modern advertising agency called ‘R. F. White & Son' in Warwick Square, London in 1800. The industry evolved over the next hundred or so years as more plentiful supplies led to competition and so more of a need to advertise goods. Increasingly popular newspapers from better printing presses turned out a great place to advertise. The growth of industrialism meant there were plenty of goods and so competition between those who manufactured or trafficked those goods. The more efficient the machines of industry became, the more the advertising industry helped sell what the world might not yet know it needed. Many of those agencies settled into Madison Avenue in New York as balances of global power shifted and so by the end of World War II, Madison Avenue became a synonym for advertising. Many now-iconic brands were born in this era. Manufacturers and distributors weren't the only ones to use advertising. People put out ads to find loves in personals and by the 1950s advertising even began to find its way into politics. Iconic politicians could be created.  Dwight D Eisenhower served as the United States president from 1953 to 1961. He oversaw the liberation of Northern Africa in World War II, before he took command to plan the invasion of Normandy on D Day. He was almost universally held as a war hero in the United States. He had not held public office but the ad men of Madison Avenue were able to craft messages that put him into the White House. Messages like “I like Ike.” These were the early days of television and the early days of computers. A UNIVAC was able to predict that Eisenhower would defeat Adlai Stevenson in a landslide election in 1952. The country was not “Madly for Adlai” as his slogan went.  ENIAC had first been used in 1945. MIT Whirlwind was created in 1951, and the age of interactive computing was upon us. Not only could a computer predict who might win an election but new options in data processing allowed for more granular ways to analyze data. A young Senator named John F. Kennedy was heralded as a “new candidate for the 1960s.” Just a few years later Stephenson had lambasted Ike for using advertising, but this new generation was willing to let computers help build a platform - just as the advertisers were starting to use computers to help them figure out the best way to market a product. It turns out that words mattered. At the beginning of that 1960 election, many observed they couldn't tell much difference between the two candidates: Richard Nixon and John Kennedy. Kennedy's democrats were still largely factored between those who believed in philosophies dating back to the New Deal and segregationists. Ike presided over the early days of the post-World War II new world order. This new generation, like new generations before and since, was different. They seemed to embrace the new digital era. Someone like JFK wasn't punching cards and feeding them into a computer, writing algorithms, or out surveying people to collect that data. That was done by a company that was founded in 1959 called Simulmatics. Jill Lepore called them the What If men in her book called If/Then - a great read that goes further into the politics of the day. It's a fascinating read. The founder of the company was a Madison Avenue ad man named Ed Greenfield. He surrounded himself with a cast of characters that included people from John Hopkins University, MIT, Yale, and IBM.  Ithiel de Sola Pool had studied Nazi and Soviet propaganda during World War II. He picked up on work from Hungarian Frigyes Karinthy and with students ran Monte Carlo simulations on people's acquaintances to formulate what would later become The Small World Problem or the Six Degrees of Separation, a later inspiration for the social network of the same name and even later, for Facebook. The social sciences had become digital. Political science could then be used to get at the very issues that could separate Kennedy from Nixon. The People Machine as one called it was a computer simulation, thus the name of the company. It would analyze voting behaviors. The previous Democratic candidate Stevenson had long-winded, complex speeches. They analyzed the electorate and found that “I Like Ike” resonated with more people. It had, after all, been developed by the same ad man who came up with “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands” for M&Ms. They called the project Project Microscope. They recruited some of the best liberal minds in political science and computer science. They split the electorate into 480 groups. A big focus was how to win the African-American vote. Turns out Gallup polls didn't study that vote because Southern newspapers had blocked doing so. Civil rights, and race relations in general wasn't unlike a few other issues. There was anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, and anti-a lot. The Republicans were the party of Lincoln and had gotten a lot of votes over the last hundred years for that. But factions within the party had shifted. Loyalties were shifting. Kennedy was a Catholic but many had cautioned he should down-play that issue. The computer predicted civil rights and anti-Catholic bigotry would help him, which became Kennedy's platform. He stood for what was right but were they his positions or just what the nerds thought? He gained votes at the last minute. Turns out the other disenfranchised groups saw the bigotry against one group as akin to bigotry against their own; just like the computers thought they would. Kennedy became an anti-segregationist, as that would help win the Black vote in some large population centers. It was the most aggressive, or liberal, civil-rights plank the Democrats had ever taken up.  Civil rights are human rights. Catholic rights are as well. Kennedy offered the role of Vice President to Lyndon B Johnson, the Senate Majority Leader and was nominated to the Democratic candidate. Project Microscope from Simulmatics was hired in part to shore up Jewish and African-American votes. They said Kennedy should turn the fact that he was a Catholic into a strength. Use the fact he was Catholic to give up a few votes here and there in the South but pick up other votes. He also took the Simulmatics information as it came out of the IBM 704 mainframe to shore up his stance on other issues. That confidence helped him out-perform Nixon in televised debates. They used teletypes and even had the kids rooms converted into temporary data rooms. CBS predicted Nixon would win. Less than an hour later they predicted Kennedy would win. Kennedy won the popular vote by .1 percent of the country even after two recounts. The Black vote hat turned out big for Kennedy. News leaked about the work Simulmatics had done for Kennedy. Some knew that IBM had helped Hitler track Jews as has been written about in the book IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black. Others still had issues with advertising in campaigns and couldn't fathom computers. Despite Stalin's disgust for computers some compared the use of computers to Stalinistic propaganda. Yet it worked - even if in retrospect the findings were all things we could all take for granted. They weren't yet. The Kennedy campaign at first denied the “use of an electronic brain and yet their reports live on in the Kennedy Library. A movement against the use of the computer seemed to die after Kennedy was assassinated.  Books of fiction persisted, like The 480 from Eugene Burdick, which got its title from the number of groups Simulmatics used. The company went on to experiment with every potential market their computer simulation could be used in. The most obvious was the advertising industry. But many of those companies went on to buy their own computers. They already had what many now know is the most important aspect of any data analytics project: the data. Sometimes they had decades of buying data - and could start over on more modern computers. They worked with the Times to analyze election results in 1962, to try and catch newspapers up with television. The project was a failure and newspapers leaned into more commentary and longer-term analysis to remain a relevant supplier of news in a world of real-time television. They applied their brand of statistics to help simulate the economy of Venezuela in a project called Project Camelot, which LBJ later shot down.  Their most profitable venture became working with the defense department to do research in Vietnam. They collected data, analyzed data, punched data into cards, and fed it into computers. Pool was unabashedly pro-US and it's arguable that they saw what they wanted to see. So did the war planners in the pentagon, who followed Robert McNamara. McNamara had been one of the Quiz Kids who turned around the Ford Motor Company with a new brand of data-driven management to analyze trends in the car industry, shore up supply chains, and out-innovate the competition. He became the first president of the company who wasn't a Ford. His family had moved to the US from Ireland to flee the Great Irish Famine. Not many generations later he got an MBA from Harvard before he became a captain in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II primarily as an analyst. Henry Ford the second hired his whole group to help with the company.  As many in politics and the military learn, companies and nations are very different. They did well at first, reducing the emphasis on big nuclear first strike capabilities and developing other military capabilities. One of those was how to deal with guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgencies. That became critical in Vietnam, a war between the communist North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese. The North was backed by North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union, the South backed by the United States, South Korea, Australia. Others got involved but those were the main parties. We can think of McNamara's use of computers to provide just in time provisioning of armed forces and move spending to where it could be most impactful, which slashed over $10 billion in military spending. As the Vietnam war intensified, statistically the number of troops killed by Americans vs American casualties made it look computationally like the was was being won. In hindsight we know it was not.  Under McNamara, ARPA hired Simulmatics to study the situation on the ground. They would merge computers, information warfare, psychological warfare, and social sciences. The Vietnamese that they interviewed didn't always tell them the truth. After all, maybe they were CIA agents. Many of the studies lacked true scholars as the war was unpopular back home. People who collected data weren't always skilled at the job. They spoke primarily with those they didn't get shot at as much while going to see. In general, the algorithms might have worked or might not have worked - but they had bad data. Yet Simulmatics sent reports that the operations were going well to McNamara. Many in the military would remember this as real capabilities at cyber warfare and information warfare were developed in the following decades. Back home, Simulmatics also became increasingly tied up in things Kennedy might have arguably fought against. There were riots, civil rights protests, and Simulatics took contracts to simulate racial riots. Some felt they could riot or go die in in the jungles of Vietnam. The era of predictive policing had begun as the hope of the early 1960s turned into the apathy of the late 1960s. Martin Luther King Jr spoke out again riot prediction, yet Simulmatics pushed on. Whether their insights were effective in many of the situations, just like in Vietnam - was dubious. They helped usher in the era of Surveillance capitalism, in a way. But the arrival of computers in ad agencies meant that if they hadn't of, someone else would have.  People didn't take kindly to being poked, prodded, and analyzed intellectually. Automation took jobs, which Kennedy had addressed in rhetoric if not in action. The war was deeply unpopular as American soldiers came home from a far off land in caskets. The link between Simulmatics and academia was known. Students protested against them and claimed they were war criminals. The psychological warfare abroad, being on the wrong side of history at home with the race riots, and the disintegrating military-industrial-university complex didn't help. There were technical issues. The technology had changed away from languages like FORTRAN. Further, the number of data points required and how they were processed required what we now call “Big Data” and “machine learning.” Those technologies showed promise early but more mathematics needed to be developed to fully weaponize the surveillance everything. More code and libraries needed to be developed to crunch the large amounts of statistics. More work needed to be done to get better data and process it. The computerization of the social sciences was just beginning and while people like Pool predicted the societal impacts we could expect, people at ARPA doubted the results and the company they created could not be saved as all these factors converged to put them into bankruptcy in 1970.  Their ideas and research lived on. Pool and others published some of their findings. Books opened the minds to the good and bad of what technology could do. The Southern politicians, or Dixiecrats, fell apart. Nixon embraced a new brand of conservatism as he lost the race to be the Governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962. There were charges of voter fraud from the 1960 election. The Mansfeld Amendment restricted military funding of basic research in 1969 and went into effect in 1970. Ike had warned of the growing links between universities as the creators of weapons of war like what Simulmatics signified and the amendment helped pull back funding for such exploits. As Lepore points out in her book, mid-century liberalism was dead. Nixon tapped into the silent majority who countered the counterculture of the 1960s. Crime rose and the conservatives became the party of law and order. He opened up relations with China, spun down the Vietnam war, negotiated with the Soviet leader Brezhnev to warm relations, and rolled back Johnson's attempts at what had been called The Great Society to get inflation back in check. Under him the incarceration rate in the United States exploded. His presidency ended with Watergate and under Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush, the personal computer became prolific and the internet, once an ARPA project began to take shape. They all used computers to find and weigh issues, thaw the Cold War, and build a new digitally-driven world order. The Clinton years saw an acceleration of the Internet and by the early 2000s companies like PayPal were on the rise. One of their founders was Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel founded Palantir in 2003 then invested in companies like Facebook with his PayPal money. Palantir received backing from In-Q-Tel “World-class, cutting-edge technologies for National Security”. In-Q-Tel was founded in 1999 as the global technological evolution began to explode. While the governments of the world had helped build the internet, it wasn't long before they realized it gave an asymmetrical advantage to newcomers. The more widely available the internet, the more far reaching attacks could go, the more subversive economic warfare could be. Governmental agencies like the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) needed more data and the long promised artificial intelligence technologies to comb through that data. Agencies then got together and launched their own venture capital fund, similar to those in the private sector - one called In-Q-Tel. Palantir has worked to develop software for the US Immigration and Customers Enforcement, or ICE, to investigate criminal activities and allegedly used data obtained from Cambridge Analytica along with Facebook data. The initial aim of the company was to take technology developed for PayPal's fraud detection and apply it to other areas like terrorism, with help from intelligence agencies. They help fight fraud for nations and have worked with the CIA, NSA, FBI, CDC, and various branches of the United States military on various software projects. Their Gotham project is the culmination of decades of predictive policing work.  There are dozens of other companies like Palantir. Just as Pool's work on Six Degrees of Separation, social networks made the amount of data that could be harvested all the greater. Companies use that data to sell products. Nations use that data for propaganda. Those who get elected to run nations use that data to find out what they need to say to be allowed to do so. The data is more accurate with every passing year. Few of the ideas are all that new, just better executed. The original sin mostly forgotten, we still have to struggle with the impact and ethical ramifications. Politics has always had a bit of a ruse in a rise to power. Now it's less about personal observation and more about the observations and analyses that can be gleaned from large troves of data. The issues brought up in books like The 480 are as poignant today as they were in the 1950s.

UBRadio Salon #767 – DFM netcast 25 Sept 2022 – The Mis-Adventures of Edsel & Zeke with univac & Austin Rich on DFM.nu Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon767/ubradio_salon767.mp3  

Hoy dedico el programa a aclarar siete mitos sobre las computadoras. Para mucha gente —en particular la gente joven— las computadoras han existido siempre. Sin embargo, a muchos le sorprenderá saber que hace poco más de 40 años no existían las computadoras. Por lo menos, no como las conocemos hoy en día. Ahora están dondequiera y eso ha llevado a que la gente piense que las entiende. Al pensar que las entienden repiten nociones que no son necesariamente ciertas; nociones que en muchos casos se pueden catalogar como mitos. ¿Y qué es eso de un mito? Pues el diccionario Oxford define la palabra mito, en su segunda acepción como una “Historia imaginaria que altera las verdaderas cualidades de una persona o de una cosa, y les da más valor del que tienen en realidad”. En otras palabras, los mitos son una forma de exageración. Al comienzo hablé de las computadoras “como las conocemos hoy en día”, indicando que se trata de un término que nos ha acompañado a lo largo de la historia. En el siglo 2 antes de Cristo los griegos perfeccionaron el mecanismo de Anticitera , que no era otra cosa que una computadora mecánica, que funcionaba a base de engranajes, y que era capaz de predecir eventos astronómicos. Para esa misma época los Chinos inventaron el ábaco, una calculadora a base de cuentas de cerámica en decenas que es capaz de ejecutar operaciones aritméticas complejas. Varios siglos después, los romanos utilizaron personas diestras en matemáticas para calcular los resultados del censo. A estas personas les llamaban “computadores” porque su trabajo era computar. Curiosamente, una de las primeras computadoras de la era moderna también se desarrolló para el censo; esta vez para el de los estados Unidos. Su nombre era UNIVAC y consistía de 5,000 tubos catódicos. Pesaba 16,686 libras, consumía 125 KW, era capaz de realizar 1,905 operaciones por segundo y tenía 6 bits de memoria. Hoy en día cualquier calculadora de mano tienen mayor capacidad. Todos estos desarrollos —unos más primitivos que los otros— han aportado —directa o indirectamente— a que se repitan los siete mitos sobre las computadoras que vamos a discutir. Este episodio no pretende ser exhaustivo. Ciertamente hay mucho más de siete mitos sobre las computadoras. Pero los de hoy parecen ser los más prevalentes. ENLACES:  Visita la página de GTMetrix Ver los videos de la serie “Con Ese Cuento A Otra Parte” ¿Disco Duro Dañado? ¡Horror! Memorias... ¿A Dónde Irán A Parar? Cómo Protegerte de los Hackers Cómo Protegerte de las Fallas Eléctricas OTROS EPISODIOS QUE TE PUEDEN INTERESAR: 11 Mitos Tecnológicos Que Suenan Creíbles 16 Mentiras Que Te Dijeron Durante La Infancia 7 Mitos Sobre La Producción de Video 7 Mitos Sobre El Empleo De Personas De La Tercera Edad 13 Realidades Sobre La Educación Universitaria [2022] 11 Mitos Sobre El Agua 7 Mitos y Realidades Sobre YouTube 4 Palabras Que El Público Odia ©2022, Orlando Mergal, MA _________________ El autor es Experto En Comunicación Corporativa (Lic. R-500), Autor de más de media docena de Publicaciones de Autoayuda y Productor de Contenido Digital Inf. 787-306-1590 • 787-750-0000 Divulgación de Relación Material: Algunos de los enlaces en esta entrada son “enlaces de afiliados”. Eso significa que si le das click al enlace, y compras algo, yo voy a recibir una comisión de afiliado. No obstante, tú vas a pagar exactamente lo mismo que pagarías al visitar al comerciante directamente y de manera independiente.  Además, yo sólo recomiendo productos o servicios que utilizo personalmente y que pienso que añadirán valor a mis oyentes. Al patrocinar los productos o servicios que mencionamos en Hablando De Tecnología contribuyes para que el programa continúe. Hago esta divulgación en cumplimiento con con el "16 CFR, Part 255" de la Comisión Federal De Comercio de los Estados Unidos "Guías Concernientes al uso de Endosos y Testimonios en la Publicidad".

This is Episode 43 of ‘To Etherea and Beyond'. The show broadcasts on Harrogate Community Radio at 9am on Sunday 28th August, and is then available via the station's Listen Again button, and everywhere else here: https://ssyncc.com/toethereaandbeyond Titled ‘Music to get lost in', it features music by: Rival Consoles, Lift To Experience, BLACKSHAPE, Blankenberge, Pye Corner Audio, Wyldest, Camilla Sparksss, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Orbital, Jon Hopkins, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Brian Eno, Alvvays, Tindersticks, Tom Rogerson, MONO, The Comet Is Coming, and Univac. https://harrogatecommunityradio.online/shows/to-etherea-and-beyond/ This show is syndicated & distributed exclusively by Syndicast. If you are a radio station interested in airing the show or would like to distribute your podcast / radio show please register here: https://syndicast.co.uk/distribution/registration

Robert P. French was born in Oxford England in 1944. Early on he developed a love of working with computers. As you will learn, he lived within 40 miles of the first 5 computers in the world.   He obtained his first software job in 1963 and never looked back. Well, not back, but as you will learn, he did find new directions along the way that greatly advanced his career and took him along different life paths.   Today he is the author of, thus far, seven books in the acclaimed Cal Rogan series. Robert's life story is fascinating and by any standard unstoppable.     About the Guest: Robert French is a software developer, turned actor, turned author. He is the writer of the seven (so far) Cal Rogan Mysteries, crime thrillers about a drug-addicted ex-cop who fights his way from living rough on the streets to being a much-sought-after PI. The series, set in Vancouver, Canada, reflects the best and worst of the city. He is passionate about having the right words on the page and with every new book, his goal is to make it better than the previous one. Robert was born in Oxford, England and was brought up in the East End of London. His fascination with computers was born from his love of science fiction, especially Asimov's I Robot books. At age 26 he emigrated from the UK to Canada “for a couple of years” and his been here ever since. At age sixty, he started a transition to writing and after many false starts he published his first book seven years later. His loves are his family, science, language, certain elements of philosophy and craft beer       About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes UM Intro/Outro  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:22  Welcome to unstoppable mindset. And today. Wow, this is a fascinating way to introduce someone we have a software developer turned actor turned author. I don't know what to say to that except Robert French. Welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Robert French  01:38 Thank you very much, Michael, I'm delighted to be here.   Michael Hingson  01:42 We're going to have to get into this software developer and all of that. Robert and I have had some interesting discussions, among other things, talking about computers. Robert was born in 1944. I was born in 1950. But when Robert was was born, and for a while there were a total of five computers in the world. And they were all within 40 miles of where you were born in England, right?   Robert French  02:07 That's correct. Yeah. Yeah, they were to Bletchley Park,   Michael Hingson  02:12 ah, probably used for decoding or something.   Robert French  02:16 That's right. Yes, they were under the care of the famous Alan Turing.   Michael Hingson  02:21 Right. And, of course, we've got a few more computers in the world than that today. But I remember when Robert and I were talking, I pointed out how both of us grew up in a time when a disk crash was really a disk crash. This were these large 16 inch platters that you would place into a disk drive and the heads would flow over the disks a tiny, microscopic amount above the disk. But if something messed up, and the head dropped onto the disk drive, it tore it up, and it made a wretched noise.   Robert French  03:02 Yes, and all your data was lost?   Michael Hingson  03:07 was immediately and totally lost. Absolutely. It's, it's pretty amazing. Well, tell me a little bit about about you and growing up and so on and how you got into the whole business of software development and such.   Robert French  03:23 Well, yeah, it was interesting. I was born in the East End of London, which is like the dodgy End of London. I was born actually in Oxford, but brought up in the East End of London, which is the kind of dodgy End of London. And my parents sacrificed quite a lot to send me to a good school, where I became fascinated with mathematics and wanted to become a mathematician. Then I started reading science fiction. And the idea of computers came up and I got fascinated with the whole idea of computers. I made a decision. That's where I wanted to place my career. Rather than being a mathematic mathematician and working in kind of esoteric arts. I thought I'd rather do something practical with computers. And so I became a computer programmer and did that for for a lot of years, almost 50   Michael Hingson  04:30 I remember Isaac Asimov's UNIVAC   Robert French  04:35 I actually worked for the company UNIVAC at one point in my career. Yes, I do.   Michael Hingson  04:42 It's one of my favorite Isaac Asimov stories. And I heard about it long before I actually was able to read it because it finally got put in a in a readable form for me, was the ultimate question. You're familiar with that?   Robert French  04:55 Yes, yeah.   Michael Hingson  04:56 And and of course It was it was, what was well, what was the question? I was trying to remember. Oh, it had to do with entropy. When entropy doesn't expand anymore, or when does it? Yeah, first, when does entropy reversing think it was. And, and the story goes that there was the UNIVAC and it progressed and became more powerful. And eventually it lived in hyperspace, and was an all encompassing computer. And every time anyone asked the question about whether entropy could be reversed, the computer always answered, I don't know, I don't need insufficient data to know the answer to the question. And finally, at the very end, the computer said, I have the answer. And the answer to the question was let there be light.   Robert French  05:51 Yes, that's the nice a great story. A couple of other as in life stories have inspired me. But one is his robot series. Yeah, the AI robot. That was one of the things that made it made me want to be a programmer. He vastly underestimated the time it would take for artificial intelligence to emerge. He missed it by about 50 years, but still pretty good. But another one that really interested me and inspired me was I forgotten the name of the the actual book, but it was about the planet Aurora, where people didn't ever didn't meet in person. But they projected images of each other holographic images of each other. So if you wanted to go for a walk in the woods with a friend, they would walk in their words, you would walk in yours, and each of you would have a holographic image of the other one walking with you. And in some ways, that was the precursor of the internet.   Michael Hingson  07:02 Sure. Yeah. Sure, well, and in with iRobot, and the series, of course, the three laws of robotics, he is very, very creative and clever about what robots could do and couldn't do. And then of course, there were a few times that the laws got circumvented. And it turns out it was human error and turn instructions to the computers or to the robots and so on.   Robert French  07:28 Yeah, the the three laws of robotics, it's interesting that there are lots of discussions these days in the world of artificial intelligence, about the whole issue of how do you control artificial intelligence, and how you might put the three laws of robotics into into effect. So a lot of people are concerned about artificial intelligent intelligence running amok.   Michael Hingson  07:55 Right. Well, and, and just the whole lack of discipline and a lot of what we do today, of course, today, yeah, everyone wants everything immediately. And they want everything and they want their so called freedom, and they don't recognize, which is what the laws of robotics at least addressed. They don't recognize their own responsibility to freedom.   Robert French  08:14 Mm hmm. Yes. So there's the old adage, you have no rights without duties.   Michael Hingson  08:23 Correct. So you got into software development, love to learn a little bit more about that.   Robert French  08:28 When I started on, obviously, mainframe computers, it was this was in my first job was, I started my first job on January the 11th 1963. And the first computer I worked on was, of course, a mainframe because they were all mainframes. And I worked for years on mainframes, I emigrated from England, to Canada in 1971. The original plan is I'd go to Canada for a couple of years and work and then maybe go back to England and now 51 years later, I haven't gone back to England, or not to live anyway. And, you know, I graduated through the mainframes worked on many computers, then worked on PCs and I had one of the early luggable computers, which was an Osborn computer. And I just worked on mainly I did some, I had during my career I had some jobs in marketing and in in product management, but and in but mainly I still my love was always developing software. I just I loved working on the development of piece of software and then what seeing people use it being happy with it. That was that was a great motivator for me?   Michael Hingson  10:01 Well, of course, you've seen so many different kinds of advances much, not just the whole physical issue of computers and so on, going from the big huge things that were programmed by patch boards that you would just plug into slots and systems that we talked about. Well, I, I was a student in Palmdale High School, and was a lab assistant for our physics professor. And one day, he asked me to take some time. And he had these big patch boards, he said, Just take all the wires out of the patch board, which was a major struggle into themselves. Because there was a lot of fun. But, but computers have progressed physically. So now of course, one of those patch boards wouldn't even be of small fraction of what goes on a chip.   Robert French  10:56 Oh, no. When I think back to the mainframe days IBM's I think last large commercial computer was the 371 58. Yeah, I believe my iPhone is orders of magnitude more powerful than that machine, which cost $2 million, or there abouts.   Michael Hingson  11:22 I remember at UC Irvine, we had an IBM 360. And we had a PDP 10.   Robert French  11:29 Yeah, they were great machines, those PDP 10 machines, as long as you didn't cut your fingers on the paper tapes. Yes.   Michael Hingson  11:38 And as long as you were careful about putting the duct tape in the right way, yes. Well, so now of course, the other part about computers is how software has advanced. And as you said, the iPhone is magnitudes more powerful than the 370. And we we started hearing even in the mid 70s, about computers learning what we now call artificial intelligence, I worked with Ray Kurzweil, as he was developing the original Kurzweil breathing machine. And the thing about the breathing machine was that it also did learn and you could start scanning a page with the computer, of course, scanning was totally different than you have to build up a page of text, line by line with a camera, literally scanning each line then moving down a little bit and scanning the next part until you got a whole page as opposed to just taking a shot. But as it scanned and as you read, the machine really did learn something about the text and the print and re had done the what at that time, were probably very simple, but still steps to allow the machine to learn to read better is the more you read a book.   Robert French  13:04 Hmm, yeah, he because while he's a genius, you're lucky to have worked with   Michael Hingson  13:09 him. And of course, he went on and did other things after he sold Kurzweil Computer Products. But it still was very creative and clever to be able to have a machine, even then, that learned and as a user of the machine and then helping with the original testing and evaluation. As I read books with it, it was clearly obvious that it learned as it went along, it literally would read pages better the more I read, when I could go back and read a page that I had read and just see how much better it was after reading several pages.   Robert French  13:41 Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? And now, of course,   Michael Hingson  13:44 it's a whole different ballgame in terms of what artificial intelligence does and can do, and its availability. But it's interesting to see how things are improving and getting better over time. And it will be fun to to really see what happens as machines learn and so on. I'm not a fan of Ray Kurzweil singularity necessarily. I'm not sure that we're going to marry the brain and artificial intelligence together, although problem will try but I don't know whether that will be a good thing or not. But I guess we'll see.   Robert French  14:19 Yeah, yeah. Well, certainly, even if one can't map the brain and download it to a computer, I could still see a possibility of a brain being connected to a directly connected to a computer and living inside a robot. Sure. So which is a pretty scary thought.   Michael Hingson  14:49 What were some of the last projects you did in terms of software development?   Robert French  14:54 The last the last major project that I did was a A system that would create would put all of an organization's manuals, online and searchable. So the basic idea was, hospitals were a target market for us. The basic idea was that you could take all of your manuals as PDFs, and word documents, and JPEGs, and whatever you really wanted. And you put them all into our system, you just upload them to our system and create a structure for a set of for all of the manuals of your organization. And you could search all of the manuals in very sophisticated ways more flexible, even than Google searching. Yes, you could say things like, I want to find a document that has the word, heart, and catheter within five words of each other. And it would instantly present that document or documents to you. And it had all sorts of built in security. So you were only allowed to search for what you needed. But it meant that anyone in our hospital had access to all the documents that exists all the manuals that existed in that hospital. At that time, it was I it was a problem finding manuals, you know, people would spend an hour searching for a particular manual to do a procedure. So that was the last big project that I worked on.   Michael Hingson  16:42 And you said that the manuals typically were in like JPEG format or something like that.   Robert French  16:47 Usually they will Word or PDF. But you know, sometimes they would have JPEGs that were associated with the Word documents or the PDF documents. Of course, they couldn't search the JPEGs.   Michael Hingson  17:03 Well, I was wondering about that, of course, today. Now, even more people are demanding that the documents are accessible. The Google, of course, had the large library of millions of books that didn't inherit it, and they would put them up as pictures. And it took a court fight to get Google to agree and slash be compelled to put the documents up as accessible documents.   Robert French  17:31 Hmm. Yeah, that's I didn't know about that. That's, I'm glad that I'm glad the court said that.   Michael Hingson  17:38 It's all about inclusion, of course. And well, they are and, and other organizations are beginning to work on that. Now, of course, in this country, it's not quite as stringent in Canada yet. But in this country of within the last month, the government has said that the Americans with Disabilities Act does apply to websites, because a lot of times lawyers have been making the case or trying to make the case while the ADA was passed before the internet. So how can websites be held accountable and responsible for being accessible? Clearly, the ADEA doesn't apply. And a number of us have said, well, of course it does. Now, of course, the government has finally said, Yes, it does. But Congress still needs to stiffen the laws. And that will be another story.   Robert French  18:24 Yeah, yeah. Well, first getting Congress to move is not always easy.   Michael Hingson  18:31 Yeah, well, it says bad is will can entropy be reversed? And maybe the ultimate question will be the same, will have the same answer. So you worked with that until you were 60. So what was that? 2003 years or so?   Robert French  18:54 Yeah, yeah, it was about the company fails to get its last. Its last financing because of the burst of the tech bubble in 2003. And that's when that's when I started to think about other options.   Michael Hingson  19:13 So what other option Did you decide upon to reverse your entropy? Difficult? Or maybe to see entropy and larger growth? Yes. I don't think that most people probably understand that that whole joke and it's a physical basically, the laws that entropy can't be reversed. And things are constantly expanding like the universe is constantly expanding. And you know, it's like Murphy's Law, which is if anything can go wrong, it will route around and then there's no tools commentary on Murphy's Law which was Murphy was an optimist. But But then the other one, which is the commentary on Murphy's law that says once you open a can of worms, you can only put the words back in a bigger can. So yeah. So maybe it should be continued to expand for?   Robert French  20:07 Well, just on this subject of entropy, it's probably one of the worst understood words by the general public. But what? Well, it was interesting. You know, whenever a company folds, the first thing that you do is start looking for contracting work, which is what I did, I got on the phone and started calling people. And this particular day, it was in March of 2003, I had finished talking to a bunch of people and I put down the phone. And I opened a Word document, because I'd had this idea in my head for quite a while. And it was about a strange plague hitting the Earth. It was kind of an apocalyptic sort of tale. And I started writing, this was about three in the afternoon, I started writing, and I just kept on writing. And suddenly, it was no one in the morning or something. And I just written for eight hours. And I'd written 1000s of words. And I thought, wow, this is the most fun I've had for a such a long time. And that's how it all started. That book, I kind of ran out of steam on. So I started a different book. And the second book was going nowhere. So I started a book about an assassin. And it just wasn't that book became boring. Though, I did use the opening chapters in another book that in one of my Cal Rogen books. Then finally I got an idea for a kind of a business thriller. But I had said in an area in which I had some experience, I were somebody I know was was conned by a, a venture capital company, or will they call themselves a venture capital company somewhere to novel based on that. And I actually finished it, it was the first thing I actually finished completely. And I was I was quite happy with it. I thought it was pretty good. So I sent out query letters to I think it was 70 Publish literary literary agents, and a bunch of publishers and got back 70 rejection letters and other things. Yes, exactly. And this was before the day that you could submit submit via the Internet. The publishing was really quick, I was really slow to adopt technology. So as luck would have it, I booked myself into a Writers Conference. And I thought, well, this book is good. I mean, it's just I don't know how to market it. That's the problem. So I went to the Writers Conference. And the first day was the all the all the all the sessions were about the art of the art of writing. And   Robert French  23:27 I went, took those those courses, and realized the marketing wasn't the problem. The book was the problem. And I it was just that I didn't really understand how to write a book. I, I assumed because I was an avid reader, that I would be a natural writer. But as luck would have it at that conference, I met an editor who gave me a 37 page report on the book. And I decided that the book was a non starter. But through that, through that editor, she she was wonderful. And she mentored me through my first real book. And it all started because I was doing it contract in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, which is the dodgy area of town. And every day I'd walked past this alley to get to the to the the office I was working in. And this alley was full of drug addicts. And I remember saying to my editor whose name was Lisa. I said, Gosh, I go past this alley every day. And I keep thinking, how awful would it be to wake up in that alley, which was just awful, just terrible place? And she said, Well, who would wake up in an alley like that? And I said, Well, if it were a lawyer, yeah, that would be kind of ironic. And if it were a businessman, we interesting but then I thought well if you're a cop That would be great. And so I have this idea of a cop waking up in a alley full of drug addicts covered in blood. And Lisa asked me a bunch of questions. And the first my first novel, which is called junkie, started to come together in my head. And she mentored me through that novel and the second one, and that's grown into a series of seven books now,   Michael Hingson  25:26 are they self published, or traditionally published,   Robert French  25:29 this self published, I tried going the traditional publishing route, I got some interest, but I think my age was working against me, because publishers are more interested in people who are younger than I am. And who will have lots of books in them. So anyway, I, I learned about self publishing and took a bunch of courses and went that route. And now I think if a publisher came to me, and made me an offer, unless it was a really good offer, I don't think I'd be interested.   Michael Hingson  26:06 But you, you now have seven books. So you've clearly established a track record, in the fact that you keep writing them. I'm sure it's in part because you want to, but I would also suspect that you had success with   Robert French  26:19 them. Yeah, yeah. I've had some success with them. And, you know, somebody asked me, When are you going to stop writing? I'm 77. Now. So they asked me, When are you going to stop writing? And I paraphrase Charlton Heston and said, when they prize the computer out of my cold, dead hands, so I'm just gonna keep doing it. And one of the main reasons I do it is, over the years, I have established a mailing list of people who are fans of my my books, and the feedback I get from those people is just wonderful. It's this, I've met so many wonderful people through this mailing list. And they are the people that that keep me going. When I have bad times. It's those people who make me feel that I can still do this.   Michael Hingson  27:20 Do you publish through Amazon? Or where do you how do you publish?   Robert French  27:24 Amazon? Yeah, I went, I decided to go exclusive with Amazon. Because when I when I was publishing through Amazon, and Kobo, and Apple and Google, Barnes and Noble, I did an experiment with a couple of books and made them exclusive to Amazon. And they just did so much better. So I decided to go exclusive with Amazon on all the books. Can you   Michael Hingson  27:55 answer those when you're publishing through Amazon? I assume it's Kindle Direct Publishing? Yeah. Can't Can't you also make the books available from Amazon through other distribution channels and so on?   Robert French  28:09 Yes, you can. Yes. And Amazon will do that, too. Also, Amazon. Another reason for being with Amazon is that they also do the books in paperback, and in hardcover now. So I've got all of my books are in paperback and in large print. So that's, that's one of the things that Amazon does, which I like.   Michael Hingson  28:36 So have any of them been also produced in audio?   Robert French  28:41 Not yet, I really want to do them in audio. But I have a particular problem in doing them in audio, because the books are written in first person, present tense, from the point of view of multiple characters. So some chapters will be written from the point of view of a woman's, for example, and some even from a child. And then they'll say, there'll be saying, man standing here waiting for cow, and he's late again. So I need a woman actress to voice those, those chapters. So it means that in order to do audiobooks, I need to put together a team. Well, I did have a stint of acting. So I do know a bunch of actors. So I will do that at some point. But and hopefully soon, but right now, I'm just so busy that I can't devote the time to it.   Michael Hingson  29:41 I'm thinking though that with the fact that you're going through Amazon, it would be interesting to see if you could raise a discussion within Bada bing published through audible which is owned by Amazon because ANA has has produced they have done what they call audible originals, and they're very capable and Do oftentimes use more than one person to deal with a   Robert French  30:05 book. Oh, I didn't know that.   Michael Hingson  30:08 Oh, there's a lot of that.   Robert French  30:11 So because my thought was that I would know how to edit audio and video, I thought of assembling the actors and getting them to read the chapters and then editing it into an audible book, which, you know, Amazon will let you do that. So they're called Amazon, audible originals. Did you say, well,   Michael Hingson  30:36 audible originals are books that are not traditionally published elsewhere, but published through audible. Do you use Audible at all?   Robert French  30:46 No, I don't. I'm not a I'm not an audio book.   Michael Hingson  30:49 That's fine. We want to and it doesn't violate the laws of robotics. But But in your case, I'm sure it would be called an audible original because it's not published anywhere through traditional publishing, although the your books are so either way, though, they they do produce audio books, and oftentimes have at least two people reading it, if not more. I remember one that I read last year, you've seen the movie Alien? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So there's a book called Alien shadows, which is another one where, oh, what's the Gorny weavers character's name? Yeah. And the cat? Yeah. Are, are they actually they were in suspended animation. And they're brought out of suspended animation for something and they ended up fighting aliens again. And there are like about 10 different actors that are dealing with all the different characters. So I really think that it would be interesting to explore whether audio audible could do it and would do yeah, I'll certainly look into that. Thank you. I would, I would think that would make a lot of sense to do. I do a lot of audio reading on airplanes. But nowadays, mostly not opposed to Braille. Because I believe that Braille is still the basic means of reading and writing that I have. My wife and I read books together. So we pipe them through the house. So whatever we're doing, there's a book going, usually TV, but a book. She's learned how to listen to audio, and not fall asleep. So she That's great. Yeah, it's it's really wonderful when a number of actors do it. And there are some actors that can do a number of voices. But I understand what you're saying for your book. But I would definitely explore audio through audible and see what you could do.   Robert French  32:52 Yeah, I will definitely do that. Thank you,   Michael Hingson  32:55 it would make a lot of sense to do. Well, so you, you were an actor, while software developer, actor and then reader tell me more about that. Yeah,   Robert French  33:05 I, my first one, my first job when I was five, I wanted to be a cowboy. But my first job that I wanted to do is I wanted to be an actor. And my father probably quite rightly, taught me out and said, you know, with your mathematical ability, you should do something else. And actually, to some extent, he was instrumental in pointing me towards computers, or encouraging me towards computers should I say, but I always liked acting. I was in every school, my every play my school ever produced. And after school, I did a few acting, few plays and musicals. So in my 50s, I thought I'd like to try acting. So I took a tour course and went for auditions and found myself getting lead roles pretty quickly in local theater. And then I kind of realized I needed a better acting, a better acting coach. So I took lessons from Larry Silverberg, who was a wonderful, wonderful teacher, and he was in Seattle, and twice a week I would drive down to Seattle and do courses with Larry, and then I'd started doing a few movie things. Then, I just kind of realized that acting no matter how good an actor you are, in in the world of movies, it's they're always looking for a look. And I didn't have one plus or didn't have the one they wanted. Plus the the The movies that are made in Vancouver are all three American audiences almost all, and they needed people with American accents. And although I can do an American accent, it's just not very good. So that so I decided that pursuing that as a profession was not a good idea. So I continued acting in local theater for a while. But once I started writing that just completely overtook, took all my spare time. So that's when I stopped acting.   Michael Hingson  35:36 It's always radio for the BBC or the CPC.   Robert French  35:39 Yeah. I wouldn't mind doing radio. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  35:45 So you, so what's your next book,   Robert French  35:48 The next book is was in inspired by a podcast that I listened to, I'm a bit of a podcast addict. And it was about a, an amazing, but quite evil woman who ran this cryptocurrency scam. And I thought that would be an interesting part of a book. And so that's, that's the next book in the Cal Rogen series that I'm starting to write. Plus, I've got another series of books on the on the development stage. And my protagonist has a 12 year old daughter. And so the next series of books will be her as a detective in the year 2040 2045, when she's grown up, because in the current series, she's got five years old. So I'm very interested in what the near future holds for us with robotics and artificial intelligence and the social issues that we're facing and social media and cryptocurrencies and all of those things. So I'm very excited about writing books set credit, five years in the future.   Michael Hingson  37:10 Have you ever read any of the books by JD Robb the in depth series?   Robert French  37:14 I haven't No, no.   Michael Hingson  37:17 So JD Robb, who is nor Roger, yeah, Roberts, has written a whole series there, the Eve Dallas series, and I think they're now 54 or 55 books. And they start out in like 2058, I think, or 2057. And are very, they're fun to read. There are some steamy parts, but that's okay. They have absolutely captured what both me and my wife's attention. So she doesn't even want to read those piped through the house. She wants to read those on her own, but she wants the audio version. So we're both now on book number 20 in that series, but they're fun. And I'm sure that your take will be different. And that's a good thing. So it's a wonderful series to write. But she has been very successful with that.   Robert French  38:05 Oh, that's great. Oh, definitely. I knew I knew that Nora had started writing books under the JD Robert, I didn't know anything about them. So I will check out to the Eve Dallas series.   Michael Hingson  38:20 They're all they're all something in depth. And they're fascinating the characters evolve and grow. And the whole series has been very fascinating to observe character, character development, and because she's done with them, but I'm anxious to read yours as well now, so definitely get them out there and also get them out in audio, that'll be a lot of fun for a lot of people, for sure. Actually, something that you might think about is there is a the Library of Congress has the National Library Service for the Blind and print impaired. And I'm sure there is an equivalent in Canada. They also use their own readers to record books, and it might be worth reaching out to them to see if they might be interested. I've not seen any that they individually record that have several actors, but nevertheless, it's a fascinating thing, but I would still think audible would be the best way.   Robert French  39:19 Hmm, yeah, I will definitely look into that audible originals idea. That'd be great.   Michael Hingson  39:26 Well, tell me more about sort of your view about self publishing as opposed to traditional publishing and the differences in the values and so on.   Robert French  39:34 Well, I'm not a huge expert in traditional publishing. There. I know people who are both traditionally published and self published and generally prefer the self publishing side of, of their, their work. traditional publishing is going through some huge upheaval Almost, and they're very, they've been very slow to react to the ebook market. And they, they just don't seem to have got it. Their books, the one of the key things about the ebook market is books should be cheaper when they're ebooks than in on paper. But frequently, the traditional publishers will have the ebook and the paper book at the same price. And it seems like they're trying to grab all the money they can out of the marketplace before it's lost to them. So now, they might well be wrong. But that's, that's a bit how I see it. If somebody came to me and said, I wanted to be an author, which way should I go, I would say if you're going to choose go with self publishing, you have more control you make you make more money and midlist author with with a publishing house, doesn't make a heck of a lot of money. But a midlist author, on KDP, with Amazon can make a very nice living. So I would I have become a big fan of self publishing.   Michael Hingson  41:27 And the more you learn how to market, the better you will be and the more successful you will be in it is true that with self publishing, you have to do more of your marketing. But even in the regular publishing world today, authors aren't usually selected that can't bring their own marketing skills and marketing presence to a book. They want you to have significant social media presence, newsletters, blogs, Facebook, and social media outreach and so on, that you again, bring yourself much less what they might do,   Robert French  42:10 huh? Yeah, gone are the days when you signed a deal with a publisher, went back home and started writing the next book. And they did everything?   Michael Hingson  42:20 Yeah, very much. So. So tell me about your writing process, your style, and so on.   Robert French  42:25 Yeah, it'sa bit weird,   Michael Hingson  42:27 which you talked a little bit about it, but   Robert French  42:30 goes with goes with my personality. I don't do a lot of planning of a book, I tend to write by the seat of my pants as a pantser, as they say, so I'll get an idea for a book. And I'll kind of do a mind map of where I think it's going and what it's going to what it's going to be like, and who's going to be in it. And just, I don't even always know how it's going to end. But once I've kind of got got it settled in my gut, I just start writing. And I write and things happen. And now of course, I have a cast of characters who are in most of the books, and when they show up, they know, I know what to do with them. And it's it's a lot, it's a it's a lot of fun. And I frequently surprised myself, you know, I'll be writing thinking that this chapter is going to end a certain way. And then somebody will say something, and it will trigger something in my mind, and the chapter will go in a quite different direction. Now this can be difficult, because you can write yourself, it's write itself into a corner. And sometimes it takes a while to get out of it. But I always think if I can surprise myself, I can surprise my readers. So it seems to work for me. And I really like working this way. I did one time just for fun. Think about planning out of book, The wet. Some people know they know how many chapters it's going to be what's going to happen in each chapter. And I started to do that and my head exploded. I just couldn't to couldn't do it. So sorry.   Michael Hingson  44:24 Your characters are beginning to tell the story.   Robert French  44:28 That's right. That's absolutely right. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you ask a question. And I'll think, hey, what would be an interesting answer to that question that I just wrote down? And that might send something in a completely different direction. The other thing is sorry, gone. No, go ahead. But the other thing is that one of the things that I learned from the literary agent and author Don Masse is With every book should have tension on every page. And so when I'm not fixed in what has to happen in the chapter, I can make tension appear on a page by somebody giving a an odd answer or asking a question that nobody's got the answer to. And all those things create tension, but they're sometimes drive the story in a different direction. So that that works really works for me.   Michael Hingson  45:35 Does it sometimes surprise you when that happens? Oh, yeah. Oh,   Robert French  45:38 yeah. I'm constantly surprised. Sometimes, you know, at the end of a day of writing, I'll, I'll look at what I've written and say, Wow, that was good. But different.   Michael Hingson  45:52     Robert French  45:57 Oh, yes. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah,   Michael Hingson  46:01 probably must be depressing. After a while   Robert French  46:03 it is. I'm subject to depression as well. And sometimes writer's block will be one of the triggers. But I usually get writer's block, because I've let the storyline go in a really interesting direction. And have a really unexpected, you know, I've been working towards an expected result. And I thought, No, this unexpected result with much better, and then sometimes takes me a long time to re gather the strands of the story with this new element in it. And, you know, that can take, you know, a couple of days to work out. But yeah, it's except when I'm in a long period of depression, writer's block may last a day or so how do you get over it? What happens? Well, in the, in the short term writer's block, eventually, something will click, you know, at some, you know, sometimes I'll wake up in the morning and think something, wow, that might work in the book. And so that will happen. When I get into, you know, a long, longer period of depression, that writer's block becomes semi permanent. And what gets me out of that is, I'll end up going to my doctor, and he'll getting some medication. So   Michael Hingson  47:31 until you allow yourself to relax and start to just really think about it again. Yeah, listen to your characters.   Robert French  47:39 Yeah, yeah. In a recent depression, something happened that helps quite a lot, is I woke up in the morning, and I was still half asleep. And I had this image of two women standing over looking down over the dead body. And I built a whole chapter in my mind about it. And as soon as I got up, I actually wrote down first 500 words of the chapter. And it was indicative of being in a depression because it was very, very dark. But I thought, you know, if I didn't make it quite so dark, it could actually be an interesting start to a story. So things like that help stuff pops into your mind. And you think, Wow.   Michael Hingson  48:30 Well, I'm looking forward to checking out some of the books certainly, and I can't end this without asking you, what kinds of thoughts and observations and advice you might have for people who want to write. Yeah, it's   Robert French  48:45 interesting that you're out, you should ask that I've just finished a guest blog post for a blogger in United Kingdom. And the title is what to do for an aspiring writer. And my advice would be that if you're don't think that you just you're just going to be a writer, the chances are, you're going to be a publisher too, and you're going to need to be good at it and good at marketing too. But the thing that will distinguish you over the long term is good writing. So if you don't have experience in writing don't do what I did. Don't assume because you're an avid reader that you're going to be a good writer. I spent I didn't waste but I used up quite a few years writing when I could have done a lot better. So make sure you're good. Writers Conference is a great thing to go to for aspiring writer, because they have courses which are given by actual published successful authors on how to write. You can meet agents, you can meet editors, you can meet publishers. But take as many courses as you can, on the craft of writing, read as many books as you can on the craft of writing, and just become a very, very good writer. Because at the moment, self publishing is what is the Wild West, but that's not going to last forever. And the good writers will be the ones who stay in and, and rise to the top, they've still got to be a good marketer and publisher. But I think the key is to become a very, very good writer. And if you if you can go to somebody I know went to a conference, they met one of their favorite authors, and asked me author if they would become their mentor. And they say, yes. So that's, that's something that is always worth doing. Because if you have a mentor, I was lucky that Lisa, my editor became my mentor. And, you know, I could call her anytime and ask her any question about writing? And she would, she would tell me, so a mentor is really good if you can get one. Do you work with an agent today? I don't work with an agent. Now. Now, it's all self publishing. It's all self publish. Yeah, but I do use Edison's   Michael Hingson  51:29 and there's a lot of value in editors, good editors are going to help you really bring out what is important and relevant about not just telling you how to rewrite something or whatever, I remember when we did thunder dog, we had a wonderful editor. And Chad said up front, I'm not going to try to rewrite this book, this has to be you and your story and your style. But what I need to do is to help you enhance it, to make it something that people will want to read and will connect with them. And he had some great suggestions about transitions and so on in the book. I don't know whether you if you read thunderdog, or not.   Robert French  52:13  Yeah, it's no, it's on my list.   Michael Hingson  52:15 Well, one of the things that we do in Thunder dog is we start off with something that happened on September 11. And then we transition back to things in my life that that are relevant to that and taught me something that I could then use to that event. And then at the end of the chapter, we go back to that event, finish it and then go to the next chapter and do the same thing. And Chad said, Well, the problem is, I get lost with the transitions. I don't know where I am, I'm suddenly somewhere else. The transitions are not very good. That's a fair comment, as opposed to, well, you got to you got to rewrite all of this and all that. He said, The transitions aren't good. So we we I actually spent a weekend working on the transitions. Once he taught me what that meant. And the transitions became, I think one of the better parts of the book, and others have said the same thing. And that's, that's one of the things that an editor should do is really help good writers become even better writers?   Robert French  53:14 Mm hmm. Absolutely. I had a, I had an experience with an editor. On my third book, Lisa, was involved in a couple of other projects. And she couldn't be my editor for that book. And so I found another editor who was really, really wonderful. And the book I mentioned about the assassin that never went anywhere, the first chapter of that book was great. And I used it in the new book. And it was a long, long chapter. And it was a it was a flash forward. So you know, after that chapter, it flashed back 14 days to see how one got to that situation. And the editor said that chapter is way too long. And so I broke it up into three different chapters, and flashed, flashed back after each chapter. And it really, really worked. And just, you know, but just to know that the chapter was too long, that's all she had to say, to make me fix it, which was really great and actually had a lot of other really good comments as well, where somebody was acting out of character, you know, would that person really do that? And I thought they probably wouldn't. So,   Michael Hingson  54:48 yeah, that's that's the sign of a good editor. Oh, she was great. Yeah, yeah. Well, if people want to reach out to you and learn about the books and other things like that, how do they do that?   Robert French  54:59 They thing to do is to go to Robert P French.com. That's my website. And if you first page is a list of my books, the book junkie is the first book in the series. And if you click on that, I'll send you a free copy of the first book. So so if anyone's interested in following up, that's the way to do it.   Michael Hingson  55:28 And is that that's the best way then to contact you, as opposed to email or something like that.   Robert French  55:33 But yeah, on my website, just click contact, and then then my email addresses, then people can email me,   Michael Hingson  55:40 and they can learn all about any social media that you happen. So   Robert French  55:43 yeah, I've got Facebook. So Robert P French offer?   Michael Hingson  55:49 Well, I really appreciate you coming on and giving us your insights and demonstrating that you, you took up challenges that came in your life, and you work through them, and even with depression, and so on that comes up, you're able to, to eventually get past it. So don't don't stop doing that. You don't want to depressed, Robert around.   Robert French  56:11 No one does.   Michael Hingson  56:13 But we're really glad that you you came here and you're talking with us. And I appreciate it very much. And so people can go to Robert P french.com. And get all the information and I hope they buy your books. Well,   Robert French  56:25 thank you very much. And thank you very much for inviting me onto the podcast. I really appreciate it. And just as an aside, I didn't after our first conversation I did have I did go to accessibe.com. And it was really very interesting. So I'm glad you made that connection for me.   Michael Hingson  56:49 Well, I hope that you'll use it to to get to work on your website, if you haven't yet. I certainly will. Yes, it works. Well. Yeah, I was very impressed with the demo. Well, thanks for being here. And I want to thank all of you who listened today, I learned a lot and enjoy talking with authors. It's fun to compare notes. And it's also fun to talk about the good old days of computers and such things. So thanks very much for for doing that, Robert. And again, thank all of you for listening. If you'd like to reach out to me, it's easy. You can go to www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast Michael Hingson is M I C H A E L H I N G S O N .com/podcast. Or you can email me and you're welcome to do so at Michael M I C H  A E L H I at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. And wherever you're listening to this, please give us a five star rating. We really appreciate your ratings. And thank you very much for do that. So again, thanks for being here. And Robert, thank you for being here as well. Thank you.   UM Intro/Outro  58:02   You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

UBRadio Salon #758 – DFM netcast 24 July 2022 – Deadtime Of The Tour… with univac & Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon758/ubradio_salon758.mp3  

UBRadio Salon #754 – DFM netcast 28 June 2022 – The Tour Diaries of zer0-g mice with univac & Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon754/ubradio_salon754.mp3

400th Show! Monkey Mashup w/ univac, Wertz & Pinecone+ dAs and pxe (in other words, Big City Orchestraaaa)audiohttp://feeds.feedburner.com/RadioTroubleArchives

UBRadio Salon #745 – DFM netcast 24 April 2022 – The First Gig with univac & Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon745/ubradio_salon745.mp3  

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Quinn Dunki, and Carrington Vanston Topic: UNIVAC liked Ike Episode 252 relates to 1952. The year when UNIVAC correctly called the election early and nobody believed it. The year the paper introducing the Huffman code compression algorithm was published. And the 50th anniversary of all the things that happened in 1902. Topic/Feedback links: UNIVAC predicts the 1952 election CBS news election coverage, 1952 A method for the constructions of minimum-redundancy codes (Sep 1952, Proceedings of the I.R.E.) The Huffman algorithm, and family Stuffit end of life announcement Mac Folklore Radio, Raymond Lau (Stuffit) interviews RetroMagazine World, issue 13 (EN) David Ahl's magazine auctions, some signed The Capacitor Plague The Lost Sectors, playthrough of Deathlord Retro Computing News: Monmouth College typewriter class TubeTime's QuadLink repair and reverse engineering project Apple patenting the home computer? The Amiga Show Apple II video to HDMI using Raspberry Pi Zero/Pico Teardown of a Minitel terminal Vintage Computer(-related) commercials etc.: Remington Quiet-riter Retro Computing Gift Idea: The Colouring Book of Retro Computers Highlighters for reproducing yellowing Auction Picks: Carrington: Computer Bug 1990s Tech Stock Bubble in a can Paul: Woz near Steve Jobs Tim Cook near Steve Jobs Steve Jobs Rare Just Stuffit World Tour shirt AutoDoubler PKZIP 2.70 Multiputer Feedback/Discussion: @rcrpodcast on Twitter Vintage Computer Forum RCR Podcast on Facebook Throwback Network Throwback Network on Facebook Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X Show audio files hosted by CyberEars Listen/Download:

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Quinn Dunki, and Carrington Vanston Topic: UNIVAC liked Ike Episode 252 relates to 1952. The year when UNIVAC correctly called the election early and nobody believed it. The year the paper introducing the Huffman code compression algorithm was published. And the 50th anniversary of all the things that happened in 1902. … Continue reading RCR Episode 252: UNIVAC liked Ike →

UBRadio Salon #741 – DFM netcast 27 March 2022 – Zer0-G with Austin Rich & univac on DFM.nu Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/20220331_20220331_0248/ubradio_salon741.mp3  

UBRadio Salon #737 – DFM netcast 27 February 2022 – Tales From The Space Loft! with univac & Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon737/ubradio_salon737.mp3  

When computer science was in its infancy, programmers quickly realized that though computers are astonishingly powerful tools, the results they achieve are only as good as the data you feed into them. (This principle was quickly formalized as GIGO: “Garbage In, Garbage Out.”) What was true in the era of the UNIVAC has proved still to be true in the era of machine learning: among other well-publicized AI fiascos, chatbots that have interacted with bigots have learned to spew racist invective, while facial-recognition software trained solely on images of white people sometimes fails to recognize people of color as human. In this episode, we meet Prof. Catherine D'Ignazio of MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and Prof. Jacob Andreas and Harini Suresh of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In 2021, D'Ignazio, Andreas, and Suresh collaborated as part of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing initiative from the Schwarzman College of Computing in a project to teach computer science students in 6.864 Natural Language Processing to recognize how deep learning systems can replicate and magnify the biases inherent in the data sets that are used to train them. Relevant Resources:MIT OpenCourseWareThe OCW Educator PortalShare your teaching insightsSocial and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) resource on OpenCourseWareCase Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of ComputingSERC websiteProfessor D'Ignazio's faculty pageProfessor Andreas's faculty pageHarini Suresh's personal websiteDesmond Patton's paper on analysis of communications on TwitterMusic in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Connect with UsIf you have a suggestion for a new episode or have used OCW to change your life or those of others, tell us your story. We'd love to hear from you! Call us @ 617-715-2517On our siteOn FacebookOn TwitterOn Instagram Stay CurrentSubscribe to the free monthly "MIT OpenCourseWare Update" e-newsletter. Support OCWIf you like Chalk Radio and OpenCourseWare, donate to help keep those programs going! CreditsSarah Hansen, host and producer Brett Paci, producer  Dave Lishansky, producer Script writing assistance by Aubrey CalawayShow notes by Peter Chipman 

UBRadio Salon #732 – DFM netcast 23 January 2022 – Something___About Space w/ univac + Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon732/ubradio_salon732.mp3  

UBRadio Salon #727 – DFM netcast 19 December 2021 – On the third Sunday, the fourth Sunday droned… w/ univac + Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon727/ubradio_salon727.mp3  

UBRadio Salon #724 – DFM netcast 28 November 2021 – Shhhh… Quiet Noise In The Library with univac + Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon724/ubradio_salon724.mp3  

UBRadio Salon #719 – DFM netcast 24 October 2021 – SodaJerks Present: 4th Sundae w/ univac + Austin Rich Enjoy! https://archive.org/download/ubradio_salon719/ubradio_salon719.mp3  

BGBS 047: Jamba Dunn | Rowdy Mermaid | Welcome to the KombuchaverseJamba Dunn is the proud founder and CEO of Rowdy Mermaid, the first kombucha company to reimagine the 2000-year-old beverage as a plant-based medicine that is safer and fitted to anyone's palate. Yes, even a toddler. You'll soon see that the awesomeness of this company stemmed from Jamba's roots in the punk rock scene, his passion for Egyptology, and most importantly, his love for his daughter. Jamba's path to being rowdy actually looked much more musical than it does today. Jamba traveled across the US with The Pandoras and made some money DJing, hoping to someday fall into his own band playing guitar. Little did he know that someday a sour fizzy drink would fall into his lap instead and change his life forever. You'll have to listen to the details because you don't want to miss it! We commend Jamba's foundation in countering conventional culture, which helps us question, how can we all own our alienation rather than stand within the crowd? In this episode, you'll learn…Jamba was actually born James. He got the nickname from a friend in the 80s! When Jamba was first introduced to the punk rock scene, he actually wasn't interested in it. His friend showed him the safety pin he had through the back of his hand and Jamba thought that wasn't cool at all. Jamba had a very musical life for a while, which included meeting The Ramones and DJing until he dropped out of the music scene and started his life over Jamba's father and grandfather were both great entrepreneurs and inventors, and although he rebelled against this life early on, Jamba could help but return to his roots Once Jamba's toddler asked to try some of the beer he was brewing in his garage, he realized that he wanted to make something she could have as well, thus inspiring his interest in kombucha According to a market research survey in 2012, only 5% of Americans actually knew what kombucha was. Jamba had a lot of work on his hands to find a recipe that was just right. In the early days of Rowdy Mermaid, much of the brewing, deliveries, etc. were done in Jamba's garage with the help of some volunteers Today, Rowdy Mermaid is present across 48 states with a vibrant team of 30 people The name Rowdy Mermaid was discovered at a hot spring in Colorado, although it wasn't until much later that Jamba chose this as the name The design of Rowdy Mermaid's logo is inspired by Jamba's love of Nordic minimalism and Egyptology The anti-establishment agenda that punk rock stood for influenced the flat organization structure of Rowdy Mermaid ResourcesRowdy Mermaid Website Jamba Dunn LinkedIn Quotes[21:44] Punk rock absolutely spoke to me. It was all about taking your alienation and owning that and turning that into something that you could wear physically to show other people, “I'm not like you, and I'm proud to be different from you.” [24:35] Being lower middle class and not having the ability to get a leg up, it seemed like everything was turned against me or us. I think part of that might be true, and a lot of that was illusion. [37:56] It was a huge divide in my life, education. But it was something I was passionate about and something that I decided was more important than a lot of the relationships I had at the time. So I pursued education. [43:20] I sat there like, “Wow, that was really interesting. That wasn't just a beverage that was kind of an experience.” And I went back into the market, and I bought another bottle and went back out to my car and thought, “Well this one I'm just going to kind of sip,” and I downed it completely again. And I thought, “What is this?” Podcast TranscriptJamba Dunn 0:02I felt alienated. I didn't know how to enter into conventional culture. And I, in many ways over romanticized, what it would be like to be in conventional culture and to, to be popular to have the nice clothes to know more about the world around me and to feel confident in that world. And I just didn't have that and, and you're right, punk rock absolutely spoke to me. It was all about taking your alienation. And in owning that and turning that into something that you could wear physically, and show other people. I'm not like you and I'm proud to be different from you. Marc Gutman 1:00Podcasting from Boulder, Colorado, this is the Baby Got Backstory Podcast, where we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs. I like big backstories and I cannot lie. I am your host, Marc Gutman, Marc Gutman, and on today's episode of Baby got backstory, how his son of Scottish immigrants combined his passion for punk rock music, a thirst for learning, and the love for his daughter into a kombucha juggernaut. And before we get into the episode, I need to do my usual reminder. If you like and enjoy the show, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over iTunes or Spotify, iTunes and Spotify use these ratings as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on their charts. And we like good ratings, who doesn't? You'd be surprised how happy I get when you click on all those stars. It's almost like you gave me money. Almost remember, ratings help us to build an audience, which then helps us to continue to produce this show. So please go ahead and give us a rating if you think we deserve it. What do Scottish immigrants, Southern California, punk rock music, Egyptology, and a 2000 year old beverage have in common? Well, it turns out a lot. Today we are talking with Jamba Dunn, founder and CEO of rowdy mermaid. What is rowdy mermaid? Is it a woman surf brand? Is it a punk rock band? Is it an odd character from SpongeBob SquarePants. Not even close. Rowdy mermaid is kombucha and not just any kombucha. conceived as the first plant based kombucha. Rowdy mermaid thinks of itself more of a functional plant medicine company than a kombucha company. One that's on a mission to bring as many functional plants to as many functional people as they possibly can, using only the fruits, fruits, mushrooms and botanicals that nature created. And 20 years ago, if you walked into any grocery store, or even a whole foods, kombucha was not something that was readily available. We take for granted all the choices of kombucha we see on the shelves today. And generally speaking, kombucha is a fizzy sweet and sour drink made with tea. And for centuries, many people have believed it to be an elixir that relieves or prevents a variety of health problems. kombucha has been around for nearly 2000 years. It was first brewed in China and then spread to Japan and Russia. And it became popular in Europe in the early 20th century. kombucha is now experiencing revival and you can see it almost on every shelf at every grocery store in almost every neighborhood in America. The basic ingredients in kombucha are yeast, sugar, and black tea. And kombucha has been around for nearly 2000 years. It was first brewed in China and then spread to Japan and Russia. It became popular in Europe in the early 20th century. And now we're seeing it pop up on shelves all over America. Rowdy Mermaid, such a cool name and a great brand. And of course, you rarely find a cool brand without an intriguing founder. Jamba Dunn is certainly intriguing. I could have spoken to him for hours if we had time. We covered so much of his story and only touched on his passion for Egyptology, which is probably a whole nother episode that we could go into for probably another couple of hours. And not to get too sidetracked or weird. But speaking of Egyptology, a year or so ago, I was at the National History Museum in New York City and they had an Egyptian accent. exhibit and it struck me as odd. Why we don't carry on some of their traditions? Well, I've made it known to my family, but now it's here on public podcast record. I'd like to be buried in a cool Egyptian sarcophagus, probably Fox style, and then put into some sort of pyramid. You heard it here first. Okay, enough with my eccentricities. We're here to talk about Jamba Dunn, and rowdy Mermaid, and in 2012, while experimenting with kombucha in his garage with equipment that was originally intended to home brew beer, Jamba fell into brewing kombucha. Actually, his daughter wanted to be a part of the hobby. And being a good dad, john felt his three year old daughter should probably not be brewing and drinking beer. I think that's being a good dad. Anyway, as a way to include her in his hobby. He brewed kombucha and the rest. Well, this is his story. I am here with Jamba Dunn, the CEO and founder of rowdy Mermaid, rowdy Mermaid, what is that? You know, you might be thinking it could be maybe some crazy surf brand. It could be the cool new bar down the street, but it' s kombucha. So before we get going Jamba, can you tell us a little bit about rowdy mermaid and then we'll jump into a bunch of your story? Jamba Dunn 6:35Absolutely. Rowdy mermaid is a functional beverages company that I founded in 2013. And it was founded on the idea of bringing a safer plant based kombucha to market and now we're expanding into different product categories, or at least, we're experimenting with different product categories right now. Marc Gutman 6:59There's so much I love about the name and the branding, and we'll get into that, but I want to save that for a little later. But you know, I want to think back to a little bit of the beginning of your story. And when you were a young boy, I mean, did you even know what kombucha was? We're gonna kombucha say like, eight years old, like what are we doing around that time? Jamba Dunn 7:23Well, I don't think anybody knew what Kombucha was when I was eight years old. GTS is the largest kombucha company and they're about I think, 21 or 22 years old right now, before that, no other kombucha have been brought to market. So let's see cut back though, eight years old. That's an interesting time for me. I was living in Southern California, and just recovering from a major accident where I fell out of an automobile. And I think just really, at that time starting to recognize the the world around me in Southern California in the 1970s. With surfers and music and all the other things happening in California at that time. Marc Gutman 8:14That was like the the golden age, I think of California, or at least one of them. They've had a few but you know, the 70s and in Southern California, and I think, you know, like you mentioned, you know that that was the the blossoming of that 70 surf culture. There's a lot of different things going on there. What were you doing? Like, what, what were your interests? Where did you grow up? What was your family like? Jamba Dunn 8:36Sure. So you're right. It was one of those many Golden Ages that California had in the mid 70s, mid to late 70s. And I wouldn't fully drop into my experience of California and all it had to offer until a little bit later. But around that time in the mid 70s. My family was we're in Huntington Beach and my family is second generation Scottish American. And we were extremely blue collar, my family, my father and my mother. And we were surrounded by a very changing atmosphere. A lot of people were white color. A lot of culture seemed to be in transition around that time. I had an uncle who had started plastic fantastic surfboards, which has kind of a now sort of cult surfboard brand from Huntington Beach. And I had a cousin who was already surfing and would go on to become a very good surfer. And for me at that time, it was just more about the beach and school and trying to understand the world around me a little bit. I definitely played the role early on as this sort of translate Later between my family and the outside culture, I guess you could call it because my family was very different from even our immediate neighbors. And my mother and father were extremely reserved and cut off from other people and didn't really want to have much to do with them. And so, I would play, like I said, the translator between our neighbors and the waitresses and the the people who would come to our house for services. And so it was interesting time for sure. But, you know, cut forward a few years. About five years when I started high school, that was definitely the height of punk rock in Orange County. And that was a culture that definitely brought me out of the home and more into what Orange County and California had to offer at that time. Marc Gutman 10:55Yeah, and you know, I'm intrigued by this, this idea. And so if I heard you, right, your parents were first-generation immigrants. And are you in your second generation at that time? Is that correct? Jamba Dunn 11:05Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Marc Gutman 11:06And so you, were you born Jamba? Jamba Dunn 11:08No, I was born James. And it wasn't until the mid 80s. That friend of mine started calling me Jamba. And it just it stuck. And it's, it's stuck ever since then I could not get rid of it. So now it's my name. Marc Gutman 11:27It's a great name. I was wondering where it came from. And I wanted to get in a better story than I thought. And so and just before we move on, like, you know, you mentioned your your folks were blue collar, like what were they doing in this Southern California environment for a living like, what were you seeing and modeling after at that time? Jamba Dunn 11:46So it's kind of an interesting and convoluted story in itself. And I actually once tried writing a book about it, but it's hard to summarize. So I'll just tell one story. My grandfather on my father's side had come to the US after being a foreman in Europe and the series of factories. And he wanted to make a better life in the United States, but couldn't find work. He ended up becoming a milkman in Milwaukee, and saved up his money to try to, I guess, afford a better life, a better house, etc. And my grandmother, his wife, convinced him that she had a scheme that she knew about that was going to work in California. And that was to raise chinchillas, which at the time was all the rage, people would raise chinchillas, then they would sell them to a farrier. And they would come and take them all away and turn them into coats. And they would make lots of money off of that. And so he decided to take the bet and put all of his money, all of their money, all of the family's money into chinchillas. They then packed up the car and drove across the United States with my father and his brother and landed in Long Beach, and they rented a house. And a couple of days later, the chinchillas arrived, and they put them all into the garage and close the door. And the next morning, every one of them was dead, because they had no understanding of what they were doing, or what they were getting into, or how to take care of this animal that they had only just heard about. And my father had a meltdown and nervous breakdown. And he ended up dying shortly after. And my father found himself in California having to figure out how to make a living. And being somebody who is really not only industrious but but quick on his feet and smart with his hands. He started figuring out how to fix things. And he fixed different types of machinery, and ended up fixing, adding machines at the time. And then he went into the military and started fixing uniacke, and UNIVAC, the first computer systems that were installed on submarines. He got out and continued to to fix adding machines and later on copy machines, ditto machines and those types of things and started his own business. So that's how we we kind of landed in California and my mother had been a housewife her entire life. And so the two of them patch together a life like this. And that was what I came into Marc Gutman 14:47The way it works, you know? And that's the way it works. And so what did you think about that? You know, what did you think about your father? I mean, were you like, Wow, that's really cool that he's fixing all of these things, or were you like Like, you know, I can see there also potentially being conflict, you're looking around Southern California at the super cool culture and being like, this isn't cool. Like, like, Where did you land on? Like, what do you think about all that? Jamba Dunn 15:11So it's a really interesting question. And it's something that I've been trying to understand my whole life in some ways, I actually wrote a book about my dad that I need to go back and edit and try to do something with at some point called the baloney generation. And it was really about his lifestyle, growing up in the United States in extreme blue collar situations coming out of it, figuring out how to really fix anything that he can get his hands on, and in turning that into his living. And you're right, I mean, here I am. And I'm growing up in Huntington Beach, which at that time was a really up and coming cool place with surfers, I had an uncle who was in surfing. And as I mentioned, my cousin, cool culture was all around us. And we were just not a part of it. We were extremely low, middle class, and we ate very poorly. And my parents didn't know anything about nutrition. They didn't know anything about culture, or at least the culture that was around us. Both my mom and father had grown up in Catholic school. And so they knew a lot about Catholicism. But now they had given that up, and they wouldn't allow anyone to practice Catholicism in the house. And we were very removed from everything. So you're absolutely right. It wasn't easy to bring a friend to our house. Because my friends at school where we're from completely, I just I thought of them from being as from a different culture than I was in a lot of ways. And so it wasn't until later that I started to hang around with my father more. I started working with him at one point, when I was a teenager and into my early 20s, I actually started going out and fixing machines for him because he didn't have anyone to help him. And on our drives, he would let in on these stories that I just they seem completely different from the Father I had known. And so I became sort of addicted to hanging out with him and, and trying to get these stories out of him that he wasn't really willing to share in stories that he also thought were just kind of like beside the point that weren't really important enough to tell. One of them was growing up in Milwaukee, he was very interested in inventing new ways of listening to music and cars. And he was the first person that he had ever known that had installed a record player that can play singles on a spring inside of cars. And you could listen to it and drive and it wouldn't skip. And he was installing them into other cars and became kind of well known for a while when he was younger in in Milwaukee. Another one was this crazy story that still just seems odd to me. But he was working in Oakland at a company that fixed adding machines. And one day he was visited by these three men is three African American men. A one of them was very nicely dressed. And the other two were wearing leather jackets. And he said they they were very big guys. And the nicely dressed man came in to ask for his adding machine back. And my father told him it wasn't ready. And that wasn't a good enough answer. And they told them they wanted it now. And they ended up actually closing off the door and knocking over some machines and some cabinetry and things in there and telling him like, Listen, don't you know who we are, we're the Black Panthers. And my dad because he was so naive about culture thought that they were a Car Club, which I guess was a big thing when he was growing up. And so he tells me he looked out the window at their automobile. And he saw this, you know, lowered primered gray car with, with blue walls on it. And his perspective was he could never be pushed around by somebody who had blue walls on their car. And it just was like so crazy to me that to hear these stories to have grown up knowing who the Black Panthers were in my father still not knowing who they were but relaying these types of stories that I just realized that there was there was so much more there than I had ever done. Growing up, and it was very interesting. Marc Gutman 20:03I can imagine and to me, it sounds like you're straddling two worlds, you know, you're struggling a little bit this immigrant world with your, your parents and then trying to adapt and assimilate in Southern California. And you mentioned that as you got older, you started to find the punk rock scene. And that really kind of spoke to these people that felt like they didn't belong, that they didn't have a place like, you know, were popular music was they weren't, you know, it was a different kind of music for a different kind of person who didn't have a community and the type of music that spoke to them. Is that what was going on for you at that time? Were you really finally finding your people, the people that spoke to you and that punk rock scene? Jamba Dunn 20:52Absolutely. I would say that the one thing that's often missed about people reminiscing about the punk rock scene isn't necessarily the music. It's, it's really what it stood for. And it stood for all of those people who felt alienated by conventional culture. And I was 100% in that category. I felt alienated I didn't know how to enter into conventional culture. And I, in many ways over-romanticized, what it would be like to be in conventional culture and to, to be popular to have the nice clothes to know more about the world around me and to feel confident in that world. And I just didn't have that and, and you're right, punk rock absolutely spoke to me. It was all about taking your alienation. And owning that and turning that into something that you could wear physically, and show other people. I'm not like you, and I'm proud to be different from you. Marc Gutman 22:05And so who were you into at that time? And do you remember your first punk rock? I'll call it experience because it might not have been like a show. But like, yeah, who were you into at the time? And what was your first memory of like your standout punk rock or like your first, you know, punk rock experience? Yeah, my Jamba Dunn 22:21My first punk rock experience wasn't a very good one. It was a it was a very good friend of mine from school, who pulled me into an alcove at school to show me that he had put a safety pin through the back of his hand because he was really into punk rock now. And I literally had no idea what he was talking about. I was horrified. It didn't seem very cool at all. And then I remember him, like shortly after showing me pictures of Johnny Rotten, and how Johnny Rotten had, you know, safety pins in his ears. And I was like, That still doesn't really resonate with me at all. And it was like, shortly after that, that I started hearing local bands. Oh, yeah, the local bands were great. I mean, we we had TSL in the crowd. And in Orange County, I believe in Orange County, or LA, we had adolescence. The adolescence were a huge band for me, there were, of course, black flag was around in Santa Monica at that time, and there were so many bands around us, and a lot of them in Huntington Beach. It was kind of it was a little bit like being in London in the 1960s for the birth of rock and roll or the growth of rock and roll there. It was just everywhere, and you'd hear new songs and giving, you'd have to find out who it was. And there were record stores popping up in neighborhoods that would only sell punk rock albums. And we were drawn to those types of places. And eventually, that became my entire friend group. And, you know, they they weren't into, you know, self mutilation, or anything, the way their early punks seemed to be, but it was all about rebellion. And that was 100% something I could get on board with. Marc Gutman 24:20Yeah. What were you rebelling against? Jamba Dunn 24:23My parents, my upbringing, the feeling of being so removed. The feeling of being a translator and not having my own voice. Being lower middle class and not having the ability to get a leg up. It seemed like everything was turned against me or us. And, you know, I think part of that might be true, and a lot of that was illusion. And a lot of that was just how to lessons but I certainly at the time, I couldn't distinguish those. Marc Gutman 24:57Yeah, and so if we're still kind of in that high school, period, you're falling in with the punk rock scene. It's, it's you're finding this this group of people to rebel with I mean, what's your plan? What do you think you're going to do at this point? Do you have a plan? Are you just like, I'm just just trying to like get through high school like I'm gonna do I'm gonna work for my dad, like, What are you thinking? Jamba Dunn 25:16Yeah, plan. That's very funny. Yeah, there was no plan, there was no, there was no weird to go there was there was no, there was no strategy. There was no anything. It was 100% day by day. And I had no real guidance through all of that my family had no one in my family had ever gone beyond high school. And my parents had just barely gone beyond high school. And so they I couldn't turn to them for academics. My sister, who is four years older than me, really didn't want to have much to do with me. She was in a whole different music category. My sister was going to kiss shows and Queen shows and David Bowie and a lot of the bigger groups around the time and she was sharing some of her experiences with me, but we, I felt like I was in a different world from even what she was in. And so I was definitely drifting there was there was no plan. But I like your enthusiasm. Marc Gutman 26:34All right, well, so you're drifting and you're going through and I imagine at some point, you drift and matriculate, like that were matriculate through high school, and the real world is on the other side, and you can fill in any gaps where I might have missed that. But assuming that that to be true, that's true. And you kind of hit hit the real world and you're staring at the rest of your life, like, what does that look like? And what do you do Jamba Dunn 26:59So I didn't realize it at the time. But in my, in my last year, my senior year at high school, there was definitely some partying and there were definitely friends that I would stay out all night with. And there were concerts that would happen all night, and sometimes on weeknights. I didn't realize at the time that school was just falling by the wayside completely. It wasn't serving me public school was not helping me whatsoever. My teachers were not engaged with the students. It all sort of felt like something of a dream. And it wouldn't be until several years later that I ended up actually getting therapy and finding out that I had gone through post-traumatic stress during high school. And I had basically been just blocking a lot of my life out at that time. And that was from my my fall that I had mentioned earlier, the accident that happened when I was six. And so I started putting things together a couple of years after high school, and I started understanding that I had to, as you say, come up with a plan. And I had to get a little bit more serious about my life. And by that point, I was heavily involved in the garage music scene in Los Angeles. And my girlfriend at the time was the keyboard player in a band called The Pandoras. And she eventually went on to play with white flag and the leaving trains and other punk bands. And I decided that something had to change. And so when the the Pandoras went on tour, I went with them to the east coast and traveled around for a while and lived in New York and hung out with some of the bands out there. Got to meet Joey Ramone and hang out with the Ramones and lived with the fuzz tones for a minute. And he had a very, very musical life at the time. But I still didn't fully understand what I was going to do. I was making a little bit of money by DJing and clubs here and there. But the world around me was changing drastically and rapidly. I thought that something in the music industry would eventually work out for me. And so I moved back to California and started to write a fanzine for 60s Garage music, and I thought that was going to be the direction but I just I didn't have the dedication. I really just didn't know what I was doing. And so that kind of fell apart. And so I found myself kind of hanging out with people like Rodney being and heimer from Rodney on the rock and Greg sharp who founded bomp records that produced you know, everything from the Ramones to modern garage music, and I thought that Something would occur there and I'd find my way or I would fall into a band playing guitar. And in just everywhere I went, it was just not meant to happen. And it wasn't until about the late 80s, about 89, that I decided to simply drop out of all of it. And I got in my car, and I drove up to Central Coast, California. And I found a group of people up there that seemed friendly enough, and I decided to just stay and start my life all over. And when I started my life all over, I decided I would just leave behind any presuppositions I had about people in the world and how I should be in the world and how things should be and music and all of that. And it was like a personal rebirth in a way. And I spent a lot of time in Big Sur, and I spent a lot of time in San Luis Obispo and that area, Cambria. And I really started to to get into different areas, literature and food and understand people's stories. And I felt like at that point, there was a major transition that occurred in me and I realized that the one thing I had to do was go back to school, and to really learn this time. And so I eventually did that I went back to school. And I did very well in school. And I took a course that is now you know, kind of a very well known course, at Cuesta College, a several year course in the history of civilization, I became friends with the professors, I would hang out with them, I was just a sponge for everything around me. And I felt like that really, really propelled me forward and saved me in a lot of ways. And education to me seemed like the right direction. And it's interesting because I did go on to study at Berkeley, I got my MFA, I got my PhD later on. And I'm still friends with my, with my, my group of, you know, girlfriends and pals and everyone from the punk scene and the garage scene. And it is fascinating to see how different we all became. Most of them are still into music and publishing and recording. And I've definitely built a much different life for myself after all of that not to say it's better, just, I'm not sure where I would have ended up if I hadn't had taken that move out of California, or out of Southern California. Marc Gutman 32:58This episode brought to you by Wildstory. Wait, isn't that your company? It is. And without the generous support of Wildstory, this show would not be possible. A brand isn't a logo or a tagline. or even your product or a brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service or company. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room. Wildstory helps progressive founders and savvy marketers build purpose driven brands that connect their business goals with the customers they want to serve. So that both the business and the customer needs are met. This results in crazy, happy, loyal customers that purchase again and again. And this is great for business. If that sounds like something you and your team might want to learn more about, reach out @ www.wildstory.com. And we'd be happy to tell you more. Now back to our show. And thank you for going into that and extrapolating that that journey, I mean, that was going to be my question and looking at your bio and looking at your history as you were talking and telling me that you weren't a good student. And you kind of went on this journey in to New York City to get into, you know, the music scene and I'm looking at your bio, and I'm like, at what point did you get this like thirst for learning? And it really is like the tale of two Jambas you know, and it's, it's interesting, and you very eloquently referred to it as a rebirth and a new awakening. I mean, can you get into a little bit more specifics as to like what flipped the switch for you? Jamba Dunn 34:39I think it was, wasn't about subject matter which schools before me had always been about. It was about people and structures. And I started meeting people who are professors who really took the time With me, whereas nobody had when I was younger and, and they took me under their wing a little bit, and they told me or I was going wrong. And they pointed out areas where I should maybe think about focusing. And they asked me what I was interested in, and what I liked about their courses, or what I liked about studying. And in a lot of ways, I realized I didn't understand my own desires. You know, growing up, it was easy to have a sense of rage and a sense of feeling on the outside and feeling like the whole rest of the world was entitled. And, you know, here I was, though, being asked, What do you want? And I didn't know. And so, school gave me the opportunity to start learning about the world in a way that I think, you know, hopefully my children get that now in really connecting to pieces here and pieces over there, and going back to these professors and asking them, hey, do you have more of this, or this is what I like, can you direct me and getting that direction, and really just feeling like I was on a kind of a journey. And interestingly, even though for the first time I was having this revelation of about education, and about all the different things that were going on in the world around me, and all the different avenues that I could take. My parents still didn't fully understand what I was doing, or why I was doing it. Because if, you know, in their eyes, you weren't studying to become a mechanic or to fix a machine or to become a doctor or to do something that was a position in the world that they knew about, then it just seemed irrelevant to them. And I remember even when I graduated from UC Berkeley, and I had been studying Egyptology and several other areas for years and years and talking about it, every time I saw them, they thought that I had gotten a degree in sociology. And when I told them, I didn't they, they just couldn't understand it. And they would be like, yeah, yeah, well, we'll just like pretend that you've got a degree in sociology, because I have no idea what you're talking about. And this huge divide opened up between myself and my parents. And if it wasn't there already, in the early days, it was definitely there then. And it opened up between not only myself and my parents, but myself and the rest of my family as well. My cousin who is my age who decided to surf instead of going to school. I remembered him saying things like, you know, you come around here with your big words, and nobody can understand you. And it was a huge divide in my life education. But it was something I was passionate about. And something that I decided was more important than a lot of the relationships I had at the time. So I pursued education. Marc Gutman 38:11Yeah, and I feel like we could spend hours talking about this topic. So I'll just shift gears a little bit and I want to move into kombucha and I want to know, When was the first time that you even heard of kombucha or even realized kombucha was a thing? Jamba Dunn 38:32Yeah. Interesting. So because there are a lot of lives that lead up to kombucha You know, a lot of my past, basically, that leads me to Boulder, and I'm at Boulder. I'm in Boulder and I had been teaching at a university here. And I remember going to a Whole Foods Market in 2009. And there's good old Steve o from high country kombucha standing by the kombucha set, handing out free bottles of kombucha. And, you know, I took one and he he told me a little bit about what kombucha was. And I could tell that he really, you know, he had kind of a stick and he wanted to like, tell talk with somebody. And so I hung out with him for a little bit. And he told me how I can take a bottle of his kombucha, pour it into a jar, put a lid over it, you know, or cloth over it and set it on the counter and grow scoby and eventually, I could make my own kombucha. And it sounded very abstract to me at the time, I did not comprehend how it was possible to take something off of the shelf of the grocery store and grow it and turn it into basically an engine for making more of that product. And so I brought it home and instead of making it I decided just to kind of drink it and you know that maybe someday in the future. I would do something else with that knowledge. But it wasn't until a few years later in 2011, that I was brewing a lot of beer in my garage at the time, my wife had given me a beer brewing kit. And it was something that had always interested me. And my daughter came walking into the garage. And so what I was doing, and I told her, I was brewing beer. And she asked, Well, is there you know, can you make me so Can I have some? And I said, Well, no, it's alcohol. And she didn't know what that was. And I told her, it wasn't for kids. And she got really sad and asked if, you know, there was something that I could make for her. And at that time, I kind of looked around the room, and I realized, I could spending a lot of my time in the garage, making beer and other things and getting really into this. And here's my sweet little three year old, you know, and I'm not spending time with her doing anything for her. And so I remembered back to Steve O. And I thought, well, this is going to be easy. I'll just take a, you know, bottle of kombucha and I'll put a thing over the top. And I'll make some for my daughter. And so I did that. And I did it with several different brands. And I realized that only one out of three of those brands actually started to grow. And I think that was the point at which I started wondering Hmm, like, what is this actually? And why didn't those other ones grow? And so I started to reach out for information. And I found that there was not much information about kombucha at that time. And I think that seeing that there was a lack of information and knowing that kombucha was a growing category, it just immediately fed my curiosity, and I had to get into it. Marc Gutman 41:48And so up to this point, between that and your first interaction with Steve, I get that right, Steve? Oh, is Yeah, keep thinking Steve. From the jackass movies. That's what keeps coming into my, into my head. But um, so I was like, I was like, I can't be here. So you have this experience with Steve Oh, and and all the way to when your daughter puts you on the spot and says, Hey, what about me? Like, what's your relationship with kombucha? Between there? I mean, you have a relationship? Are you consuming it regularly? Is it just this thing that's like, kind of out in the consciousness and you know about it, but you're not really into it? Like, what's your relationship with kombucha at that point? Jamba Dunn 42:26So yeah, it's, it's interesting. I remember that that day, when I went to the market, and I got my first kombucha and, and I remember going up to the car and drinking it and feeling like man, like, I don't really know what this is. It's kind of like a soda. It's kind of sour. I'm not sure if I actually like this. And then it was a couple of weeks later that I, I remember, I've been doing some kind of like hard work, and I was really exhausted and overheated. And I went to Whole Foods again. And I was walking around trying to find something that would quench my thirst. And I thought, whoa, the kombucha maybe I'll try that again. And so I went out to my car, and I closed the door, and I drank it. And I started drinking. And I mean, I took a couple of sips. And then all of a sudden, it just was like this, this like drive where I just downed the rest of the bottle. And I sat there like, wow, that was really interesting. That wasn't just a beverage that was kind of an experience. And I went back into the market, and I bought another bottle and went back out to my car and thought, well, this one, I'm just going to kind of sip and I downed it completely again. And I thought What is this, there's got to be something here that you know, is just very, very different than anything I've ever had. And that kind of sat at the back of my mind. And when I started brewing kombucha from my daughter, I was kind of taking a passive role. Like, I don't know what this is, you know, don't really care what it is. I've had it, it tasted good. But something about my daughter in the way that she was reacting to kombucha. She was getting really, really hyper and running around the house. The next morning, She'd wake up early, and she'd have her little cup and she'd be standing by the area where I was brewing kombucha, wanting more. And I was thinking, well, this is unusual. Like, she kind of has that same reaction that I remembered having, you know, years before in the car. And so, you know, I I didn't fully grasp what fermentation was what the beverage was. And so it was at that time in 2011, that I started really asking questions and I went around I look for all the literature, I read everything I could find. I went to the University, I read everything that they had on file. I started reaching out to kombucha companies and talking with CEOs and founders of other kombucha companies. Then, in 2012, I started paying people and offering $100 if someone would sit down and talk to me for 30 minutes, and what I quickly realized was that here are people that had thriving businesses that were actually doing quite well at the time. But not all of them understood what it was that they were doing or what kombucha was. A lot of people still thought it was kind of like a mystical thing that happens, you just kind of, you know, you put it into this jar, and you mix this in here, and you close the door, and then voila, there you go kombucha, you know, and, but nobody could tell me exactly what it was or exactly what the processes were, or why it was that it was making my daughter extremely hyperactive. And so that's where I really took a huge interest in kombucha and decided to go out and hire a microbiologist and a brewer and we work together to fully understand what was going on and what they helped me understand what was going on in the process. And I started looking for ways to hack that process. So you know, having gone through, you know, years of university and having gotten my doctorate in, in research, basically in philosophy, I had the ability to to understand when when I saw Bs, and what I was reading on a lot of websites at the time about the history of kombucha just smacked of total BS, there were no historical records there were, there was nothing that I could find at that time, that basically corroborated the idea that this is 2000 years old, except for the fact that I had studied ancient history. And I did know that there were lots of vinegar, I guess, drinks and attributes from the ancient world. And maybe this was kind of like those, but to relate what kombucha was today with those ancient elixirs just seemed not right to me, and something seemed odd about it. And so I did get heavily involved with this microbiologist in understanding that kombucha is basically a semiotic relationship between yeast and bacteria, the yeast consume sugar, that's you make a sweet tea with sugar in it. And you put in a starter culture and the yeast break down the sugars or oxidize the sugars and create alcohol, and the bacterial strains translate that alcohol into different types of acids. And so you end up hopefully with a low alcohol, low sugar beverage at the end. But that turns out not to be the case, oh, and low caffeine as well. And so what I did was I looked at all of the misunderstandings that occurred with kombucha around that time. And granted in 2012, we did a market research survey, and it showed that only 5% of Americans actually knew what kombucha was at the time. So a very small subset of people. And there were a lot of misunderstandings about it. People thought that by the end of the process, that it had no alcohol, that it had almost no sugar, and that it had no caffeine. And so I decided, I knew a little bit about research, and I could talk with people at research institutions and laboratories. And we could do some tests. And we could sort of prove that out. And so I started taking in my homebrews. And they showed that they were wildly, wildly out of spec, they were high on alcohol, they were high on sugar they had, you know, all these things that I didn't want. And so trying to figure out how the market leaders were doing it became a sort of obsession for me. Marc Gutman 49:20And at what point did you take obsession in in sort of this garage mythology and mad scientist tinkering in your garage for the joy of your daughter and following your own obsession? And at what point were you like, Oh, this is a business. I'm gonna like make a run at this. Jamba Dunn 49:38Well, let's see. The first inkling about potentially turning this into something else was definitely in 2012 when a market survey came out, saying that over the next five years that they they thought that kombucha was going to turn into a $500 million a year business with seemed just crazy to me at the time, because there were only a few kombucha companies. So there weren't that many companies and certainly, you know, only a couple of market leaders. And so it seemed like there was a lot of open space for other brands to get in. But I didn't have anything to offer at the time. So I couldn't make anything that was in spec. I certainly didn't make anything that was different from what the market leaders were doing at the time. And it wasn't until I think, mid 2012, that I got in touch with a brewer who had been the brewer for another major kombucha company. And she and I decided that I would lease a warehouse and she would come and help me with recipes, even though she wasn't very interested in doing that. And we rented a warehouse space and in 2013, started, really just doing iterations on different flavors, and herbs and herbs and plants was a place that I'd always been very interested. And pursuing. I've been growing a lot of herbs, I've been making a lot of teas. And so I decided to start taking some of those flavors from the TEAS I was making and her knowledge of herbs from India and other places. And we started building these recipes. And, you know, we would do iterations that would be you know, like 30 different batches of the same type of thing with, you know, one gram of ingredient less in every bucket, and really doing kind of this like pseudo scientific research and seeing if we couldn't land on something. Granted, I was doing all of this and throwing out hundreds of gallons of kombucha at a time because I had nobody to take it. And I still at that point wasn't thinking that I would turn this into a business. And it wasn't until we really hit on a series of recipes, and a series of methods for making kombucha that were really different from anything I'd ever tasted in the market. It was less acidic, it had low sugar, it did have low alcohol, although tended to waver sometimes depending on barometric pressure, temperature, other types of things. But it was relatively stable. And it tasted great. And suddenly I had people all around me asking if I would sell it to them? or could they come by and fill up their milk carton full of it. And it was at that point that I realized, we've got something like I've got something here. And wouldn't it be interesting to make the first plant based kombucha and really, instead of relying on the probiotics as the reason for believing in the beverage, put together these recipes that were based on age old herbal wisdom, and create herbal recipes, functional recipes, the based off of the herbs themselves, and use the kombucha as a sort of background for highlighting the ingredients that we were putting in. And if I could make a three year old or however old she was at that time, love it, then I knew that I would have a certain audience in America that would like this. And so I decided to drop everything that I was doing, and really just put 110% into building this business. And so that was in 2013. And it took me until April of 2014 to actually get the tasting room up and running. I and rowdy mermaid was born. Marc Gutman 53:57And where did the name come from? Jamba Dunn 53:59So when I decided to break into my family that I was going to leave my my stable job at Rosetta Stone and start a kombucha company. I took my family down to these hot springs in Colorado. And I'll never forget my daughter was really out of control at the the hot springs playing mermaid. Although it sounded much more like a dolphin to me. And she was making these dolphin noises and jumping over people's heads etc. And she was just really high on life and having the best time ever. And I was in an another pool and I told my wife Hey, listen, I got some news. I'm going to start my own business. And the first question out of her mouth was what do you call it? And I hadn't put any thought into that whatsoever. And right at that moment, I remember my daughter was jumping over someone's head into one of the hot springs. And I had to turn to her and say, Hey, sweetie, stop what you're doing. You're being very rowdy. mermaid. And that phrase rowdy Mermaid, just it went into a little room in my head and just stayed in there. And I didn't believe that that was going to be the name. So I actually went out and hired agencies to come up with names, and I did crowdsourcing for names, etc, etc. And it wasn't until a while longer later that I think I was speaking with the CEO of another kombucha company. And he told me, you know, like, you have to use a name that is authentic. Otherwise, you know, what are you doing in this industry? Right, because everything we do is based on authenticity. And I realized he was absolutely right. So I would use rowdy Mermaid, because it was for my daughter, after all, but I had to figure out some way to keep it from being rowdy and keep it from having mermaids because I didn't want it to turn into craft beer. And so I found myself in artists, and we went out and worked on the the logo and the branding. And we came up with something based off of Nordic minimalism, and I felt like we got it to a very good place. And here we are today. Marc Gutman 56:14Yeah, and I love it. And I think that, you know, it has this real kind of Explorer, you know, take me to other worlds take me to someplace new experience. And you mentioned, you know, all the different ingredients that you've been using, both at the beginning and probably today in your kombucha, like, you know, herbs from India and different plants and all these different things. So it has this real kind of like, take me to lands far away feel and I was going to ask you about the unique Oh, and some of the unique characters in your branding and in your, you know, typography and stuff like that, but that Oh, so from what I'm gathering is Nordic and and what do you call that? Jamba Dunn 56:56Um, so that, that no, you're talking about the newest font that we use from the it's, it's a Montreal font, that that's part of the brand new branding from here studio in California. But the real brand came from that original, what we call the logo lockup, which is the the tail and water. And that's kind of interesting story, maybe a long one, but I'll see if I can cut, cut it quick. I wanted something that represented both my interest in Nordic minimalism, and also the brand, the rowdy Mermaid, and also my interest in Egyptology. That's what I had been studying at Berkeley. So we decided to go with the tail with the water under it on three straight lines like that would represent water. Three wavy lines also in Egyptology represent water, but a straight line represents somebody's name. And so we decided to do the tail with a straight line under it not only to represent a mermaid tail coming out of water, but also to really define mermaid in that instance, just the way you do it with cartouche. And because I didn't want anything to be too rowdy, we decided to put the lockup around it. And that's how that was born. But there's also if you turn it on its side, a hidden k in there for kombucha. And we went back and forth for a long time about whether or not we should turn it on its side to show the K. Or just keep that as a secret. And we decided to keep that as a secret. Marc Gutman 58:40Well, thanks for sharing the secret. I see it now. And I can't unsee it. And I love it. And thank you for going into it. That's great. I love it. And I think that that's just such a great lesson and a great logos that has meaning beyond just it being assemble. And you really were thoughtful and it really whether or not we ever knew that it has roots in your Egyptology studies and passions like it's there. And I think that's just you know, what a great a great Mark does, and I love it. I love your brand and your branding. And so you started in the garage, you didn't set out to be you know, you're kind of like an accidental kombucha guy. And what does the company look like today? I mean, it started with you in the garage just kind of Ruin and now you actually have a like a company like what does that look like? Jamba Dunn 59:28Yeah, well, it's it's not uncommon for entrepreneurs as I've been finding over the years, but to find yourself in this situation where you feel, you know, a little bit like an imposter because you're right. You know, we started in my garage and we started with a concept and we started with a lot of research and not much else, not much money. It was a hard struggle for many years with me doing everything at the business from you know, bookkeeping and answering During the emails to making the kombucha and making the deliveries myself, the only people who worked for the company for the first couple of years were just volunteers. And so that was pretty much the way it was. I had, I think two full time employees in 2017, 16 started in 2016. And in November 2016, I fell, had a horrible fall and broke my arm. And I had complications from that. And I could no longer do all the jobs. And so I had to bring people in. And the first person I brought in was my wife, who was a wonderful sales woman. And she helped build a sales team and and I stepped away from doing manufacturing and production and started really focusing on the business itself. And what do we want? And where do we want to go and put together a plan that we're still following today. And today, we're in 48 states, we've got a vibrant team of about 30 people. I've got incredible team members, both people from the brewing industry here in Boulder, who are very experimental brewers. My first taproom salesperson is now our Director of Sales operations. And she's fantastic. We have a VP of Sales and Marketing who came from background and Coke and Pepsi. And we've got a food service person who just came over from Clif Bar, and we've got a really vibrant, interesting culture happening now. And I just I absolutely love it. And I get to finally step back again from a lot of the day to day and, and really help guide the business towards what I feel like we should be focusing on. And I just, I feel like that's my happy place. And it's a wonderful, wonderful life now, very different from our starting years. Marc Gutman 1:02:06It's taken a lot of sweat and a lot of a lot of risk and sometimes some desperation so I can I can relate. So john, as we come to a close here, I want to thank you so much for for sharing your story. And as you think back I have one last question for you if that young, eight year old jumbo who is in Huntington Beach and kind of feeling awkward and straddling two worlds I ran into you today. What do you think he'd say? Jamba Dunn 1:02:37Stay away from cars, I would tell him that he should not lose hope and should not be angry about the way things are. Because if it's one thing I've learned over the course of my life, it's that everything changes, and you've really, really got to learn how to enjoy the ride. Otherwise, it's never going to be very much fun. Marc Gutman 1:03:06And that is Jamba Dunn, of rowdy mermaid. The day after we recorded this episode, I received an email from Jamba. And with His permission, I am going to read it on edited Marc, Thanks again for the conversation today. It was fun. Although I woke up last night filled with a sense that I missed so many opportunities, and perhaps didn't paint the right picture. I wanted to get it off my chest. My father and grandfather are entrepreneurs and inventors. And although I wanted to do anything but follow in their footsteps is they lived externally difficult lives. And we often had our power shut off, or we had to hide from collection agencies when times were tough. Entrepreneur ism was for good or for ill in my bloodstream. You asked about me at eight years old, and I later recalled my father working all night repairing typewriters and photocopy equipment in the garage. He was also a master mechanic. And he had a side hustle of buying, repairing and upgrading old cars that he'd sell. And weekends when I was eight, I'd visit my grandfather who 20 years before had invented a device for squeezing all the toothpaste from the tube and who ran the manufacturing company. And so the idea was stolen out from under him. And he was always working on new devices, when I recall was for controlling the television from his chair using strings and another for generating custom address signs which he later sold door to door. So while I was unsure of who I was or what I wanted at that age, and later I would rebel by getting into the punk and Garage Band scenes. I was also subtly ingesting a sort of anti establishment agenda that will become crucial to my mental blueprint when dreaming up the structure for my own company. Where we are a flat organization, and everyone has a say in how we progress. Although my parents were somewhat shut off from the outside, they also valued Straight Talk. My father, for instance, always loved the waitress who would tell him he looked like crap. And who would ask if he slept under a bridge the night before? Because some days he did look rough, and he loved that honesty. Looking back, he had a level of personal transparency that has become a hallmark of rowdy mermaid. So while at first, it all seems superficial and not very pleasant living with my parents when I was eight, growing up in a vibrant and changing Orange County. It also taught me the lessons I needed to be successful in 2020. Best, Jamba. Thanks for adding that Jamba. We do appreciate it. And the thing that keeps sticking with me after our conversation is the focus on your daughter, brewing kombucha, to get her involved her rambunctious nature being not only the namesake of the company, but the essence of the brand as well. And that's the thing about truly authentic brands. They're part of the people that build them. They're living, breathing feeling entities, and even when you don't know like the little tidbit about the rowdy mermaid logo Mark being a nod to Egyptian hieroglyphics or the hidden k in the white space that symbolizes kombucha. You know, you can feel it, sense it, believe it. Believe in the promise that the brand is making, just in the way that I believe in rowdy mermaid. I will link to all things rowdy mermaid in the show notes so you can find and drink some of this delicious kombucha goodness for yourself. And a big big thank you to john but done and the team at rowdy mermaid. Keep brewing kombucha that means something kombucha that is changing the world. And if you know the guests who should appear on our show, please drop me a line at podcast@wildstory.com our best guess like Jamba come from referrals from past guests and our listeners. Well that's the show. Until next time, make sure to visit our website www.wildstorm.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS see you'll never miss an episode a lot big stories and I cannot lie you other storytellers can't deny.