SEPTEMBER 9th - Looking Too Closely



Today’s factoid has a bit of mystery involved. It’s not a mystery wrapped in an enigma like I am, but there is a bit of myth entangled herein. The computer literate among you may know that U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper was the 1st Lady of Computing in the military. And you may also know that she came up with the terms “bug” and “debug” after a mishap with Harvard’s Mark II calculator. You see, allegedly, on this day in 1945, while looking at some technical mumbo-jumbo, a team saw something unusual in the relay. Upon further investigation they found it was an actual bug, and Grace became the first to document (she wrote it down in the log book) that this was the first case of a bug being found, thereby using it to describe a computer glitch. Unfortunately there seem to be a ton of holes in this story, the most glaring being that the Mark II didn’t come out till 1947. But like most legends there is some truth behind all this. The story is true--Grace talked about finding the moth; it just was not responsible for the computer meaning of “bug.” But does that really matter? It’s a pretty good story, and I’m sure it increased the popularity of the term. Our society can be obsessed with truth. Always digging and hunting to find out the true story. And I know it is a virtue and all, but a good story can be virtuous as well. Not to mention that it can contain a different type of truth. I know Pecos Bill didn’t create the Rio Grande by digging it out with a sign post, and I know that Peter Pan is just a figment J.M. Barrie’s imagination, but I still like the stories. And they taught me things. Like never give up and how to keep child-like wonder. It’s probably why I still write. And laugh at poop jokes. So despite today being marked by an event that didn’t have the actual effect legend gives it, I salute it as the anniversary of the 1st actual bug in a computer. And I stand by that. Sometimes looking too closely can cause you to miss the better picture.

This day has been Marked.

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