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Scotsman
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Retro: 26 nostalgic pictures of growing up in the early 1980s, including George Best, Swap Shop and Darth Vader
At the start of the 1980s, computers for most people were still a novelty, George Best was playing for Hibs and Multi-Coloured Swap Shop was on TV on Saturday mornings. Here are some old black and white photos from the Evening News archives showing some of what was happening in Edinburgh in the early 1980s, from the Pope's visit to pony rides on the beach. Scroll through the carefully selected pictures to get a flavour of what Capital life was like four decades ago. 1 . Latest computers Secondary school pupils work with the latest Apple II computers at the Wester Hailes Education Centre (WHEC) in Edinburgh, October 1980. | TSPL Photo: Alan Macdonald Photo Sales 2 . Hibs Open Day Hibs players Peter Cormack and Jim McArthur meet two young fans, Tony Jinks and Tam Tait, at a Hibs Open Day at Easter Road in July 1980. | TSPL Photo: Bill Newton Photo Sales 3 . Puppet show Children mesmerised by the string puppets at the Ross bandstand in Edinburgh's Princes Street gardens, July 1981. | TSPL Photo: Joe Steele Photo Sales 4 . Dance time Young ballerinas from the June Geissler dance school rehearsing at Leith Town Hall in Edinburgh, November 1980. | TSPL Photo: Stan Warburton Photo Sales Related topics: Nostalgia
Boston Globe
24-06-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
It took 45 years, but spreadsheet legend Mitch Kapor finally got his MIT degree
At the end of the phone call last November inviting Kapor to give the lecture, Aulet said he decided to tease his old friend. 'I'm like, there's only one problem, Mitch, I see here you haven't graduated from MIT,' Aulet recalled last week. Why the tease? 'Because I'm from New York and we talk trash all the time,' Aulet said. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'He was just yanking my chain a little bit,' Kapor, 74, recalled in a separate interview. Advertisement But the joke got Kapor thinking about why he left MIT without a degree, a story that starts even before he enrolled in Sloan's accelerated masters program in the summer of 1979. After graduating from Yale in 1971 and bouncing around for almost a decade as 'a lost and wandering soul,' working as a disc jockey, a Transcendental Meditation teacher, and a mental health counselor, Kapor said he became entranced by the possibilities of the new Apple II personal computer. He started writing programs to solve statistics problems and analyze data, which caught the attention of Boston-area software entrepreneurs Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, who co-created VisiCalc, one of the first spreadsheet programs. They introduced Kapor to their California-based software publisher, Personal Software. Advertisement Midway through Kapor's 12-month masters program, the publisher offered him the then-princely sum of about $20,000 if he'd adapt his stats programs to work with VisiCalc. To finish the project, he took a leave from MIT, but then decided to leave for good to take a full-time job at Personal. Comparing his decision to those by other famed tech founder drop-outs, 'It was just so irresistible,' he said. 'It felt like I could not let another moment go by without taking advantage of this opportunity or the window would close.' Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development, at MIT in 1979, where he was studying for a masters degree that he did not complete until 2025. Photo courtesy of Mitch Kapor A few years later, Kapor returned to Cambridge and founded Lotus in Kendall Square, leading to his first encounter with Aulet. Around 1982, Aulet was working at IBM in the then-new personal computer unit when Kapor visited the tech giant's Madison Avenue office in New York to demonstrate Lotus 1-2-3. Kapor arrived dressed not in the IBM standard of a suit and tie but in a Hawaiian shirt, Aulet recalled. 'This guy was so cool, so relatable,' Aulet said, which eventually inspired him to become a startup founder himself. Over the decades, the pair kept in touch. Aulet left IBM in 1993, founded several companies, and started teaching at MIT in 2005. Kapor left Lotus in 1986, As a venture capitalist, Kapor developed a philosophy with his wife, Freada Kapor Klein, that they called 'gap-closing investing,' which aimed to fight racial and income inequality by supporting business concepts that would address the needs of underserved communities. HealthSherpa, for example, helped people sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and LendStreet helped people climb out of debt. Advertisement When Aulet made his joke on the phone call with his old friend in 2024, Kapor had largely retired from investing and realized that he wanted to complete his degree. 'I don't know what prompted me, but it started a conversation' with MIT about the logistics of finally graduating, Kapor said. By the time Kapor gave the lecture in March, Aulet had discovered Kapor was only a few courses short. MIT does not give honorary degrees, but school officials allow students to make up for missing classes with an independent study and a written thesis. Kapor decided to write a paper on the the roots and development of his investing strategy. 'It's timely, it's highly relevant, and I have things to say,' he explained. One The thesis explained that though Kapor's investing strategy was not aimed at picking entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups, he ended up backing many such founders. 'It turns out that, more often than not, the kinds of people who are the entrepreneurs with these ideas, who have the ability to do them, are themselves from a marginalized or underrepresented group, because that's the world they know and they grew up in, and that's what lit their fires,' he said. Advertisement Such an outlook could be increasingly important at a time when politicians, from the president on down, have 'We take an alternative approach that avoids the kind of head-on opposition in the current political environment,' he said. 'This is not tech's shining hour — far from it — but there's still reason to be hopeful.' Aaron Pressman can be reached at
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bill Atkinson won the respect of Steve Jobs by creating a high-level programming language in just 6 days
Bill Atkinson died on June 5 after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 74. Atkinson was one of the earliest Apple employees, responsible for key Mac software and its graphical user interfaces. But he ultimately won the respect of his boss, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, by creating a version of a high-level programming language for the Apple II computer in just six days. Bill Atkinson, who worked at Apple from 1978—two years after its founding—to 1990, died on June 5 after battling pancreatic cancer, his family wrote on Facebook. He was 74. Atkinson was the 51st employee at Apple, and he was personally recruited by Steve Jobs. According to Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs, Atkinson, a doctoral student in neuroscience at the time, initially declined Apple's request to come work at the company. But Steve Jobs sent Atkinson a nonrefundable plane ticket, and then gave him a three-hour pitch on why he should join the company. 'Think about surfing on the front edge of a wave,' Jobs recalled telling Atkinson in that meeting. 'It's really exhilarating. Now think about dog-paddling at the tail end of that wave. It wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun. Come down here and make a dent in the universe.' Atkinson accepted the job offer—and as a result, he never finished his PhD. Atkinson would go on to develop some of Apple's key software, including Quickdraw, which allowed old Apple computers to draw images and windows on the screen, and HyperCard, an easy-to-use software development kit so creators could build their own applications. He also notably developed the graphical user interface of the Apple Lisa, a precursor to the Macintosh, and later several of the Mac's user interfaces. But his very first job was to develop a program that could track stock portfolios. The software would auto-dial the Dow Jones service to get quotes, and then hang up. His second project at Apple, though, was ultimately how Atkinson won Jobs' respect. Jobs had been resisting using a new programming language for the Apple II, one of Apple's earliest and most popular personal computers that spawned many successors—including the Lisa, the Apple III, the Apple II Plus, Apple IIe, Apple IIc, Apple IIc Plus—though most of those computers, save for the Apple IIe, were abject failures. Jobs at the time had resisted giving the Apple II a new programming language, thinking BASIC, the simple programming language that powered the original Apple I, was all the Apple II needed going forward. Atkinson, however, pressed Jobs to build something better. 'Since you're so passionate about it, I'll give you six days to prove me wrong,' Jobs told Atkinson, according to Isaacson's biography of the Apple co-founder. Sure enough, in just six days, Atkinson had created a specialized version of Pascal, a high-level programming language made especially for the Apple II. According to Isaacson, 'Jobs respected him ever after.' Atkinson would later leave Apple in 1990 to co-found his own company called General Magic, which built precursors to USB and small touchscreens. In 2007, he was an outside developer for a small startup called Numenta, which leverages what we know about human neuroscience to develop AI. But Atkinson also spent much of his later years working as a nature photographer, using a digital printing process he helped create, and a mobile app he developed, to let users make postcards out of their digital images to send via postal service or email. Atkinson is succeeded by his wife, two daughters, stepson, stepdaughter, two brothers, four sisters, and his dog, Poppy, according to his family's Facebook message. This story was originally featured on
Indianapolis Star
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indianapolis Star
Jim Irsay left behind 'greatest guitar collection on Earth.' What happens to it now?
INDIANAPOLIS -- As Jim Irsay immersed himself in professional football for the past four decades, first as general manager of the Indianapolis Colts and then as owner, he always had a side gig -- rock 'n' roll relic collector extraordinaire. Especially guitars. Irsay amassed a colossal collection of guitars (199 to be exact) and other musical instruments, spending tens of millions of dollars on what Guitar Magazine once called "the greatest guitar collection on Earth." When Irsay died last week, many of the instruments in the collection were on loan throughout the country, including at the "Amped at IU" exhibit at Indiana University and at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle for "Never Turn Back: Echoes of African American Music." The items in those exhibits will remain at those locations until the displays are scheduled to end. The long-term plan for The Jim Irsay Collection, which also includes artifacts of American history and pop culture, has not been determined. The team told IndyStar on Wednesday it would be "getting more info on the collection in the coming weeks." Irsay had a penchant for obtaining rare musical instruments and items that were used by some of the greatest artists in history. Among them: Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Prince, Eric Clapton, Sir Elton John, Jerry Garcia, Les Paul, David Gilmour, Jim Morrison, Pete Townshend, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, The Edge, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain. But Irsay's collection goes beyond music and includes eclectic items like an Apple II manual signed by Steve Jobs, Hunter S. Thompson's Red Shark convertible and Jack Kerouac's original typewritten manuscript of "On The Road." Experts have valued the collection at close to $1 billion, should it ever be sold in its entirety. 'My purpose in building this collection," Irsay wrote on his collection's website, "is to preserve, protect and share items that tell inspiring stories about dreaming big, overcoming obstacles and accomplishing great things in life." The "Amped at IU" exhibit includes pieces from Irsay's collection that help illustrate the instrument's history, including an 1850s CF Martin, a 1910 Gibson U Harp, 1939 Rickenbacker Silver Hawaiian Lap Steel and more. The display also feature artifacts from The Beatles, their manager Brian Epstein, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash and others. Details: "Amped at IU" runs through September at University Collections at McCalla, 525 E. 9th St. in Bloomington. McCalla's galleries are open noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. The "Never Turn Back: Echoes of African American Music" includes three items Irsay loaned to the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle -- James Brown's stage-worn, red sequined cape from the 1960s and 1970s, John Coltrane's 1966 Yamaha alto saxophone and Miles Davis' 1980 Martin Committee trumpet. The exhibit explores "the rich legacy of African American music, tracing the deep cultural roots of gospel, blues, jazz and soul. Through evocative photography, rare concert flyers, instruments and costumes, the exhibit showcases the profound influence of Black communities on the evolution of these genres." Details: Runs through early 2027 at the Museum of Pop Culture, 325 5th Ave N, Seattle, WA. Info and tickets
Fast Company
16-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
What '80s pop culture taught me about investing
As a lifelong pop culture aficionado, I have a tendency to connect my favorite media to whatever I'm currently doing. When I purchased a secondhand easy chair a few weeks ago, my husband and I spent a sweaty 30 minutes struggling to get it up the stairs. With the chair still wedged at an impossible angle, we paused to catch our breath and I said, ' You're gonna need a bigger boat.' Similarly, anytime I use up the last of the milk or take the last cookie from a package, my brain always bellows ' FINISH HIM! ' But the pop culture in my head is more than just a running commentary on mundane moments. My favorite entertainment has also been an excellent teacher. In particular, the pop culture of my childhood taught me a number of financial lessons that I've never forgotten—including instruction on how to be an investor. Here are the timeless investing lessons I learned from 1980s pop culture. Lemonade Stand: the risk of playing it safe While the majority of my fellow late Gen Xers have deep and visceral memories of dying of dysentery on the Oregon Trail, my early childhood gaming trauma stemmed from the lesser-known Apple II game Lemonade Stand. This simple game teaches the basics of business planning by simulating a child's lemonade stand. The player receives a weather report for the day and has to decide what to spend on lemonade ingredients and advertising as well as determine the price for each glass of lemonade. As a frugal and business-minded 7-year-old, I invested heavily in lemons and sugar when the game predicted a hot summer day on my first turn. I also set a reasonable per-glass lemonade price, knowing that it was folly to overcharge my customers. Though it seemed unnecessary on such a beautiful, 8-bit sunny day, I also splurged on a single advertising poster. Once my preparations were complete, I leaned back in my chair, ready for profits to rain down on me. To my shock, I only had two customers all day. I didn't even make back the money I spent on cups. Pop culture lesson: know where to invest To little Emily, it made sense to spend money on ingredients, since you can't sell lemonade without them. But I balked at the expense of advertising, which seemed unnecessary compared to lemons and sugar. I couldn't predict or measure advertising's return on investment, so I assumed it was a waste of money. (Unfortunately, I continued to make this mistake into adulthood. When I first started freelancing, I only owned a desktop computer. Investing in a laptop seemed like an unnecessary expense with no potential upside for my fledgling writing career—except that I traveled at least once a month and had to move heaven and earth to either work ahead or find a computer at my destination every single time.) The shock of losing my Lemonade Stand money taught me that playing it safe can't protect you from loss. There is a risk to investing—whether you're investing in advertising, a new laptop, or in the stock market—but there's also a risk to playing it safe. You could lose your business because no one knows about it, lose your time (and your mind) because you don't have the equipment you need, or your uninvested money could lose buying power over time because of inflation. There is no such thing as a risk-free financial decision, and playing Lemonade Stand in second grade taught me that better than anything else. The Westing Game: invest independently Ellen Raskin may as well have written her 1978 Newbery Medal winning book The Westing Game specifically to appeal to me. The novel begins after Westing Paper Products tycoon Sam Westing is found dead. Westing's lawyer invites his 16 heirs—who all happen to be the only tenants of the newly constructed Sunset Towers—to the reading of the will. Once there, the heirs are paired off and given $10,000 and an envelope of mysterious clues written on paper towel scraps. They are invited to figure out who has taken Sam Westing's life, and the winner will receive his $200 million estate. As much as that set up is more than enough to get my attention, it was the character of Turtle Wexler that really established this book as one of the pop culture giants of my childhood. This 13-year-old budding entrepreneur and investing genius captured my heart by being smart, funny, and financially confident beyond her years. Turtle and her partner, a 60-year-old dressmaker named Flora Baumbach, receive the incomprehensible clues SEA, MOUNTAIN, AM, and O, which the teen girl believes to be stock symbols. Since Westing was known to be a business wizard, Turtle thinks the stocks indicated by the clues must be clear winners. The pair invests the $10,000 in the clue stocks and in Westing Paper Products (stock symbol WPP). The clue stocks don't perform as well as Turtle had hoped. Her daily perusal of The Wall Street Journal indicates that the Westing Paper Products stock is likely to go up, so she dumps the clue stocks and puts all their money in WPP. By the end of the game several weeks later, Turtle and Flora's $10,000 stake has grown to $11,587.50. Pop culture lesson: lean into your knowledge Turtle taught me the importance of investing based on my own knowledge, expertise, and instincts, rather than following someone else's lead. She starts her investing journey with the knowledge that Westing was a remarkably astute investor. She assumes the clue stocks must have been handpicked by Westing. But when the clue stocks don't do well, she pulls her money from them and invests in something she has direct understanding of, rather than doubling down on her assumption that Westing must have known better. She changes her investing tactics once she has new information. Turtle also shrugs off Flora repeatedly asking if she is sure about her investing choices. She doesn't let the concerns of her 60-year-old partner sway her, because she knows Flora doesn't understand the stock market as well as she does, even though she is much older. All together, Turtle's example made it clear to me that successful investing requires knowledge and a willingness to trust yourself. It's helped me avoid following the crowd into decisions that don't fit my investing strategies. Trading Places: anatomy of an investing scheme I loved the 1983 film Trading Places for Eddie Murphy's brilliant comedic timing, but I was even more fascinated by the movie's portrayal of revenge via short sale. It took me several rewatches to fully understand how the investing scheme resulted in financial doom for the film's villains, the Duke brothers. To exact their retribution, Murphy's character Valentine and Dan Aykroyd's Winthorpe show up to the New York Commodities Exchange ready to trade. Their goal: sell as many orange juice concentrate futures as they can before the U.S. Department of Agriculture report on the nation's orange crop. Meanwhile, the Dukes are buying as many OJ concentrate futures as they can before the report, essentially trying to corner the market. Between the heroes feverishly selling and the Dukes feverishly buying, OJ future prices skyrocket until the moment trading pauses for the crop report—which reveals the orange harvest will be strong. In the aftermath of the announcement, the Dukes are stuck with all the futures they purchased at inflated prices. To fulfill the margin call, they must pay $394 million. At the same time, Valentine and Winthorpe busily purchase futures from everyone but the Dukes at a greatly reduced price. This allows them to fulfill the orders they sold before the report dropped—and make a ridonculous profit. This scene fascinated me as a kid, but it also confused me. I knew that successful investing was about buying low and selling high. But I couldn't understand how the characters could sell high then buy low. How could you sell something before you bought it? Pop culture lesson: stock sales aren't always linear After many years of catching the movie on TBS reruns, I finally grasped that stock and commodities sales don't have to follow a linear progression of cause then effect. It's possible to buy low after selling high, provided you plan your investment strategy carefully. That's because you don't have to own something you sell. You can borrow a stock (or an OJ future, for that matter) for a fee. As long as you return it or an identical asset before the margin call, you can sell the borrowed asset even though you don't own it. This is what Valentine and Winthorpe did to ruin the Dukes. They took their pooled money to pay the borrow fees of the futures, sold those futures at inflated prices before the crop report, then bought back the futures at the rock-bottom price afterwards so they could return the borrowed assets. While short sales like the one in Trading Places are unlikely to ever be part of my own investment strategy, understanding the fluid nature of ownership in stock and commodities trading has made me a better investor. It broke me out of the rigid cause-and-effect thinking that limited my investing creativity. Learning through story Despite being a lifelong money nerd, stories are my first love. So it's no wonder the most enduring lessons I learned about finance come from the pop culture I loved as a child. Playing Lemonade Stand in my elementary school computer lab disrupted the story I'd told myself that it was possible to make a profit without risking an investment. Reading The Westing Game gave me the story of a confident financial heroine to remember when I'm tempted to follow the crowd. And Trading Places folded a satisfying revenge story into a creative investing scheme, which helped me feel smart and savvy when I finally wrapped my head around the details.
