dmery@acm.org (contact details and cv)
Blog and site updates – gizmonaut.net/blog/
‘gizmonaut’ – the name of this site – is a portmanteau word made from ‘gizmo’ and ‘astronaut’.
The first use of the word ‘gizmonaut’ appears to be in ‘programmers are almost universally gizmonauts’ by Lou Grinzo (Source: EXE Magazine, November 1999) and, with a different spelling, in a book titled The Gismonauts written by Keo Felker Lazarus (Published in 1981 by Modern Curriculum Press; ISBN 0695416073)
A ‘gizmo’ is ‘1. something whose name is either forgotten or not known [syn: dohickey, dojigger, doodad, doohickey, gimmick, gizmo, gubbins, thingamabob, thingumabob, thingmabob, thingamajig, thingumajig, thingmajig, thingummy] 2. a device that is very useful for a particular job [syn: appliance, contraption, contrivance, convenience, gadget, gizmo, widget]’ (Source: WordNet)
‘What we do know about the origin of ‘gizmo’ is that it is a relatively new word -- in fact, if you've been using it all your life you can't be over 50 years old. ‘Gizmo’ seems to have originated in the U.S. Navy during or shortly before World War II, where it was used as an all-purpose synonym for ‘whatchamacallit.’ The postwar return of draftees to the civilian world brought the word into general usage, and postwar authors from Saul Bellow to Max Shulman popularized ‘gizmo’ in the late 1940's and early 1950's.’ (Source: The Word Detective)
Pictures of some signs, 'Pataphysical events (I am an Apparent Correspondent Sous-Commission des Esprits of the Collège de 'Pataphysique (external link) and member of the London Institute of 'Pataphysics (external link)), Korean dreams, a few pandas, and the No to war demonstrations. More pictures are on Flickr (photographs / external link).
Essential tools on my batbelt (external link): a smartphone (external link), a Bluetooth headset and a multitool (external link); other stuff I sometimes carry.
minimum design (external link) is another one of my websites. There isn't much on it, but I liked the URL and it was still available.
The list of feeds I read is availaible in Bloglines (external link).
Some of my bookmarks are maintained in del.icio.us (external links).
Many thanks to everyone visiting this website, to Orsetta for the ‘panda’ nickname and to Patricia for the panda illustration. If you're using Firefox, check out Frode's Hyperwords.
