The IBM office in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Quite a modern building, with an employee lounge at the back of the building. In this lounge, they have a gallery of old IBM equipment, including an IBM 1401 computer.

I remember it was March, 1968, when I wrote my first computer program (in Fortran) and it was compiled on a 1401.

In those days, I filled out my code in pencil on pre-lined "coding sheets" and they were sent off to the data centre for card-punching and processing. About a week later, the resulting report would be sent back.

Any bugs or typos were corrected on the coding sheets, and they were submitted again. Can you imagine waiting a week between successive attempts to make a program run?

What's interesting is that, up until today, I'd never seen a real 1401 -- just pictures. So it was quite a connection to my past!

The employee lounge here also has a piano and guitar that anyone who's interested can play. Every lunchtime, there's beautiful music wafting through the whole floor as people settle down to play a solo or duet. It's very charming!

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Gloomy Sunday -- drizzling rain -- cold and damp. My first impressions are that Sao Paulo has a European feel to it -- a bit like the seedier parts of Paris, but with lots of high-rise buildings. After a well-deserved nap, I ventured out to a nearby monastery, which boasts the largest pipe organ outside Europe, and where they perform Mass with Gregorian chants several times a week.

The original monastery was built in the 16th century, and has been renovated and/or rebuilt several times since then. The current building was constructed in the 1920s and is supposed to be somewhat faithful to the original.

So I attended the Mass and it was a wonderful experience! The combination of the organ and the combined voices chanting Gregorian-style was very moving. I came away feeling spiritually refreshed.

Magic in action

At a recent Share Conference, I had the opportunity to demonstrate a couple of my magic tricks.

One was an example of mind-reading. I had a guy think of a card and I named it for him!



Another was where I got two people to select cards at random from two different decks. They chose the same card!



(Sorry the video is incomplete -- the camera ran out of memory space...)