Desk Set

‘Desk Set’ is a 1957 movie staring Spencer Tracy who plays methods engineer Richard Summer, the inventor of an early computer, or ‘electronic brain’ known as EMERAC, (clearly a takeoff on the first commercially successful computer for businesses, UNIVAC). Katherine Hepburn plays Bunny Watson, who is in charge of a reference library and research department for a large network broadcasting company. Summers is brought in by the network CEO to see if the library can be automated with one of his large computers. Ms. Watson is initially suspicious of Summer, but begins to find him an intelligent and charming person. When the all female staff of the research department find out why he is actually there, they assume that they are going to be replaced by the machine, since the whole network payroll department was recently replaced by a similar Summers computer.

In the early 70’s I graduated with degrees in Illustration and Advertising Design. I learned completely traditional art practices, all done by hand. Computers that could do art were considered something of a fantasy for the distant future. However, the future came much sooner than I expected. In 1984 the Macintosh 128K came out and began to establish desktop publishing and art as an easy to do function in the office. In 1987 the Macintosh II was released and the newspaper where I worked bought one. I gave up my pen and ink work and started doing graphics on computer, and I have been working hard to keep up ever since. Fortunately, my art skills kept me gainfully employed until 2014, when the internet, with its offerings of free news, sports and advertising began to seriously impact newspaper revenues, and I, along with 20 other middle managers and older employees, were cut to trim expenses. So I am very much aware of how it feels to be replaced by technology.

After many comic misadventures, and a growing romantic attachment between Summer and Watson, the big computer finally arrives, taking up extra room and annoying the staff with its need for clean air and proper temperature for it to function. After spending all their time programing and entering data for the machine, the day comes when everyone receives their layoff notices, confirming their worst suspicions. Staging a staff work slowdown, the overwhelmed computer operator storms out leaving Summer and Watson to take up the slack. They all find out that the payroll computer has malfunctioned and accidentally fired everyone in the building. Summers explains how his machine was only there to help out and with a big business merger, there would be even more staff and work to deal with. Watson and Summer collaborate together to solve the immediate problems and learn to love the machine.

‘Desk Set’ was one of the first movies to talk about how technology was starting to replace workers even though this was not the focus of the romantic comedy, which featured the eighth movie paring of Tracy and Hepburn, both in their 50’s. The movie was not a commercial success and only grew in popularity many years later. Still, ‘Desk Set’ is a favorite of ours and a reminder that people were concerned with technology replacing them from early on. The most interesting part of this is, that films would reach a tech movie climax a decade later with Hal 9000, the ship’s computer in ‘2001, A Space Odyssey.’ Hal would kill off the crew of the Discovery in order to properly complete the mission. Not exactly the best way to talk about how computers were possibly going to replace people in the near future.

(Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn in ‘Desk Set,’ with EMERAC in the background. And yes, real early computers were huge machines taking up entire air-conditioned rooms, similar to massive server farms these days.)

Will it Ever be Normal Again?

Here in Utah, last year, during the beginning of September, I complained bitterly about the unending heat wave that we suffered through. In Salt Lake City, the September 2022 temperatures were blasted by seven 100 degree days to start the month, including an all-time record high of 107 degrees. Previously, there had been only 3 September days with over 100 degree heat since 1874. A half-dozen other heat records were set in Utah during 2022 including the hottest month on record, (July), the hottest summer on record, the most 100 degree days in a year, (34), the second-longest streak of 100 degree days, (9 days), and the second-longest streak of 90 degree days. (42 days).

So, is it any wonder that a cooler then normal fall was very welcome. Then, it began to rain and snow. October precipitation was lower then normal, November was above average, and December was also well above average. A six day snow storm beginning December 11 left almost two feet of snow on the ground, where it has stayed. The snow has varied from 1 to 3 feet on the ground since. January and February water precipitation totals were over 10 inches, which is half of the yearly total of 20 inches here where I live. The temperatures have barely gone above the high 30s in an unending cold winter. Overall in the state, the water equivalent of the mountain snow pack stand at an amazing 195% of normal. The only years here in Utah that have seen more snow to date were 1984, 1997 and 2005. Has this helped the drought that Utah has been experiencing over the last few years? The current drought monitor shows that just over 31% of the state is in extreme drought down from 70% last year. So we are looking much better.

In the southern part of the state where Lake Powell stands behind the Glen Canyon Dam, (the second largest reservoir in the U.S.), it is only projected to rise 6%. The reservoir reached a record low elevation last year. It is estimated that it will take 15 years of above average snow to refill Lake Powell, even though the area snow pack is 40% above average this year. For the rest of the year, Utah is forecast to have above average temperatures this summer and normal precipitation, which is to say, not much during those summer months. But, with winter still being cold and wet right now, I might like a little warming up, but then I will most likely complain until the weather turns cold again. Some people are just never happy with anything to do with the weather.

(A couple of photos recently from along the side of our house and the back deck, it really has been a very snowy and depressing winter.)

Water Water Everywhere

The downpours began on Christmas Eve and continued almost nonstop for 43 days, (somewhat biblical that). The rivers running down from the mountains turned into raging torrents that overwhelmed mining towns and whole communities. The deluge filled the large Central Valley and turned it into a inland sea, some 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. Thousands of people died along with almost 200,000 cattle drowned. Downtown Sacramento was under 10 feet of water and the state legislature in the city was not able to meet, so it moved to San Francisco until Sacramento dried out a half year later, but, by then, the state was pretty much bankrupt. This was California in late 1861 to 1862.

I came across this while looking for information on atmospheric rivers, they are not a new thing due to climate change, but an old and recurring problem for many parts of the world. Imagine a stream of moisture a mile up in the atmosphere the equal of 10 Mississippi Rivers that can be 250 miles wide and thousands of miles long. The most frightening thing was that these massive amounts of precipitation have occurred every 200 years or so on California and the Western coast and have happened for at least, the last two millennia. Another aspect of these atmospheric rivers is that smaller ones between 1950 and 2010 have supplied California with 30% to 50% of their annual rain and snowfall, all within about 10 days each year. River sediments in San Francisco bay have indicated massive floods in the years AD 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418 and in 1605. The 1605 flood was so massive that San Francisco bay became, temporarily, a fresh water bay.

This year California has been pummeled by those atmospheric rivers, resulting in heavy rainfall, and in the mountains, record snowfall measuring up to 15 feet in many areas, trapping residents and blocking mountain passes. I am reminded of the infamous Donner Party emigrants that were trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains in 1847 by 15 to 20 feet of snow. Reportedly, several members were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive. This years rain and snowfall will refill most reservoirs in the state, temporarily bringing a pause to a 3-year drought. Depleted aquifers in the state will take many more years of record precipitation to replenish, and the weather could tip back into drought conditions. But those atmospheric rivers will always lurk in the background of California weather with an uncomfortable realization that current climate change can always make them worse.

(Below, Sacramento in early 1862 with residents resorting to boats to get around. Here in Utah, we have been coping with the weather overflow from California causing record snowfall of our own this year. So far this has been the worse since large amounts of snow melting in 1983 caused massive flooding throughout the state.)