What was the first commercially available computer to use graphical user interface (GUI)?

Well, darn.  Shucks and other comments.

Seems as if I let something slip by me that shouldn’t have done so.

A couple of weeks ago, I said that the concrete used in the construction of Hoover Dam wouldn’t be cured until the year 2430 or so, having foolishly accepted a source saying it would take 500 years to cure.  An eagle-eyed reader, however, took me to task, noting that the concrete would cure in 125 years, not 500.

I stand corrected, and thankful for my readers who keep me in line.

I do maintain, however, that I didn’t know it was sick.

Anyway, on to this week’s foolishness!

Did you know …

… a classic movie was allowed in the Soviet Union – then removed – because of its depictions of capitalism?  The 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath, based on the novel by John Steinbeck (1902-1968), was permitted to be shown in Soviet theatres because of they way it depicted the plight of the poor under capitalism.  But not long after it was permitted, it was withdrawn, because Soviet audiences were stunned to see that even the poorest Americans could afford to own an automobile.  (Who’d-a thunk it?)

… maxing out your credit card isn’t a good idea?  Sure, the bank that issued the card loves it when you do that, but your credit score doesn’t.  Maxing out the credit card can cause a hit of between 10 and 45 points on your credit score.  (How well I know …)

… cats were once used as weapons?  In ancient times, Persian soldiers used cats in battle against the Egyptians.  The Egyptians would see the cats with the Persian army and refuse to attack, for fear of hurting the felines.  Cats were considered divine in Egypt.  (What, you mean they aren’t?)

… a hurricane’s landfall may not happen when you think it does?  Landfall for a hurricane is official when the eye of the storm – not the leading edge – crosses the coastline.  (Try telling that to the folks who have to endure the leading edge of the storm.)

… flying saucers and UFOs are not the same thing?  Sure, to most people, the terms are interchangeable.  But they aren’t – a UFO, an unidentified flying object, is simply something you see in the sky that you can’t identify, but someone else probably could.  A “flying saucer,” on the other hand, is an apparently alien vehicle from another planet (though in reality it’s usually either a misidentified aircraft or a hoax).  Additional trivia note:  The term “flying saucer” comes from a 1947 sighting of some kind of aerial craft by pilot Kenneth Arnold (1915-1984).  Arnold himself never used the term, though he did say the disc-shaped objects he spotted were “like saucers.”  (Little green men, indeed!)

… the first computer to use a graphical user interface was a failure?  Don’t let the fancy nomenclature throw you – a graphical user interface, or GUI, is simply a way of interacting with a computer using windows, icons, or menus, instead of typing commands on a keyboard.  But the first computer to utilize one was a flop.  The Apple Lisa™, released in early 1983, was aimed at business users and carried a rather steep price tag – $9,995.  It was plagued by insufficient software, unreliable floppy disks, a tiny five-megabyte hard drive, and that insanely huge price tag.  The Lisa did, however, usher in the era of GUI, which manifested itself most solidly the following year with the Apple Macintosh™, which had an original cut-rate price of $2,495.  (Now your cell phone can do all that it did and a whole lot more, for a lot less money.)

… a term exists for a word that contains a synonym for itself inside it?  It’s called a “kangaroo word” and it works like this:  take a look at the word “masculine.”  It contains the word “male” in it.  Or “chicken,” which contains “hen.”  The letters may or may not be spread out, but the related word is inside.  Wild, eh?  (Thanks to Sheila for this one!  Rest in peace, my friend.)

… show business has always been pretty cut-throat?  I’ll give you an example from TV’s “golden age.”  On February 11, 1962, actor Joseph Kearns (1907-1962) suffered a stroke, from which he died six days later.  At the time, Kearns was co-starring as “Mr. Wilson” on the series Dennis the Menace.  With Kearns’ death, his character was replaced by his character’s brother, played by Gale Gordon (1906-1995).  But that left a plot hole about the Wilsons, and the actress who played Mrs. Wilson, Sylvia Field (1901-1998), found herself out of a job after Kearns died.  With her husband’s character gone, she was essentially fired and replaced by Sara Seegar (1914-1990), but no convincing in-show explanation was ever given for either of the original Wilsons’ departure from the series.  

… you may know someone who engages in griffonage?  In fact, I engage in griffonage.  Griffonage, if you’re wondering, is having handwriting that is very difficult to read.  (I once had my signature filled as a prescription.  Okay, not really, but it’s almost as illegible.)

… a Mexican volcano’s nine-year eruption only caused three deaths?  Parícutin, a cinder cone volcano located in the Mexican state of Michoacán west of Mexico City, underwent a nine-year eruption from 1943 to 1952.  During that period, no one was killed by ash, rocks, lava, gas or hot mud.  The only deaths were three caused by volcanic lightning.  Parícutin just oozed quiet, slow lava flows during the eruption, slow enough to give anyone in the lava’s path ample time to get out of the way.

… how easy it is to make friends with a goat?  Pretty easy, at least according to a paper published in Royal Society Open Science in 2018.  According to the paper, all you have to do to make a friend out of a goat is smile at it.  Goats recognize happy human facial expressions, and are in fact drawn to them.  (It gets their goat.)

Now … you know!