Ted

Today Ted Selker called me unexpectedly. He had been on his way to give the keynote speech at a conference in Barcelona but the security people at the airport wouldn’t let him leave the U.S. because his passport had been through the laundry one too many times. Apparently a ratty passport is now considered a threat to our freedoms and to our American way of life.

So I’m putting him up for the night tonight. We had great pasta at one of those amazing little hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurants that only New Yorkers know about, and then we spent hours happily talking about crazy computer interfaces.

Ted is the guy who is the most responsible for that little red pointer device on IBM computer keyboards (I’m using one right now – it’s what I used to draw that eye picture back in February).

Ted is one of those crazy inventors with all sorts of equipment and half finished devices in his basement shop, like the inventor Dick Van Dyke played in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I understand that people like this used to be everywhere back in the 1800’s. I We need more people like him in the world now. Not only do people like Ted make the world a better place with their innovations, but they make for really, really good dinner conversation!

I also think we need more inventors in the popular culture as role models for kids to emulate. We had MacGyver from 1985 until 1992, but that was a while ago. Who else has there been? Somebody help me out here…