Friday 30 May 2008

Zoom Splatter

Several people have asked me why this blog is called zoomsplatter, someone even suggested that it might be a reference to what I do on the motorbike. Thankfully it isn't – or not since I was 19.

It's actually a reference to IBM's office system. When I first joined IBM we all used PROFS, IBM's office system. It was amazingly good and had one invaluable feature that I have not seen in anything since – the “unsend” function. This was an absolute godsend to those of us with poor impulse control.

The PROFS spell checker used to offer a few alternatives if it didn't like what you were typing – and frankly it was not very keen on either of my names. Zoom Splatter was what it thought I should be called – and who am I to argue?

1 comment:

Patrick Mueller said...

I'll take a bit of credit for "Zoom Splatter", having worked on IBM's NLP stuff (spell check, etc) in the 80's.