Today I was chatting with the good people at Garrigan Lyman Agency GLG.com an independent creative agency in downtown Seattle / NY. They are working on a website for Dr. Charles Simonyi, the 5th private citizen to become a space tourist. The website they created for Simonyi is http://www.charlesinspace.com/. One of the neatest things about Charles, a long time Microsoft Chief Architect originally from Hungary, is that he created what is known in the computer science world as "Hungarian Notation."
Hungarian is fun because it is an unexpected concept in computer science, both because it makes sense as a naming convention for objects, but also because it is playful - it sounds like a joke someone made up! It probably started as an informal technique to remember variable and data types, in the same format as Hungarian names, with the surname first. Then as this shorthand method of naming variables gained acceptance it became formalized. I learned about 'Hungarian' from my Visual Basic teacher Stuart Williams at Sacramento State.
So for those with kids who are interested in space, want to grow up and be a space tourist or work in space related projects, visit Dr. Simonyi's site which allows people to engage and interact with Charles while he is in space in April. It should be a memorable experience - for kids of all ages.
Cheers to Charles!
CNN ran a cover story on Charles' flight http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/04/06/russia.space.ap/index.html
PS Image grabbed from http://www.businessinnovationinsider.com/product_innovation/
