Hi, I'm Graeme.  This is the page of the McRae Family web site where I get to talk about things I find interesting.  Maybe you'll find them interesting, too.  Or not.

Real Quick Bio

I was born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1957.  My parents moved me when I was six months old to Springvale, Victoria, Australia.  My little brother, Colin was born in Australia 2 years later.   When I was about five we moved to Summit, New Jersey, USA.  We lived in an old house which had settled over the years.  Colin and I enjoyed rolling marbles which followed parabolic paths in the kitchen.  I went to first and second grade in Summit, at the Brayton School.  A couple years later we moved to a beautiful new house in Berkeley Heights.  I went to William Woodruff Elementary School (it was K-6 back then) then Columbia Junior High School, and finally Governor Livingston Regional High School, all in Berkeley Heights.   Then I went to Rutgers University in New Brunswick, thinking I would be a math major.  Calculus was harder than I thought it would be, and computers were a whole lot more fun, so I switched to Computer Science in my Junior year.  Well my Junior years, I should say, because I started goofing off and going to college only part time.  I finally graduated in 1981, after I had been working as "Customer Service" technician for the now defunct ITEL Service Bureau (part of a much bigger company that leased railcars) for a year and then for another year as a Systems Programmer for American Hoechst Corp (the American subsidiary of Hoechst Aktiengesellschaft (Hoechst A.G., for short!) that later merged with Celanese and then closed up shop, leaving Celanese owned by Hoechst A.G., which is now defunct, and was bought by Aventis S.A. in 1999).  It was at American Hoechst that I met my wife, Catherine.   We were married in 1983, and moved to South Brunswick.  After American Hoechst I had jobs at Sycomm Systems Corporation (consulting company) and First Boston (when they were only partly owned by Credit Suisse).   Our three kids, Caitlin, Matthew, and Meghan were all born at Saint Peter's Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.  In 1991 I started working for Paramount Pictures in New York City, with the mission of moving the mainframe -- and myself and my family -- to Los Angeles.  In 1993, Paramount followed through on their part of the bargain, and transferred me to the studio in Hollywood (which is really part of the city of Los Angeles, not many people seem to know that).  Catherine and I moved ourselves and our three kids to Palmdale, a desert city about 60 miles north of Hollywood.

Was that too quick?

Games

Core Wars

Computer programs executing together in one computer in a hostile environment.  No effort is made to keep the programs from hurting each other -- in fact, that's the whole idea.  Try to write a program that will deliver lethal blows to other programs while at the same time surviving attacks from those programs.

Does that sound fun?

Language Fun

I used to know a guy named Little Davey (he would just smirk if someone asked him how he got that nickname) who liked to copy the sentimental tripe from the left side of birthday cards verbatim onto the right side, then sign it.  Invariably, Davey said, the recipient of these cards would say how happy they were to receive such a nice card, and what a way with words you have, they would say.  Not once did any of the victims of Davey's hoax read the pre-printed verse which laid just inches from Davey's copy.   That's one way to have fun with language.

Here are some more.

Funny things

Phony Phone Calls

Alexander Graham Bell probably didn't predict just how much fun it is to call up someone on the phone and then make them feel stupid.  Before that I don't think there had been phony letters, and before that phony clay tablets or phony cave drawings.   No, I think this is an entirely new art form.

Experiences

Biz Dealings

Have you ever been unhappy with the way you were treated by a business?  There was a guy who bought a car, and this car kept breaking down.  The dealer couldn't or wouldn't fix it.  So he painted lots of lemons on the car.  Big, bright lemons.   And he parked the car on the street right by the dealer's lot, where everyone could see it.  Sweet revenge.

So when I had an unhappy time at the Lamppost Pizza store in Tehachapi, I did the Internet version of the lemon-painted car trick.  I wrote up my experiences and submitted them to all the major search engines.

When I had a positive experience at -- of all places -- the U. S. Postal Service, I wrote that up, too.

Here are the stories

Random Thoughts

At various times in history, and without knowing it, groups of people have been just minutes away from major discoveries that will change the world forever.  I see the inventions of fire, the wheel, farming, industry, and computers -- in a word, Technology -- as not just a progression, but an uphill progression in that we humans are relentlessly pushing, pushing against the force of Chaos.  Without warning, though, Chaos will yield to the increasing power of Technology.  Technology will crest that hill, and start snowballing down the other side.  No longer pushing, the humans will be running behind the Technology no longer in our control.  Before long, it will no longer be in our grasp.  And finally, it will fall from view.

How close are we to the crest of the Technology Hill?

The Nature of "Stuff" and other random thoughts

When I was in grade school, fifth grade, I think, one of my teachers assigned an essay, "Why is there something rather than nothing?".  An interesting question.   

Basically, my explanation was that we wouldn't be here to see it if there were nothing, and that's why there's something.  It took me front and back on two sheets of paper to get that idea across -- discussions of alternative universes and such -- and I think I did an OK job of it, but it left me unsatisfied.  Somehow the explanation lacked a certain something -- like an answer to the question!  I think I got an "A" on it, but I never stopped wondering if I could do a better job.

Click here to read more.