The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 417

B12 THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2001 VC OBITUARIES LOS ANGELES TIMES Kenneth M. Colby; Psychiatrist Raymond R. Borst; PASSINGS tentions." Her television programs included "Nina" and Thoreau Collector "The Avaricious." Was Computer Therapy Pioneer and R. Bibliographer Borst, 91, farm Terry Ryan; Comedy Raymond a equipment dealer who became Writer for TV, Radio By MYRNA OLIVER TIMES STAFF WRITER Dr. Kenneth Mark Colby, who merged his backgrounds in psychiatry and computer science to become a pioneer in computerized psychotherapy and artificial intelligence, has died at the age of 81.

Colby, who created early computer programs to aid the depressed and the speech-impaired, died April 20 at his Malibu home. A good computer therapy program, he assured naysayers, was simply the "ultimate selfhelp book." Replacing a fleshand-blood therapist with an electronic one was no worse, said the psychiatrist, who began practicing in the heyday of psychoanalysis, than the now outmoded analyst of that period who rarely spoke to a patient except to say the hour was up. Educated at Yale and its School of Medicine, Colby practiced psychiatry for 20 years but became increasingly interested in the developing field of computer technology. His first foray into combining the two came in the late 1960s, when he was working at Stanford University under a career scientist research fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health. Heading a team of graduate students, Colby created PARRY, a computer model of paranoid thinking, in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

He developed more sophisticated computerized psychology products, refining his fascination with computer comprehension and utilization of human language, during his tenure from 1974 to 1990 as UCLA professor of both psychiatry and computer science. In the 1970s, Colby created what he called an "intelligent speech prosthesis" to aid the more than 500,000 stroke victims a year left with varying degrees of speech impairment. Although he failed to obtain National Institutes of Health money or other funding to Time-saving ideas Wednesday's Food section serves up fast ideas for family meals. And The Times saves you money, too, with an average of more than $80 in supermarket coupons every month. To subscribe, call 1-800-252-9141 Ask for Sales Program Cos Angeles Times latimes by Veterans Affairs, the Navy an accidental but voracious and Kaiser Permanente and has lector of works by 19th century sold thousands of copies.

naturalist Henry David ThorAfter his retirement from eau, died April 27 in Rochester. UCLA a decade ago, Colby and N.Y.. of a stroke. his family started Malibu Artifac- Ironically, Borst first encountual Intelligence Works to refine tered Thoreau (who despised and market that program and a trains) in the mid-20th century second program, PC Guru, which when he read the 1854 classic can discuss interpersonal re- "Walden" while returning by lationships with the computer train to his Auburn. N.Y..

home. user. He had bought the book during The controversial "Overcom- a business trip to Chicago for ing Depression" program com- his wife, who needed it for her bined a text-based tutorial, cog- book club. nitive therapy techniques and "I wanted more," he said of an opportunity for the user to Thoreau's works. And he found type in comments for a free-as- them: obscure magazine artisociation exchange with the cles, letters, journals, lectures, computer.

Type in, for example, poems and the first 16 editions "How will you help me?" and of "Walden." the program would issue the Borst also wrote four books, text, is my job to help you including a bibliography and "It a learn to help yourself." day-to-day account of Thoreau's Far more sophisticated than life that have become library other early computer therapy programs, which seemed more staples. In 1996. Borst donated more like tests with only yes or no anthan 1,000 Thoreau-related swers permitted, Colby's proitems to his alma mater, the gram still had conversational of Rochester, for its limitations. University File Rush Rhees Library. Syndicated Computer columnist Lawrence J.

Magid, testing it in 1990, typed, "I think I would feel better if I were thin," only to obtain the response, "Why are you thin?" Little wonder he wrote for The Times and other publications: "If you weren't crazy when you start using it, you're likely to be driven there by the way the program responds." But Colby defended the glitches, insisting that users "even like the program's mistakes. As a patient, the doctor is in control. Here you can laugh at its mistakes." As health insurance programs cut therapy fees, he predicted, many therapists would employ computer programs to enable them to see several patients an hour instead of one. A highly rated chess player, Colby wrote two books on chess and 10 books and more than 100 articles on psychotherapy and artificial intelligence. Colby is survived by his wife, Maxine, son Peter, daughter Erin Johnson, and two grandsons.

DR. KENNETH MARK COLBY He developed computer therapy programs, calling them the "ultimate self-help book," and worked in the artificial intelligence field. miniaturize his invention, Colby successfully built a one-of-akind laboratory model consisting of a voice synthesizer and computer, including keyboard and screen. But his device added up to $10,000 in commercially available components, weighed 30 pounds and had to be carted around in a shopping cart. Colby successfully tested it by having a double-stroke victim take it to restaurants and the supermarket to vocalize what she wanted to buy.

"It has to be developed further," he told The Times in 1978, "if it's to be of any help to the people who need such a device. Otherwise it's going to re- BI BLACKOUT: Demand Grows for Early Notice How an Edison Blackout Works A rolling blackout begins with the California Independent System Operator's directing investor-owned utilities to reduce the electrical load by a certain number of megawatts. The utilities use radio and television to notify their customers about five to 10 minutes before outages begin. Edison has identified circuits-or electrical lines -available for use in rotating outages. Each circuit supplies power to a combination residential and commercial customers within a large geographical area.

The circuits are arranged into 100- megawatt groups. For example, a group may include customers in Los Angeles, Kern. Tulare and Santa Barbara counties. In the event that Edison is asked to reduce the load by 500 megawatts, service would be interrupted to about five groups for about one hour. The duration of an outage may vary depending on the circumstances.

Business owners say they need time to methodically wind down production to protect machinery. products, data -and employees. Businesses Lose Money main a one-of-a-kind laboratory curiosity developed by some ivory-tower professor." In the 1980s, as computers became more affordable, Colby turned his attention to what he had yearned to do since the 1950s-utilize the machines to treat the about of people with mental illness who never seek professional help, either because of cost or social stigma. With the assistance of his computer programmer son Peter, he created the personal computer program, first dubbed "Overcoming Depression," that sold for $200. Later renamed the Good Mood Program, with a price tag of $99.

the system has been used Profits have been imperiled. At Deleo Machine and Gear, a maker of precision aerospace components in Long Beach. a brief March outage cost $30.000 in lost wages and spoiled production. The stakes are higher in Silicon Valley. A single blackout last June resulted in cumulative losses of $100 million for the region's companies, according to the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group.

The losses were tallied from lost sales and productivity, forfeited wages and ruined products. "We could be talking billions this summer." said spokeswoman Michelle Montague-Bruno. Energy officials predict more than 30 days of rolling blackouts this summer. A study released Wednesday bv a business organization estimated that blackouts will cost California businesses $21.8 billion Won Two Emmys Terry Ryan, 78, Emmy-winning radio and television comedy writer, died Saturday in New York City of congestive heart failure. Initially a writer for the Fred Allen radio show in the late 1940s.

Ryan moved easily into television. working on "The Phil Silvers Show." During his tenure on that series, from 1954 to 1959. he earned two Emmys. He was nominated for a third in 1962 for his comedic writing on the series "Car 54. Where Are Ryan also wrote for the TV series "Love, American Style," "The Betty Hutton Show," "The Ann Sothern Show" and "The Sid Caesar Show." Nicholas Sampson; Cypriot Publisher Led Greek-Inspired Coup Margaretha Krook Swedish Character Actress in Film, TV Margaretha Krook.

75. Swedish character actress who appeared in more than 85 film and television productions over her half-century career, died Monday in Stockholm. Her most recent role was in last year's motion picture "Gossip." In 1996 she portrayed Gertrude Stein in a television docudrama titled simply "Gertrude Stein." Krook began her career with the 1949 film "Only A Mother," and made a rare appearance in an American film as a governess in the 1951 "Miss Julia." Working primarily in Scandinavian or German productions, Krook aged from roles as the ingenue to professional doctors or lawyers and eventually mothers or aunts. Among her many films were "Adam and Eve," "Swedish Wedding Night," "Peas and Whiskers" and "The Best In- ple which areas will be blacked out next -but not when. The utility itself doesn't know for sure until minutes before.

Last month, the California Pubhe Utilities Commission ordered Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas Electric to begin the same warning system, beginning in June. has started telling people what communities will be blacked out next. Edison has not. "The reason we don't provide the general public with information on the boundaries of where outages will be is because law enforcement believes it is not helpful." Edison spokesman Steve Conroy said. "We're talking about looting and other types of criminal activity here." But some law enforcement officials say the concern is overstated.

"The would have to be very quick and opportunistic. Dale Carnathan of the Ventura County Sheriff's Office of Emergency Services. "I doubt that many of them are going to be listening to the news stations." Businesses said that even those warnings are not good enough. They want phone calls or e-mails telling them when power will go out. Neither nor Edison has agreed to active warning SVStems.

officials say the technical barriers are too daunting. "Advance customer warning is good, but we can't always do it." said company spokesman John Tremavne. He sad all utilities are required to alert their largest customers whenever the state declares a Stage 3 alert, indicating that electricity supplies are critically low. The utility also tries to notify its 22.000 or so customers who are on life-support systems. But notifying everyone, he said.

IS "an impossibility. When you're given less than five minutes warning yourself. the job gets pretty tough." Such warnings are not seen as insurmountable by The utility has announced planto offer an varly warning system of e-mail and pager messages starting June 1 to commercial and industrial customers. And in own territory. the Sar.

Francisco Chronicle has started an e-mail warning system available to arvone who signs up online Nicholas "Nicos" Sampson, 66, a Cypriot newspaper publisher who led a brief Greek-inspired coup in 1974 that prompted Turkish invasion of the Eastern Mediterranean island, died Wednesday in Nicosia, Cyprus, of cancer. Known as the "eight-day president," Sampson assumed power after the Greek-led Cypriot National Guard ousted Archbishop Makarios from power. But Sampson resigned when the Turks invaded Cyprus on July 20, 1974, and Makarios later resumed the presidency. The series of events ended in partition of Cyprus and the downfall of the military regime in Greece. Sampson in 1976 pleaded guilty to carrying out warlike undertakings and usurping the office of the president.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes against the state, but in 1979 was permitted to go to Paris for medical treatment. After 11 years in exile, Sampson returned to Cyprus and prison, but was released in 1993 because of ill health. Continued from B1 ficer, as well as a member of the board of the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), the agency that tries to keep electricity flowing through the state's transmission system. Business owners want to know why state officials have waited until the eleventh hour to implement a system that could minimize the impact. Jack Stewart, president of the California Manufacturers and Technology said so much time was spent on rate increases, bond sales and other issues critical to keeping the electricity flowing, that everything else took a back seat.

He said officials in Sacramento were hesitant to assume a "war room" mentality for fear of exaggerating the potential for power outages. fear is that we downplayed the magnitude. when we should have been looking at the worsecase scenario," he said. "This should have been like Y2K." Constituents now have legislators scrambling for solutions. State Sen.

Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) has scheduled hearings today to discuss advance notification. She said the issue has gained a new sense of urgency as a summer of routine blackouts approaches. There are solutions, she said, but the logistics of providing notification to millions of power users are daunting. "You can create a system that does just about anything if you have enough money and time." she said. "The question is.

how much do we want to spend? And I'm not sure we have enough time." When the state first experienced rolling blackouts last vear. the utilities gave a few minutes' warning, but only to police and other public safety officials. Utility officials said they couldn't warn the public of the outages because looters and burglars would have a field day if they knew where electricity-powered alarms were out of service. That didn't sit well with business managers. Though consumers might find it inconvenient to have their TV sets go black, an abrupt outage can wreak havoc on a company if an assembly line freezes or a computer system crashes.

At the end of the hour, power 1S restored to the affected groups. If needed, service may be interrupted for another group or groups. Once a group has undergone a blackout, it is moved to the bottom of the list. Customers who provide essential public health, safety and security services, such as hospitals and fire and police stations. are exempt from the outages.

Customers can contact Edison at (800) 655-4555 to find out if they are part of a controlled outage. For Pacific Gas Electric customers, group numbers printed on their bills indicate whether they are affected by outages announced on radio and TV. Edison and San Diego Gas Electric will add group numbers to their bills in June. Sources: Times archives. Southern Callfornia Edison.

Pacific Gas Electric Researched by MALOY MOORE. Los Angeles Times In lost productivity, reduce household income by $4.5 billion and result in 135,000 Californians losing jobs. The losses will be greater. the study said. if the weather is especially hot.

"The longer this continues. the greater our risk of a job-killing recession gripping California." said Stewart. His organization sponsored the studv. Economist John Urbanchuk. who wrote the study, said that getting better information to companies sooner could substantially help reduce losses from blackouts.

With some warning. business owners could adjust scheduling and planning. said U'rbanchuk. executive vice president with AU'S Consultants. a New Jersey-based economic and market research firm.

"Right now we've got a situation. where businesses are at maximum risk." Utilities have responded to the call for information in varying wavs. lists so-called outage blocks on customers' bills. These are geographic areas that the utihties have devised to distribute power outages over a broad area. The utilitv's Web site tells poo- The system is tailored to customers, who receive an e-mail as soon as the newspaper learns about a pending outage in their neighborhood.

"The more informed people are, the safer they can be." said Mindy Spatt, a spokeswoman for The Utility Reform Network (TURN), a San Francisco-based consumer group. "I can see how that information could be helpful to a lot of Warning System Bill Defeated One state legislator tried unsuccessfully to force utilities to adopt an early warning system. A bill sponsored by Assemblyman John Campbell (R-Irvine) was defeated for a second time in a key committee Tuesday. That bill would have required utilities to inform large energy users of upcoming power outages within four minutes of the utilities getting word from Cal-ISO. Business representatives say they hope something will be done despite the defeat.

Carl Guardino. president and chief executive of the Silicon Vallev Manufacturing Group and a member of Cal-ISO's Board of Governors. said the grid operator is developing an advance notification system to better warn energy consumers when the region reaches minimal power reserves. Guardino said the warning systum Is still in the planning stages and he could provide few details. He said Cal-ISO wants a system that is able to serve residential and commercial users and that utilizes a variety of technologies from fax machines and pagers to the telephone and e-mail.

"It's going to get done." Guardno said. "A two-minute warning is fine for football games. but it's not enough to protect the health and safety of Californians and the California economy. Times stuff writers Robin Folds, Ofelia Casillas, Bob Pool and George Ramos in Los ingeles. Soaki Schwartz in the San Fornando Valley.

Richard Winton in Pasadena, Nancy Wride in Long Beach. John Glionna in San Fruncisco. Anna Gorman in Ventura County. Matt Ehnet and ThurDonn in Orange County and Miquel Bustillo in Sacramento contribute to this story.