Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Author: Dan Reed
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HPC Clouds
In the facility-less research computing model, researchers focus on the higher levels of the software stack – applications and innovation, not low-level infrastructure. Administrators, in turn, procure services from the providers based on capabilities and pricing. Finally, the providers deliver economies of scale and capabilities driven by a large market base.
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Mobility, Transduction and Garages
This isn’t an essay about plate tectonics, though I have moved much closer to an earthquake fault line, here in the Pacific Northwest. Instead, here are a few thoughts on the future of mobile devices, motivated by the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show and fact that my garage door does not trust my car.
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End of an Era
I remember the day I first saw Mosaic, just after it was completed at Illinois. I had two immediate reactions. First, this was cool, way cool! Second, that it was a simpler interface to anonymous FTP, for people who could not spell anonymous!
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Web and Service Futures
As many of us shopped online for holiday gifts, I also found myself thinking about the rise of effective electronic retailing from the Strum und Drang that was the dot.com boom and bust.
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America COMPETES – Not!
Like many of you, I am exceedingly distressed by recent news about the Federal research budget and the prospects for an omnibus appropriations bill. Peter Harsha cogently describes the bleak situation in the CRA Computing Research Policy Blog. The major science agencies – NIH, NSF, DOE, NIST and NASA – will see minimal budget increases,…
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Experiencing Microsoft
I spent 25 years as a faculty member, research institute leader and university administrator, and I have now been at Microsoft for two weeks. Hence, some of you may be wondering about my initial experiences and perceptions. Busy, exciting, exhausting and fun – all of those adjectives apply.