Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Category: Information Technology
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You Might Be A Computing Old Timer If …
The history of modern digital computing is unusual in one regard. Most of its advances have occurred during the professional lifetimes of many of its current practicioners. For those of us who came of age in the mainframe era, it is instructive (and sometimes humorous) to remember what has changed.
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Technology Transfer: A Contact Sport
The success or failure of technology transfer depends on many factors, from the personalities and skills of the people involved, through the timing and appropriateness of the offering, to the risks and costs associated with the new idea. No single mechanism is guaranteed to succeed, though there are many mechanisms that are likely to fail.
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Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
Had Thoreau had a smartphone, he would not have been texting his best bud, Ralph (Waldo Emerson), about the joys of solitude, nor would he have been tweeting or posting photos of his house construction. I am rather more confident he would have espoused the healing virtues of periodic digital seclusion and contemplation.
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Remembering Internet Dogs
An iconic cartoon by Peter Steiner, which appeared in The New Yorker in 1993, captured the nature of the nascent Internet. It shows a dog seated at a computer, remarking to a second dog on the floor that, “On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog.” Not only does the Internet now know you…
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Lessons from the Gulf of Mexico
The computational demands of an integrated, fully multidisciplinary, parametric simulation study of the oil spill and all of its effects would make today’s complex models seem like child’s play on an abacus by comparison.
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Spectrum Future Shock
Several studies have shown that large parts of the available spectrum are unused most of the time at most locations, within a reasonable detection threshold.With the rise inexpensive, high-performance microprocessors and radio frequency (RF) system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs, more nimble, cognitive radio designs are now possible that can operate across wide portions of the spectrum.