Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Category: Personal
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Technology Strategy and Policy
It seems axiomatic that technology strategy must include – drumroll please – both technology and strategy. It is all about the right ideas at the right times. We live in a world of exponential technology change, and understanding when quantitative technical change begets qualitative strategic and policy change is the essence of innovation.
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Serial Dismay, Parallel Excitement
Cloud services now operate on the largest computing systems we have ever built on this planet, with service reliability expectations far higher than what we demand from scientific applications. Thus, I also believe there are lessons from cloud computing that are potentially applicable to computational science applications.
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I Could Smell the Smoke
Why didn’t we leave a high value target area, you might ask? The Washington Metro was closed, taxis were non-existent, there was a security cordon around the area, and it was too far to walk.
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Doctoral Comedy: Which Way Is The Door?
The first time I saw the PhDComics strip, I knew the artist must have been a Ph.D. student, because only someone who has experienced graduate school and faculty life, particularly in a technical discipline, could have that much insight regarding the joy and misery of graduate student life and the trials and foibles of faculty…
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The Power of Plum Jelly
The dilapidated two story house marked the corner of two single lane roads in the Arkansas hills, and it was old and weather-beaten long before I was born. The windows stared sullenly at the sky, covered only by cheap roller shades that had never seen better days. A rusted tin roof (iron actually, but we…
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The (Scientific) Good News
I am no behavioral psychologist, but I suspect that all children are born with the insatiable curiosity that sustains scientific curiosity. All too often, though, I fear that our educational system punishes curiosity and rewards conformity. Only a small fraction remains sufficiently iconoclastic and self-confident to resist, asking those seemingly annoying questions that defy authority…