Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Category: Popular culture
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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…
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A Taste of Sherbet
When you lead a hardscrabble life, you learn certain things early. Life is not fair. Don’t expect things you can’t possibly have, even if others do. Don’t ever shame your parents in public – the hurt in their eyes is punishment enough. Above all, don’t dream things that can’t come true.
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Driving: Integers and Reals
Despite the deep and broad similarities that transend regional and national cultures, uniting us as humans, I have observed wide variation in one one deeply individualistic trait. The frequency of this trait widely varies across regions of the United States, across countries and across cultures; it is preponderant in some, rare in others, but present…
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Low Hanging Fruit: Memories of Childhood
Low hanging fruit – it’s a metaphor native English speakers often use to denote an opportunity on which one can easily capitalize, a reward readily grasped without stretching. Yet I doubt most of us, particularly those in urban areas stop to consider the agrarian origins of such phrases, when hunter-gatherers quite literally foraged for food.…
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Eudora, You Got the Love?
One summer night when I was about twelve years old, I sat watching the Dick Cavett Show on our old black and white television, the small town boy’s version of Plato’s Cave. Dick was a thoughtful and insightful interviewer, and he hosted a diverse and eclectic set of guests, from Salvador Dali to Groucho Marx.…
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Everyone Needs to Eat
They were ordinary men, one black and one white. Like most, they lived uneventful lives. Their story has been seldom told – that changes here, now, today. Theirs is a story about the evolving dream that is America.