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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Dreaming Things That Never Were
You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?
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A Conversation on Designing the Future
SF author Bruce Sterling and I recently had a public conversation about the future. I offered some advice to the students in the audience. 1. Hang out with people not like yourself. 2. Take some risks. 3. Make new and original mistakes.
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Reflections on the B20 Meeting
Last week, I have the privilege to participate in the B20 meetings in Los Cabos, a prelude to the G20 economic summit. My takeaway is that the global economic situation is not going to get better any time soon. The Chinese economy is clearly slowing, the Eurozone crisis seems endless, and the U.S. situation is…
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A Question to Ponder
What probability of successful return would you accept to be the first human to set foot on Mars? The question speaks to the centrality of our humanity, our insatiable curiosity and our hope to be remembered for having done something new, for having made a difference.
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Planting Seeds in the Field of Knowledge
In these challenging economic times, U.S. universities are under great stress – economically, politically and socially. It is tempting for those of us in computing to ignore these issues. Like agriculture and engineering before us, I believe computing has a social responsibility to be an active and enthusiastic partner in helping chart the nature of…
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Digital Inclusion
An economic and cultural chasm, a digital divide, separates the digitally connected from those who lack the ways or the means to join the digital community. In a knowledge economy, the separated are cut off from a plethora of services, educational materials, and business prospects.