Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future
Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience
Category: Popular culture
-
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…
-
Research Summers
Research challenges us to pose new questions, choose research avenues carefully, and be frugal and wise stewards of the financial trust invested in us. It means nurturing each new generation of students in the ways and methods of discovery, shaping national and international research agendas, and serving society by transferring promising ideas. Finally, it means…
-
Commencement: The Inside Story
Let’s clear up a few things about the history and functions of those strange hats and robes, the archaic academic regalia one wears at commencement ceremonies. A mortarboard, despite the name, should not be confused with bricklaying or a brick hod. It’s a hat, albeit a funny looking one.
-
Jaron Lanier: Time’s Thinker
Time magazine annually publishes a list of its 100 Most Influential People in the World. This year, my Microsoft XCG colleague, Jaron Lanier, was named to this list in the thinker category.
-
Consumerization of IT and Research
When a corporate, government or university IT department of the 1970s debated an upgrade to its IBM S/370 mainframes, it is doubtful that the IT director was in any way influenced by the computing experiences or opinions of their teenage children. Today,smartphones, social networks, consumer email, cloud services, community software and tools are blurring the…
-
Volcanoes, Travel and Social Networks
Many of us have had family, friends, colleagues or acquaintances stranded far from home by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano. At one point, I joked with one friend that he should consider a land route to central Europe, catch the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok, kayak across the Bering Strait to Alaska, then drive down…