Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience


The U.S. lacks a coherent strategy for developing future high-performance computing systems, ones critical for national security, economic growth, and scientific discovery.

The next time you see a janitor, stop, smile, and say thank you. The word will spread, far faster and far more effectively than via any memo.

The price of innovation keeps rising, the talent is following the money, and many of the traditional players – companies and countries – are struggling to keep up.

As the recent performance of IBM’s Watson system on the game show Jeopardy! Illustrated, the combination of large-scale data, rich algorithm suites and powerful computing is opening new vistas. Vannevar Bush’s 1940s vision of a Memex, a device capable of storing, indexing and retrieving data from a broad knowledge base, is now within our reach.

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.