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The Revenge of the Nerds
John Hodgman, speaking at this year's Radio and TV Correspondence's Dinner, addresses the revenge of the nerds, and in fact, makes a case that President Barack Obama is himself a nerd. Actually, Wired made a similar projection a year ago, but if you want more proof, check out what the good folks a JibJab have to say.
And, to defend the bona fides of my own geekness, I actually found the making of the JibJab video a fascinating study of the creative process as it dances with technology.
Quote of the day:
What's your geek score?
Inner Geek
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Jun 23 2009, 04:44:42 PM EDT
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Watts Humphrey
Day three of an extended oral history I'm conducting with Watts Humphrey. What a fascinating man, someone whose career and contributions to the industry have paralleled the growth of what's become contemporary software development, from the pre-mainframe days at IBM (where among other things he helped to introduce the first software license) to his later work at the Software Engineering Institute (with his work on software quality and process maturity). Watts is considered the "father of software quality" but in this interview I've discovered so much more about him: how he learned to ride a bike from Eddie Rickenbacker's son, his studies under Enrico Fermi, his relationship with Tom Watson, and so many more stories. I'm graced with being able to listen to this first hand. The transcripts, by the way, will eventually be made available through the Computer History Museum.
Quote of the day:
The problem of software process change are often complicated by the fact that no one is responsible to make it happen. If software process improvement isn't anybody's job, it is not surprising that is doesn't get done! If it is important enough to do, however, someone must be assigned the responsibility and given the necessary resources. Until this is done, software process development will remain a nice thing to do someday, but never today.
Watts Humphrey
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Jun 19 2009, 11:19:58 AM EDT
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Software Abundance in the Face of Economic Scarcity
i've just returned from Orlando, where I attended the IBM Rational Software Conference. Happily - but surprisingly, given these economic times - attendance was almost dead on to last year's figures.
Among other things, I gave a presentation at one of the plenaries. One of the key messages of this conference was IBM's Smarter Planet initiative, and so I made the point that a very dangerous combination is that of a smarter planet combined with stupid people. In other words, it's not just about wiring the planet, it's also about having a responsible and accountable populace able to reason about complex issues and to make well informed decisions. Another theme I developed in a presentation to the executive track was that of software abundance in the face of economic scarcity. In the face of scarcity, the tradition reaction is to retreat, shrink, slash, and/or panic. Understandably so, innovation in times of abundance is relatively easy, but even just existing in lean times is hard. As Brad Perkins noted, "a recession exacerbates competition for limited resources." The thing about software, however, is that it is perhaps the most fungible and liquid of resources. The supply of software is limited only by human imagination and labor. Therefor, I argue, software-intensive systems are an inescapable and necessary element in helping us operate, innovate, and even thrive in the face of lean economic times. As Clay Williams, a fellow researcher at Watson, noted, software development is too often viewed as a cost center to be cut, rather than as an asset of strategic importance to be nourished.
Some random links for your reading pleasure. I celebrate the many ways that the populace can collaborate, from BarCamps to CafeScienfique to Pecha Kucha Nights. I spoke at a local Cafe a few years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Remember my earlier postings mentioning Joe Marasco aka Barbecue Joe? He appears here with Mr. William Shatner. And, speaking of all things Trek, did you catch the appearance of Randy Pausch in the latest Star Trek?
Oh, and one final plug for a friend of a dear friend. If you are in the market for CISSP training, check out this.
Quote of the day:
[Interviewer, at the end of a session about the future of software] So, what's next?
[Me] I'm going to have lunch with a friend.
[Interviewer] No, I mean much further out.
[Me] Oh, that's easy. I'm going to die, everything I've possessed will turn to dust, and all that I've done will be forgotten by countless generations. But in the meantime, I expect to live a long life, full of grace and love and joy.
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Jun 08 2009, 05:28:54 PM EDT
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Quote
I have several dozen blog topics in the winds, waiting to be blogged as I am so moved, but this post serves as a vehicle to quote a dialog that moved me, from a recent work of fiction by Bernard Beckett.
Quote of the day:
[Adam:] You mock me for the shortness of my life span, but it is this very fear of dying that breathes life into me. I am the thinker who thinks of thought. I am curiosity, I am reason, I am love, and I am hatred. I am indifference. I am the son of a father, who in turn was a father's son. I am the reason my mother laughed and the reason my mother cried. I am wonder and I am wondrous. Yes, the world may push your buttons as it passes through your circuitry. But the world does not pass through me. It lingers. I am in it and it is in me. I am the means by which the universe has come to know itself. I am the thing no machine can ever make. I am meaning. [Art:] The soul is your most ancient idea. Any mind that knows itself also knows the body, which houses it, is decaying. It knows the end will come. And a mind forced to contemplate such emptiness is a force or rare creativity.
Genesis
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May 05 2009, 01:29:18 AM EDT
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And The Question Is
Been sitting on this one for a while, but now it's public: first IBM had Deep Blue for playing chess, and now there's a system for playing Jeopardy. Slashdot has more on the subject here.
Quote of the day:
Sometimes questions are more important than answers.
Nancy Willard
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Apr 27 2009, 02:34:30 PM EDT
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Software Architecture Masteclass
I've recently been collaborating with one of my IBM colleagues, Peter Eeles, to create a half-day Software Architecture Masterclass that will be delivered during the Rational Software Conference in late May/early June. If you've not yet booked your place, then you can sign up here. The masterclass incorporates various aspects of the Handbook, together with Peter's own experiences from The Process of Software Architecting which is due for publication later this year.
Quote of the day:
No man is free, who is not a master of himself.
Epictetus
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Apr 20 2009, 09:23:48 PM EDT
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Second Life Behind A Firewall
I've been waiting to blog about this for a long time and now finally can, since it's been made public: Linden Labs has developed a packaging for Second Life that permits one to put a shard of a virtual world, isolate it from the public grid, and place it safely behind a firewall. You can add your own fences, razor wire, guards with weapons, and pit bulls if you want a really really secure world. The net result is that IMHO this is a wonderful step forward in advancing collaborative environments, for it's now possible to leverage all the wonders of Second Life yet in a secure manner. Engineering in air gaps is the only real meaningful security measure in this interconnected world, and that's what this offer. Kudos to Linden on this one.
Quote of the day:
Fifteen, 20 years from now, relationships online are going to be increasingly realistic.
James Hughes
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Apr 09 2009, 03:26:45 PM EDT
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Research
Over the past month, I've been pouring over the published literature on software architecture, and just today finished re-reading some 50+ books on the subject. Along the way, I've added references here.
This current month is dedicated to pouring over a corresponding set of about a thousand papers and articles I've printed, and you'll see the citations here (among the papers, people, and sites).
Quote of the day:
If we knew what we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Albert Einstein
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Apr 01 2009, 10:21:19 PM EDT
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The Complexity of Flight Software
NASA has just released its report on the complexity of flight software. Dan Dvorak, the editor of the report, noted in a message that "The report presents 16 recommendations, four of which are about architecture and architecting, reflecting the fact that good architecture is the best defense against unnecessary complexity in software-intensive systems."
Well said, Dan - I agree wholeheartedly :-)
Quote of the day:
The world you perceive is drastically simplified model of the real world.
Herbert Simon
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Mar 27 2009, 03:46:32 PM EDT
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Theology And Virtual Worlds
I'm on the board of the Iliff School of Theology. This morning, I had a conversation with Jeffrey Mahan, their Dean of Faculty, discussing the confluence of technology and theology. Among other things, I pointed Dr. Mahan to the work by Rita King and Joshua Fouts on Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds.
Quote of the day:
Technology is not a collection of neutral instruments but is accompanied by a set of values, practices, and purposes that create a particular destiny which simultaneously limits or prevents the contruction of alternative futures.
Waters
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Mar 12 2009, 05:28:17 PM EDT
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Barbara Liskov
Congratulations to Barbara Liskov, who has been named this year's ACM Turing Award winner.
Quote of the day:
Let q(x) be a property provable about objects x of type T. Then q(y) should be true for objects y of type S where S is a subtype of T.
Barbara Liskov
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Mar 10 2009, 04:30:40 PM EDT
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The Future Of Things
Another interesting site here regarding the future of things. Speaking of the future Vint Cerf is interviewed here and offers some thoughts regarding the web and robotics. While I'm still waiting for my personal jet pack, I am happy that I don't have to clean the inside of my home with a water hose as once predicted.
Still, I hope Santa brings me a personal fabber this year. I'll try to be really really good.
Not all is happy squirrels and dancing rabbits, however. Due to limited global supplies of indium, zinc, gallium, and havnium we may be back to paper and pencils, and even then, we might not be able to read the digital artifacts created in this generation.
If you are not totally bummed by now, there are lots of predications about how humanity will end.
And now back to your regularly scheduled program...
Quote of the day:
Forget the past- the future will give you plenty to worry about.
George Allen
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Mar 09 2009, 04:57:03 PM EDT
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Catching Up on developerWorks
If you've been following my blog feed on developerWorks you will have been profoundly bored, for there's nothing that's been posted since September of last year.
Let me gently remark that this is why sound configuration management mechanisms are important: the script I'd used to cross post from my primary blog was broken during some innocent maintenance on the dW site. The good news is that the mechanism is now working, and so you'll see fresh posts on the dW blog regularly. If you want to read the posts I'd created since September, go here or snag the RSS feed here.
Quote of the day:
Everybody has accepted by now that change is unavoidable. But that still implies that change is like death and taxes it should be postponed as long as possible and no change would be vastly preferable. But in a period of upheaval, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm."
Peter Drucker
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Mar 09 2009, 04:16:20 PM EDT
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And Now For Something Completely Different
Enough of the serious geeky topics; time for some fun geeky topics. If I want serious, I'll plot the steady decline of my investments, watching as their value approaches zero.
There's the widely distributed Dilbert of course, but I also track User Friendly and The Joy Of Tech. I get a daily fix of all three. From time to time I'll stop by Wired and ValleyWag; here's a bit from Wired on doomsday machines and another from ValleyWag on goofy computer ads.
Then there's Oxford's list of the top ten irritating phrases as well as a collection of sounds from failing hard drives.
Apparently there is a proven correlation between success and facial hair as demonstrated here.
The web is a wonderful repository of old commercials, such as EDS's airplane commercial, a futuristic set from AT&T, and also IBM's Magic Box (I love the music therein). Lots and lots of old IBM ads may be found if you poke around a bit.
And, finally one that is unlike all the others, Amy Walker offering 21 different accents.
Quote of the day:
Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs.
Christopher Morley
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Mar 09 2009, 03:34:28 PM EDT
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Software architecture, software engineering, and Renaissance Jazz
