Data is raw. It simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself. In computer parlance, a spreadsheet generally starts out by holding data.
Information is data that has been given meaning by way of relational connection. This "meaning" can be useful, but does not have to be. In computer parlance, a relational database makes information from the data stored within it.
Data management housekeeping is not the only problem to plague oversimplified approaches to high speed computation. The physical problems which are of practical interest tend to have rather significant complications. Examples of these complications are as follows: boundaries are likely to be irregular; interiors are likely to be inhomogeneous; computations required may be dependent on the states
of the variables at each point; propagation rates of different physical effects may be quite different; the rate of convergence, or convergence at all, may be strongly dependent on sweeping through the array along different axes on succeeding passes; etc. The effect of each of these complications is very severe on any computer organization based on geometrically related processors in a paralleled
processing system.
For over a decade prophets have voiced the contention that the organization of a single computer has reached its limits and that truly significant advances can be made only by interconnection of a multiplicity of computers in such a manner as to permit cooperative solution. Variously the proper direction has been pointed out as general purpose computers with a generalized interconnection of
memories, or as specialized computers with geometrically related memory interconnections and controlled by one or more instruction streams.
Demonstration is made of the continued validity of the single processor approach and of the weaknesses of the multiple processor approach in terms of application to real problems and their attendant irregularities.
We tend to think that the phenomenon of engineers and scientists being at the top of a company is something that started with Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak or Gary Kildal. But this just isn’t the case. Even back in the days when IBM was the single most important computer company, it was possible for one of its engineers to escape and make an impact that disturbed even Big Blue.
In my opinion, libraries and librarians are needed more than ever, and the literature is noting this more often. In the development of MARC, it was clear to me that we needed two talents, i. e., computer expertise and library expertise. Neither talent could have succeeded alone. We need this more than ever today. Librarians must become computer literate so that they can understand the relationship
between the technology applied and the discipline of their profession.
Somebody will ask those of us who compose with the aid of computers: 'So you make all these decisions for the computer or the electronic medium but wouldn't you like to have a performer who makes certain other decisions?' Many composers don't mind collaborating with the performer with regards to decisions of tempo, or rhythm, or dynamics, or timbre, but ask them if they would allow the performer
to make decisions with regard to pitch and the answer will be 'Pitches you don't change.' Some of us feel the same way in regard to the other musical aspects that are traditionally considered secondary, but which we consider fundamental. As for the future of electronic music, it seems quite obvious to me that its unique resources guarantee its use, because it has shifted the boundaries of music
away from the limitations of the acoustical instrument, of the performer's coordinating capabilities, to the almost infinite limitations of the electronic instrument. The new limitations are the human ones of perception.
The next superstar could very well be ET!!! Sincerely, at that point in the history of Hollywood, there were no stars. Paul Newman has said on record, ‘What’s the point in my being an actor? The three greatest hits have been mechanical gadgets!’ There was a shark in Jaws that crashed the box-office, there was this peculiar animal in ET and there was that robot in Star Wars. I saw it millions
of times. And everytime I see ET I find it’s a lovable person. So maybe you don’t need an actor, it’s going to be a computer! Look, one of the poignant scenes in 2001 Space Odyssey was the death of the computer. The computer on board is programmed to take the spaceship to a particular planet and also manage everything, right to the food of the astronauts. Then they realize that this very
same computer is actually programmed to sabotage the mission. So this astronaut unscrews the computer. It dies with the voice going fainter ‘Don’t kill … me … don’t … kill me’. If just mechanical gadgets are going to be moving us to tears, then Paul Newman is right. What is the need for actors?
For twenty years programming languages have been steadily progressing toward their present condition of obesity; as a result, the study and invention of programming languages has lost much of its excitement. Instead, it is now the province of those who prefer to work with thick compendia of details rather than wrestle with new ideas. Discussions about programming languages often resemble medieval
debates about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin instead of exciting contests between fundamentally differing concepts. Many creative computer scientists have retreated from inventing languages to inventing tools for describing them. Unfortunately, they have been largely content to apply their elegant new tools to studying the warts and moles of existing languages.