Embargo

Predictably, the Cuban-American community in South Florida is absolutely aghast that Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z chose to spend their 3-day anniversary vacation in Cuba.   Also predictably, two Cuban-American legislators, Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans, have demanded (yes, demanded) that the Treasury Department investigate the trip, which they believe violated the decades-old US embargo against Cuba.  In their letter to the Treasury Department, Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart asserted: “Cuba’s tourism industry is wholly state-controlled, therefore, U.S. dollars spent on Cuban tourism directly fund the machinery of oppression that brutally represses the Cuban people.”  

Among other provisions, the embargo prohibits US tourism to Cuba, and only allows Americans to visit the island on trips that focus on “educational exchange activities that will result in meaningful interaction” between Americans and Cubans.  The Treasury Department, the government entity charged with enforcing the embargo, apparently granted Beyoncé, Jay-Z and their group a license for the visit, as it does for approximately 10,000 Americans per year, under that exception.

The legislators are totally missing the point.  Quibbling about whether or not the trip violated the embargo is a waste of time.  Everyone would be better served if they would instead question the existence of the embargo itself, which has long proven not only to be a catastrophic failure at accomplishing its stated objectives, but has probably helped keep the undeniably abhorrent Castro regime in power for over 50 years.

As  Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies stated in a 2009 The Guardian article:

The embargo has been a failure by every measure. It has not changed the course or nature of the Cuban government. It has not liberated a single Cuban citizen. In fact, the embargo has made the Cuban people a bit more impoverished, without making them one bit more free. At the same time, it has deprived Americans of their freedom to travel and has cost US farmers and other producers billions of dollars of potential exports.

As a tool of US foreign policy, the embargo actually enhances the Castro government's standing by giving it a handy excuse for the failures of the island's Caribbean-style socialism. Brothers Fidel and Raul can rail for hours about the suffering the embargo inflicts on Cubans, even though the damage done by their communist policies has been far worse. The embargo has failed to give us an ounce of extra leverage over what happens in Havana.

With regard to tourism specifically, Mr. Griswold continues:

Advocates of the embargo argue that trading with Cuba will only put dollars into the coffers of the Castro regime. And it's true that the government in Havana, because it controls the economy, can skim off a large share of the remittances and tourist dollars spent in Cuba. But of course, selling more US products to Cuba would quickly relieve the Castro regime of those same dollars.

If more US tourists were permitted to visit Cuba, and at the same time US exports to Cuba were further liberalised, the US economy could reclaim dollars from the Castro regime as fast as the regime could acquire them. In effect, the exchange would be of agricultural products for tourism services, a kind of "bread for beaches", "food for fun" trade relationship.

Obviously people may have different opinions regarding the effectiveness of a policy before it is enacted, or a short time thereafter, since at that point its effects are not yet known.  But now, almost 53 years in (the embargo was instituted in October of 1960), we can safely say that the embargo, whose stated goal was to encourage Cuba to move toward "democratization and greater respect for human rights," has failed miserably.

So why is it that in the face of the embargo’s obvious failure, so many in the Cuban-American community do not even question the desirability of its continuation?  In 2011 former presidential candidate George McGovern blamed "embittered Cuban exiles in Miami" for keeping the embargo alive all these years, because of their dislike for Fidel Castro.  A bit of an oversimplification perhaps, but not too far from the truth.  The embargo was a knee-jerk reaction, a short-term maneuver, yet emotional resentment and politics conspired to convert it into a sacred cow of astounding durability.  It is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history, and has even made the strangest of political bedfellows: the Cuban-American community and the Republican party.

The Castro brothers’ rule has spanned the administrations of  ten U.S. Presidents (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2 and Obama).  Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and its former bloc collapsed and China reinvented itself into a thriving market-based economy.  Cuba remains a totalitarian, repressive state.

What would the situation in Cuba be like today had the US taken a different approach?

It almost certainly would be better than it is, and could not possibly be worse.

The Thin Layer

Instead of waiting behind the other 50 people in line at a highway off-ramp, a motorist passes everyone and cuts into the line right at the exit.   

During the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew a guy hawks bottles of water at $50 each on the streets of South Florida.

At a supermarket checkout, a new line is opened.  The last person on the next line walks over and becomes first on the newly opened line, despite the fact that others were in line longer and would, in all fairness, be entitled to a spot before him on the newly opened line.

An app developer comes up with a name for his iOS app similar enough to that of a highly successful app that hapless users will purchase and download his app thinking it’s the highly successful one, and once they realize it’s not will not bother to do anything about it and will instead simply write off the lost $1.99.

A parent enrolls his daughter in an expensive test preparation course for her upcoming SATs, knowing that many of the other college applicants she will be competing against cannot afford those courses and his daughter will therefore have an unfair advantage.  

Where is the line that separates “smart”, “resourceful” and “skillful” from “greedy”, “despicable” and “scummy”?  Exactly when does a shrewd operator become an asshole?

As I wrote some time ago, capitalism works and communism doesn’t because we humans are a greedy, selfish lot.   However, during our lives we are presented with mixed signals and confusing messages.  As children we are taught that sharing is good, yet in business school we are taught how to amass as much as we can at the expense of our competitors.  We are expected to help the less fortunate, but are considered more successful the more we have.   We live in an absurdly unfair world, where undeserving people have much more than they could ever need while deserving people are starving, simply because they happened to be born to a different circumstance.  So we give the homeless guy at the stoplight a dollar, and then meet with our accountant to see what we can do to lower our tax bill.

How responsible are we, if at all, for the welfare of others?  Are we only responsible for ourselves?  Ourselves and our immediate families?  Extended families?  Neighbors?  Friends? Fellow citizens?  Do those that have have an obligation to give back?  Or do human beings simply live in a “dog eat dog” world, just like all the other species on the planet, but unlike them have ridiculous delusions of incorporating a “morality” layer that mitigates our innate survival instincts?

Human behavior, unlike that of other species, varies widely when it comes to our respect for our fellow men and women.  Some people manage to get through their whole lives without infringing on the rights of others, while others dedicate their entire lives to benefiting at others’ expense.  Some people patiently wait in line, while others cut in.  Many dedicate large parts of their lives, or their entire lives in some cases, to helping others they perceive to be less fortunate than themselves, while others spend their lives scheming to find ways to deprive others of their fortunes.  Most of us lie somewhere in between.

We seem to be the only life forms on the planet with that thin layer of consciousness right above the survival instinct, sort of like the skin that forms on the surface of heated milk.  The skin is so insubstantial that most humans require some sort of perceived selfish incentive to follow the skin (consciousness), and not the body of milk below (instinct) when making decisions.  But, as thin as the layer is, it does exist.  And it does not exist in the animals that we evolved from.  Does this mean that, as natural selection and evolution continue inexorably, the layer will gradually thicken and become more prevalent?  Will the species that evolve from us no longer require selfish incentives to do the right thing?  Why do we even have that layer to begin with?  Why did natural selection result in a being with consciousness?  

One sensible answer is that the consciousness mutation resulted in a being more fit to survive.  So it would follow that a being with a higher degree of consciousness would be even more fit to survive.  So it would further follow that the species that evolve from homo sapiens will no longer be bound by greed and selfishness.  Our progeny will not require absurd constructions like religions to do the right thing.  Police forces and armies will be looked back on as relics of a bygone era.

Before we go too far into Pollyanna territory, we must consider another possibility, sadly perhaps more likely given the current state of affairs.  The greed and selfishness will overcome the layer of consciousness, and we will self-destruct, becoming simply another in a long line of failed species.   In that case, maybe a few million years from now a layer of consciousness will mutate into a progeny of today’s shark, or cockroach.  And maybe that species will be better equipped to withstand its growing pains than the long-gone homo sapiens.

Elizabeth McGovern

If I had been told a couple of months ago that I would enjoy watching a British TV series about the happenings of a noble English family and their servants in the early part of the 20th century, I would have dismissed the idea out of hand.  But, after hearing about how good Downton Abbey was ad nauseum, I watched the first episode and was immediately hooked.  I’ve now watched the entire first three seasons, and anxiously await more episodes to become available.

The only American actor in Downton Abbey’s fine ensemble cast is Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Cora Crawley, the Duchess of Grantham, with aplomb.  However, the first time I saw Ms. McGovern as Cora I felt a sudden, inexplicable pain in my stomach.  At first I didn’t understand the nature of the pain, nor the reason I felt it.  After a bit of research, it all made sense.

A cursory look at Elizabeth McGovern’s IMDb page reminded me that her second major role was that of Jeannine Pratt, in 1980’s multiple-Oscar winning “Ordinary People”, starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton and Judd Hirsch.  Even though Ms. McGovern was 19 years old at the time, she played a highschool student, a year or two younger.  And there it was, plain as day, the cause of my pain.

You see, even though I share my birth year (1961) with Elizabeth McGovern, it did not bother me to see her playing her Ladyship the Duchess, clearly a woman of a certain age.  What bothered me was that Ms. McGovern managed to go from teenager to grandmother, all during my adulthood!  For I was in my sophomore year at Babson College when I saw “Ordinary People”.

Realizing that I have been an adult during Ms. McGovern’s entire transformation from Jeannine Pratt to Cora Crawley viscerally brought home the fact that I have been around for a long time.  It was not simply a matter of noting that a woman my age was now playing older roles.  It was getting coldcocked by the fact that, as an adult, I have witnessed the nascent stages of an actress’s career, and am now witnessing the same career’s denouement.

Time seems going by at a pace as artificially accelerated as it is in those time-lapse videos of flowers blooming.  I could use some slow motion.  And now.

The Right Tool for the Job

All of my computers have become vastly overqualified.  I have a $1,500 MacBook Air, but I’m using $250 of it. Enter the new Chromebook.

Around 11 years ago, I decided to make a conscious effort to move all my data to servers accessible over the Internet (the term “Cloud” was not in vogue at the time) so that I would be able to access it from any of my computers.  The process was difficult at first, since Internet connectivity was not as ubiquitous as it is today, and there were nowhere near as many high quality cloud services available as there are now.  However, initially making use of pioneering companies such as NetLedger (now NetSuite) for accounting data and Writely (now part of Google Drive) for web-based word processing, and gradually incorporating other services such as Google Apps, Dropbox, Amazon Cloud Services, Sliderocket, Gliffy, Evernote, Mint and many others, as of roughly 3 years ago my migration to the cloud became complete.  The only application I need to run on any of my computers is the browser, and all of my data, spreadsheets, word processing documents, PDFs, photos, videos, music, movies, TV shows, presentations, diagrams, etc., is available from any Internet-connected computer.

Using my gorgeous 13” MacBook Air for my general computing chores became like using a Lamborghini to go to the corner grocery store: total overkill.  But that’s not exactly the right analogy, since there’s nothing wrong with going to the grocery store in style.  It felt more like I was not sufficiently leveraging the effort I had made to migrate to web-based services.  Thanks to the cloud, I no longer needed an expensive computer that did so much more than what I required.  It just felt wrong to the part of me that takes pride in using the proper tool for the job at hand.

That same part of me has been drawn toward Chrome OS since it was announced in July of 2009.  Yet there was no way I could justify spending $500 on a Chromebook when the computers I already owned were fulfilling my needs, and then some.  However, with the introduction of the $249 Samsung Chromebook, resistance became futile.  I ordered it as soon as it was announced, received it 2 days later and have been delightfully using it ever since (3 days so far).

Before I go any further I must admit that, in addition to the aforementioned MacBook Air and my new Chromebook, I own a Mac mini, a MacBook Pro, and an iMac (not to mention an iPhone 5, an iPad and a Nexus 7 tablet).  And I love them all.  But for the past few days, the device I’ve reached for in almost every computing situation has been the plastic, cheaply built Chromebook that was most obviously not designed by Jony Ive.  Why?  Because it’s the right tool for the job.  It is only able to do precisely what I need it to do: provide a gateway to the web.  No more, no less.  And in doing only that, as a by-product of its efficiency, it eliminates virtually all of the hassles inherent in other operating systems and native apps, like the constant updating, long boot times, exposure to viruses and the need to back up, among others.

Will our grandchildren’s computing devices be progenies of today’s iOS, Android, Windows, OS X or Linux devices, all with their native apps?  Or will they be descendants of the incredible $249 computer I’m writing this on?  I’m so in love with the flat-out efficiency of this machine, which looks like it was purchased at Toys ‘R Us but makes cheap components shine more than they have a right to, that I’m betting on Chrome OS, Web Apps and Chromebooks as the eventual winners.  To me, nothing makes more sense than having my data in both a place and a format that allows me to grab any computer and just point the browser at it to use it.  Apple and Microsoft will [eventually] lose, since they are betting their companies on expensive machines and native apps.  Google and Amazon will [eventually] win, since although they are hedging their bets, they are doubling down on the web.  You heard it here first.

What the f...?

I recently received one of those widely distributed emails containing Powerpoint presentations with all sorts of ostensibly little-known fun facts, the sort of thing that tries to make you feel that you are learning something by reading it and therefore not thoroughly wasting your time.  And, on the surface, the “facts” are sort of fun: all polar bears are left-pawed, pigs have 30-minute orgasms, and so on.  But the “fact” that caught my eye was this one: the word “fuck” originated from an acronym. 

The slide states, as fact, that in ancient England no one could have sex without the express permission of the king.  Therefore, couples having sex would hang a placard on their door on which was printed “F.U.C.K. - Fornication Under Consent of the King”.  Hence, that’s where the word “fuck” came from.  Isn’t it great to know this cool, fun fact?

The problem is that as cool and fun as the explanation may be, it is just plain wrong.  And it only takes a couple of clicks to debunk it.  With some help from snopes.com, (articles making basically the same point may be found here and here) let me count the ways:

1.  Acronyms did not become commonly used words until the 20th century.

2.  Just a moment’s thought reveals the absurdity of the notion that people would need their king’s consent to have sex.  Just for starters imagine the logistics involved, the time that the king would need to invest granting such consents and the impossibility of enforcement.

3. The word “fornication” has, since its origins, referred specifically to sexual activity outside of marriage.  Therefore, the supposed placard would be inaccurate when applied to married couples wishing to have sex.

The truth of the matter is that, unexcitingly perhaps, the word “fuck”, like most other words, crept into the English language from other tongues, most likely Germanic languages.  The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang cites the Middle Dutch “fokken” (to thrust, copulate with), the Norwegian dialect “fukka” (to copulate) or the Swedish dialect “focka” (to strike, push, copulate) or “fock” (penis).

Even today, when so much of the world’s knowledge is instantly available to most of us, we tend to take things at face value, particularly when they are presented to us in writing.  Canards are circulated and perpetuated, and misinformation runs rampant.  While universally available instant communication has accelerated the proliferation of disinformation, universally available information has not had the opposite effect.

And, by the way, although pig's orgasms do last up to 15 minutes, polar bears are not left-pawed.

Where have you gone, Neil Armstrong?

On Saturday August 25th, Neil Armstrong died at the age of 82.  

As I'm sure is the case for anyone over 50, one of my most powerful memories ever is watching a grainy, black and white image where I could barely make out a man in a huge space suit stepping off a ladder, and struggling to understand that what I was watching was taking place 240,000 miles away, on the surface of the moon.  Although the 8-year old version of myself did, of course, realize that the event was historic, I could not imagine that, 43 years later, it would still stand as (arguably) mankind’s most significant accomplishment.

It has been reported that Armstrong’s serene personality and low profile demeanor were among the reasons NASA selected him over his crewmate Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin to be the first man to step off the Lunar Module on that fateful July 20th.  If this was indeed the case, history bears NASA's decision out as amazingly prescient, for Armstrong, who thus became the public face of the most important feat ever performed by human beings, handled his post-mission role with elegance, aplomb and self-deprecation.  Always deflecting personal credit and instead emphasizing the team nature of the undertaking, Armstrong unassumingly faded into the sunset, never flying into space again and leaving NASA in 1971 for a teaching position in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati.  Even his choice of university exemplified his aversion to pretension, since he felt that the faculty at the small aerospace department at UC would not be annoyed at his coming straight into a full professorship with only a master’s degree, as they may have been, for example, at the larger department at his alma mater Purdue.

In my mind, Neil Armstrong is as much a hero for the way in which he handled himself after his moon landing as for his role in the landing itself.  In the words of Charles F. Bolden Jr., the current NASA administrator, Armstrong “carried himself with a grace and humility that was an example to us all.”  Armstrong precisely embodied the prototypical test pilot / astronaut mentality, so brilliantly exemplified in movies such as "The Right Stuff" and "Apollo 13", where the emphasis is on quietly getting things done, and letting others do the celebrating.  Doing their job, not for the money, not for the fame, but because it's a job that needs doing.   The satisfaction of a job well done is reward enough for these men and women.

Neil Armstrong's legacy transcends his accomplishments and instead encompasses the idea that humility enhances heroism, while self-aggrandizement deprecates it.  In the face of today’s choreographed touchdown dances, appalling self-promotion and shameless exhibitionism, Armstrong’s quiet, dignified modesty should be held up as the way accomplishments ought to  be celebrated.  The first man to walk on the moon “...always believed he was just doing his job”.  All of us, from multi-million dollar athletes on down, can certainly benefit from that example.

One final tidbit from the Google Search blog that should leave us all awash in humility: NASA used about as much computing power for the entire Apollo program, in flight and on the ground, as is used for a single Google search today.

What have you and I done with the computing power at our disposal? 

Partially Inverted Sequence

I’ve always thought that the evolution of communications over distance went something like this: smoke signals, carrier pigeon, semaphore, telegraph,  land line telephone, fax, cell phone, and then today’s digital communications (text, images, audio, video) over the Internet.  I was recently surprised to learn, however, that the sequence above is partially inverted!

The fax technology with which we are all familiar involves the transmission of scanned printed material (text and/or images) over telephone lines.  This particular technology was introduced by the Xerox Corporation in the 1960’s, obviously much later than the invention of the telephone in the 1870’s.  So we assume that the telephone came first, and then, much later, the fax.  However, that is not the case at all!  In fact, fax machines were around long before the telephone came along.  Early faxes simply used different methods of transmission.

From Wikipedia’s article on Scottish inventor Alexander Bain:

Bain worked on an experimental facsimile machine in 1843 to 1846. He used a clock to synchronise the movement of two pendulums for line-by-line scanning of a message. For transmission, Bain applied metal pins arranged on a cylinder made of insulating material. An electric probe that transmitted on-off pulses then scanned the pins. The message was reproduced at the receiving station on electrochemically sensitive paper impregnated with a chemical solution similar to that developed for his chemical telegraph. In his patent description dated 27 May 1843 for "improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces, and in electric printing, and signal telegraphs," he claimed that "a copy of any other surface composed of conducting and non-conducting materials can be taken by these means". The transmitter and receiver were connected by five wires.

Alas, Bain’s invention, although later improved by Frederick Bakewell, produced poor images and was not commercially viable.  However, then came Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli with his Pantelegraph.  From Wikipedia:

Caselli developed an electrochemical technology with a "synchronizing apparatus" (regulating clock) to make the sending and receiving mechanisms work together that was far superior to any technology Bain or Bakewell had.  The technology is relatively simple. An image is made using non-conductive ink on a piece of tin foil. A stylus, that is in the electrical circuit of the tin foil, is then passed over the foil where it lightly touches it. The stylus passes with parallel scans slightly apart. Electricity conducts where there is no ink and does not where there is ink. This causes on and off circuits matching the image as it scans. The signals are then sent along a long distance telegraph line. The receiver at the other end has an electrical stylus and scans blue dye ink on white paper reproducing the image line-by-line, a fac simile (Latin, "make similar") of the original image.

Caselli’s invention was implemented in “the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of telephones.”

So not only does the fax predate the telephone, but fax transmission media evolved from direct wire (Bain in 1846), to telegraph lines (Caselli, 1865) and to wireless via radio (RCA in 1924) long before Xerox introduced fax over telephone lines in 1964.  Interestingly, the radio facsimile developed by RCA in the 20’s “is still in common use today for transmitting weather charts and information to ships at sea”.

I had no idea!

Why?

Dictionary.com provides seven definitions for the word “why”: one as an adverb, three as a conjunction, two as a noun and one as an interjection.  All are interrelated and have to do with the reasons for things, except one.  The interjection.  This is the one that consternates me (and, hopefully, consternates you as well).  Why would a word whose meaning is related to the reasons for things be  “used as an expression of surprise, hesitation, etc., or sometimes a mere expletive”?

For example, why is the word “why” used in the following manner:

“Why, thank you!”

Or (from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, also of “The Elements of Style” fame):

“Why, how perfectly simple!” she said to herself.

Granted, the use of “why” as an interjection is scarce in contemporary conversation, and is sometimes used to depict dialogue as dated in TV shows, such as this SNL sketch, which uses such “Three Stooges”-style phrases as “why, I oughtta pound you”, to help set the scene in the 1930’s.  James Stewart uses “why” as an interjection repeatedly in 1946’s “It’s a Wonderful Life”.  But why did the word “why”, which dates back prior to the year 900 and derives from the Old English hwæt, wind up being used as an expression of mild surprise, beginning around 1510?

Although I was unable to find a definitive, authoritative answer, I did find plausible speculation from an apparently reputable source, user Cerberus, who is ranked 11th in all-time reputation on the English Language and Usage site from the Stack Exchange network of Q&A websites.  The esteemed Cerberus holds that “why”, used in a rhetorical sense, evolved into “a mere interjection of surprise”.  I will use my own sentences to explain the evolution below, based upon Cerberus’s logic:

First, used as part of a rhetorical question: “We’d better take an umbrella tonight.  Why is that?  Because it’s pouring!”

Then, used on its own as the rhetorical question reduced to its essence: “We’d better take an umbrella tonight.  Why?  Because it’s pouring!”

It makes sense that it then developed into a method of calling attention to the statement which follows it: “We’d better take an umbrella tonight.  Why, it’s pouring!”

Still a rhetorical question, but it seems likely that it would evolve from there to the interjection usage.  The only thing we know for sure is that, whichever way this happened, it took around 600 years!

This.... sucks!

I admit it, I’ve been called a “nerd”.  I’ve taken it as a serious compliment, attaching to it its more contemporary meaning: “an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit: a computer nerd”, and not its original meaning “a stupid, irritating, ineffectual, or unattractive person”.  (I know what you’re thinking: I’m attaching the wrong meaning, but let’s just leave it there, shall we?)  I’ve also been called a “geek”, and once again, am flattered because I take it to mean: “a computer expert or enthusiast”, and not: “a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, [such] as biting off the head of a live chicken”, the word’s original meaning.  What were insults just a few years ago are now compliments.  Words evolve.

As Seth Stevenson puts forth in this great article on slate.com, (incorporating the references above), it’s time to divorce the wonderfully succinct descriptor “sucks” from its alleged vulgar roots.  I say alleged because, as Stevenson indicates, it is entirely possible that the word’s contemporary connotation did not even originate from fellatio:

...it's not even clear that sucks has naughty origins. We might trace its roots to the phrase sucks hind teat, meaning inferior. Or there's sucks to you, a nonsexual taunt apparently favored by British schoolchildren of yore.

Or, from an anonymous contributor to wiki.answers.com who apparently was there at the exact place and time the phrase came to be used as we know it today, we have this:

only [sic] one meaning fits the time that the phrase became a popular expression, not old England or [sic] something in the backseat [sic] of a ‘55 Chevy.  as [sic] a Vietnam vet i [sic] was there when and where it started.  we [sic] all used the expression “it sucks” to describe something really bad as in a ‘sucking wound’ is [sic] a open [sic] chest injury where the lung was exposed to air and sucking noise was what you might hear just before someone dies.  thus [sic] a sucking sound is a number 10 as in a bad, bad thing.

But regardless of whether the origin of “sucks” was vulgar, its usage today, as Stevenson so effectively argues, is simple, concise and emphatic.  And it joins “nerd” and “geek” as expressions that have taken on new meanings to such an extent that most people using them are unaware of their original meanings.  I cannot agree more with Stevenson when he concludes:

Personally, I wish sucks could escape from its slangy ghetto. It's a terrifically punchy little syllable, with that "k" lending it the proven Starbucks/Nike/Kinko's power of the "sticky consonant." And take heart, sucks-haters. Soon enough, another bit of slang will come along and gain entrance into our common language, and it will be vastly more offensive than sucks ever was.

The Cloud: Back to the Future

It’s hard to believe, but when I joined the workforce in the early ‘80s, the fax was just beginning to be used in business, rapidly replacing the telex which was, amazingly, still widely used at the time.  And, although the Apple II and IBM PC had already been introduced, and I actually had the pleasure of working on Visicalc on an Apple II for a glorious summer job a few years before, personal computers were few and far between at International Savings and Loan Association (ISL), the South Florida financial institution where I got my first real job.  “Dumb terminals”, though, were everywhere.

Relatively inexpensive hardware devices that were connected directly to mainframe computers, dumb terminals would, through archaic commands, make queries of the mainframe  and return results.  The terminals had neither processing power nor data storage capabilities of their own; they simply allowed users to access the data on the mainframe computer.  The mainframes were maintained by professionals at Data Processing departments (predecessors to today’s IT departments).  ISL wasn’t large enough to afford a mainframe computer of its own, so our dumb terminals were connected (via things like RS232 and leased lines) to Florida Informanagement Services, an Orlando company that provided data processing services for smaller savings and loan institutions.

Suddenly, personal computers began appearing on people’s desks!  These early machines, made by Apple, IBM and the so-called “clone makers” (Eagle, Compaq, Franklin, et al.) differed from dumb terminals because they had their own processing power and data storage capability, and, initially, were not connected to anything at all.  With these PCs, users had the entire computer at their disposal to do with what they pleased, but if they wanted to share their work with anyone it had to be done via floppy disks or printed copies.  But, for the first time, small businesses could actually afford real computers of their own.

The next step, of course, was networking.  By 1988 I had left ISL and started a new small business.  There were four of us at the office, each with a PC-compatible computer on his desk.  One magical day a couple of guys came out to our office, physically connected the computers to each other and installed Novelle Netware software on each of them.  Our computers were now able to communicate with each other, and we could install multi-user software that would allow all of us access to the data.  Small office servers could be put into place to make files and other services available to all users.  Amazing stuff.

Although online services such as America Online (later known as AOL) and CompuServe had been available since the late ‘80s, and I had actually been an early CompuServe user, in the early 90’s the Internet began its inexorable march toward commercial ubiquity in earnest, beginning with the emergence of email as a business communication tool, and later with the availability of the world wide web.   Computers suddenly needed not only to be connected to each other at the office, but also to the Internet.  This connection was initially achieved via dial-up modem at per-minute rates, later at flat monthly rates and, finally, via today’s broadband technologies, DSL, cable, and fiber.

Once computers and networks were permanently connected to the Internet, what we today call “cloud computing” became possible.  In fact, I was an early believer in this concept, and in 2000 moved my business’ accounting data from our office server to an online service known then as NetLedger (later known as NetSuite), where it remained until I dissolved the company just a few months ago.  To me, NetLedger was the harbinger of the future architecture of computing, and for the next few years I focused on only using technologies where the data was cloud-based and accessible from any computer, regardless of operating system.  So I changed my email protocol of choice from POP to IMAP, and later just accessed it through the web itself.  I moved all of my local files, including photos, to Dropbox, made extensive use of Google Docs (now Google Drive), moved my music to Amazon’s Cloud Drive, and used other services such as Evernote, Mint, and Gliffy.  I stopped making presentations on Powerpoint and Keynote, and instead used the online service Sliderocket.  By around 2006, basically the only software I used on any of my computers was the browser!  I made a conscious effort to live in the cloud, but my children and all of their friends naturally gravitated to the same concept without even knowing it, since from the beginning of their computing experience all of their “stuff” was online on services such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

The way I see it, the architecture of computing has come full circle during my 28 year career.   I started out with a dumb terminal connected to a far-off server.  Then I got my own computer, with its own processing power and storage, but isolated from other computers.  Then my computer got networked and was able to communicate with nearby computers.  Finally, my computer became part of the network of networks that is the Internet, and this allowed it to access all sorts of servers all over the world; servers which, in my particular case and that of a growing number of users, store and process all of my data.  So my computers, albeit exponentially more powerful than all those that came before them, are basically acting as.... well, dumb terminals!

Obviously there is a huge difference between a monochrome terminal connected to a limited, single-purpose server running software that only specially trained users can use, and computers in all shapes and sizes (desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets), with amazing high resolution full color displays, having access to literally billions of resources that users can take full advantage of with little or no training.  But in the sense of their overarching principle they are the same: devices used to connect to professionally maintained servers, where the data and processing power reside.  The main difference is that, although the servers are still maintained by professionals, unlike the terminal days of yore we users now have the power to access whichever servers we want, via web browsers or apps, and have the choice of whether to keep our data on our own devices, in the cloud, or both.  As an example, I could have written this essay on my computer using any of a myriad word processing apps, and set up my own web server to publish it, thus using the storage and processing power of my own computer.  Instead, I used various computers to write, edit and proofread the essay on Google Docs, and then published it on Squarespace.  The file never touched any of the computers I used to create it!

We’ve come back to the future, but now, we have choice.  The best of all worlds.  Or, at least that’s what we think today.  I wonder what we will think in another 28 years!