Reed's Ruminations: A Blog by Dan Reed

The Love of Language

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

T.S. Elliot, The Hollow Men

I am a logophile (λογοπηιλε) – a lover of words. More than that, I am a lover of well crafted, erudite prose that captures and conveys nuance and subtlety. Such prose brings a smile to the lips, both the writer and the reader's reward for dutiful and diligent background research, thoughtful paragraphs that flow as mellifluously as a mountain stream, and phrases that delight with their craftsmanship.

The words matter, for they are the conduit of our ideas and experiences, of our hopes and fears, and of our passions and dreams. They bind us, yet they separate us, for none of us is truly their master.

Between the idea and the reality – the concept and its expression – falls the shadow.

Sunday Rituals

I have a Sunday ritual, practiced with great reverence and solemnity, that cleanses my soul and prepares me to face the viccisidues of the coming week with all the equanimity I can summon. This ritual involves both a large latte, made with freshly ground beans and frothed milk, and the New York Times. When traveling or in extremis, the Times of London or the Washington Post can be substituted. Under no circumstances, however, will a graven image such as the Podunk Picyune-Gazette be tolerated, for reading it is tantamout to drinking instant coffee, an abomination to the world and all right thinking individuals.

Armed with a massive latte, I spread the New York Times on the kitchen table. (As a non New Yorker, I have never mastered the art of newspaper oragami.) For me, it begins with the front page and its extended stories, then the Week in Review, the editorials and the op-eds. I dally over the obituaries and the wedding announcements, a voyeur inspecting the lives of others.

I scan the business section, seeking surcease for our economic sorrows, then linger over the travel section, thinking about the places I have been and those I have yet to visit. Finally, I turn to the Sunday Book Review, looking for new books to read, and the Sunday Magazine, wondering which topics will warrant extended stories. (And yes, I still miss William Safire's wit in the On Language column.)

I feast my soul on language, sated, albeit briefly, for the coming week.

Nuance Matters

Make no mistake, small words have huge effects. Both war and peace have hung on the interpretation of a single word or phrase. In such circumstances, creative ambiguity can be prized, allowing each party to apply their own, convenient interpretation. Often, though, such translingual ambiguity is simply the subject of embarrassment.

I am reminded of a conversation with a friend from graduate school. It was about 1980, and we were discussing the characteristics of dumb terminals (i.e., terminals with limited intelligence and connected by RS-232 connections to a remote computing system). Though not a native English speaker, he was quite proficient, rarely pausing to search for a word or phrase, even when conveying complex ideas.

Gesticulating enthusastically, my friend opined on the limitations of such devices, expressed his preferences and, as I recall, offered a few pejorative comments on certain vendors' products. It was a technical discussion filled with facts and analyses, similar to countless others held every day by computer scientists and engineers. He finally paused in mid-sentence, nonplussed by my uproarous laughter.

After gathering my composure, I explained that he had been railing about stupid terminals, rather than dumb terminals. Though superfically synonymous, the first was an inadvertant value judgement; the second was a technical term of art. Like all non-native speakers, he had been ensnared by an American idiom, with the inevitably amusing results. Both connotation and denotation matter.

Compare and Contrast

On occasion, I read newspaper stories where I have personal knowledge of the events and participants described in the story. Rarely do those stories capture all the details correctly. Even when the facts are correct, the tone, the implications and the nuance are either lost or subtlety incorrect. Years ago, I asked a reporter about this, and he readily acknowledged this was the case, noting that it was extraordinarily difficult to capture complexity.

If you have ever read multiple accounts of an international event, written by reporters from different cultures, countries and perspectives, you know this to be true. You may even have wondered if they were reporting the same events. Read thoughtfully, interpolate and extrapolate, seek complexity, seek understanding.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

Odds are that almost every adult American remembers a few lines from Thoreau's Walden, "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail." When mixed with a bit of John Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Occasions ("No man is an island"), some musings from Cervantes' Don Quixote, and a dose of Shakespeare's Hamlet ("To be or not to be") it was a perfect storm of teenaged angst and ennui. (Truth in advertising: I have always preferred Macbeth for tragedy, but I realize that puts me in the minority.)

How, pray tell, doeth such musings inform technology and its societal implications? Perhaps it is all sound and fury, signifying nothing, but I think not. There are lessons here, if we but reflect and learn.

Multitasking and Thrashing

In an August 24, 2010 New York Times article, "Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime," Matt Richtel noted that when we multitask nearly continuously, we forfeit the downtime historically used to think and remember. He went on to quote a University of Michigan study, which "… found that people learned significantly better after a walk in nature than after a walk in a dense urban environment, suggesting that processing a barrage of information leaves people fatigued."

Last week, I found myself dealing with an important issue at work, dashing to the airport, and then being grateful the airplane at WiFi service so I could continue working. In the digital age, most of us are have multitasked, whether it be reading email at the grocery store (guilty), working on vacation (guilty) or bouncing among multiple electronic activities (guilty).

In that spirit, when did the operating system term multitasking enter the common vernacular to describe concurrent human activities? Perhaps we should make people more aware of another operating system term, the one that describes what happens when the number of tasks exceeds available processing capacity and the time slice assigned to each approaches zero. We call it thrashing. Unfortunately (or fortunately), one cannot get a brain hardware or operating system upgrade.

A Different Drummer

I am no technological Luddite or troglodyte. Far from it, I am a frequent blogger, social network denizen and a lover of electronic gadgets. I have always been – and always will be -- a passionate proponent of technology and its power to enrich and enable innovation and human discovery. Yet there are times when I think we need to step back, consider the social implications of these technologies and ask when and where they are best used to our advantage.

Had Thoreau had a smartphone, he would not have been texting his best bud, Ralph (Waldo Emerson), about the joys of solitude, nor would he have been tweeting or posting photos of his house construction. I am rather more confident he would have espoused the healing virtues of periodic digital seclusion and contemplation.

Tis true that no man is an island. Nearly all of us are connected by an electronic web of shared communications, social networks and intelligent devices. However, sometimes being an island of solitude – even for a few minutes – can be a blessing. Sometimes we need to disconnect, contemplate, remember and imagine – reinventing and discovering. This is no quixotic quest; it is what drives discovery.

Simplify, simplify, simplify, indeed.

I'd write more, but I need to catch up on my email.

Remembering Internet Dogs

N.B. This essay also appeared on the Communications of the ACM web blog.

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."

Although Internet anonymity was then the norm, it is no longer the case. Not only does the Internet now know you are a dog, it knows the location of your doghouse, your dry and canned dog food preferences, and your predilection to chase cars. A web search will also undoubtedly reveal embarrassing pictures of you wearing that necktie the kids thought was so cute. Perhaps most disconcerting, there are those videos of you rolling in mud puddles that time you had fleas.

Remembering

Humor aside, the Internet has changed dramatically from the early days when the odds were high you personally knew a non-trivial fraction of the people with an ARPANET email address. When the Mosaic web browser appeared at Illinois, I remember fondly how the NCSA Mosaic home page listed the birth announcements of new web sites, created by proud organizational parents. Shortly thereafter, my students (Will Scullin and Stephen Lamm) and I launched an early web analytics project to mine and visualize this data. (See the graphic in this post.)

Today, our web surfing behavior is tracked by cookies and processed by web analytics to deliver targeted results. In our social compacts, we trade information and behavior for free access to email, consumer cloud storage, web search engines and social networks. However, the information, text, images and video we share enters an ecosystem where we as its producers often have little or no control over its long term usage or disposition.

Forgetting

In a recent New York Times article entitled, "The Web Means the End of Forgetting," Jeffrey Rosen discussed the longevity of web materials, their unexpected and long-term consequences and some possible solution approaches. This article has stimulated considerable discussion and debate.

In that same spirit, I believe it is important to consider technical and social mechanisms for user configurable control over personal information dissemination, information transitivity and lifetimes. These controls, together with informed choice, would create clearer social, legal and business compacts among all involved.

There are at least three specification axes of interest. The first, and the one with which we are most familiar, is that of access groups – who (and what) can see and examine what you post. The complex, changing and often confusing rules for social network sharing are the most obvious example of this. After all, a "friend" is not binary concept, for it ranges from a deep personal or family relationship of many years through professional colleagues and casual acquaintances to those you might know only by reputation.

Likewise, context determines the desirability of information sharing. I might want my colleagues to know I am speaking at an upcoming conference, but I might not want to bother my family with such technical detail. We need more formal and more user friendly mechanisms for defining the characteristics of access groups.

Limited transitivity is the second concept. After information has been shared with others, what rights do they have and what responsibilities do they bear regarding further sharing or use of that information? For example, I may happily share a photograph of a family picnic with friends, but not want them to post that same photograph on a public site. I would be pleased, though, if professional colleagues shared a link to this blog entry. We need to define transitivity options, along with mechanisms to allow the original creator to manage those options.

Finally, there is the notion of finite lifetime. How do we associate lifetimes with personal electronic objects, allowing (or forcing) them to disappear when their "shelf life" has been exceeded? There is a delicate balance here between the value of the web as a historical repository and the persistence of personal information.

The provenance, access, transitivity, lifetime and ownership of personal information are in social, economic and legal flux. We in computing can and should offer technical solutions and stimulate informed debate.

Research Summers

N.B. This essay also appeared on the Communications of the ACM web blog.

I was a young assistant professor, attending an extended family event where one meets cousins, nieces, nephews, wives, husbands and people whose familial relationship you only vaguely understand. It was one of those times when one relaxes, enjoys family and makes small talk with people one sees only at such events. It was wedding or a holiday – I no longer recall the location or the details. One memorable aspect of the event remains, however.

A member of my extended family asked if I would be teaching during the upcoming summer. "No, I do not teach classes during the summer," I replied. A perplexed expression then played across the questioner's face, with the implied successor question very clear. What, pray tell, does a professor do in the summertime?

Lest I be viewed as an ivory tower dilettante with a questionable work ethic, I hastened to explain that I spent the summer devoting all my time to research. In turn, this prompted another question, "What does that mean?"

Realizing that I should have anticipated that response, I paused to consider my reply, with images of university life flashing through my mind. Did I explain grant proposal preparation and annual reports? Should I describe meetings with graduate students and reviewing thesis drafts? Or were descriptions of research conferences and hallway discussions more apt? Might recourse to memories of secondary school lectures on the scientific method and experiments do the trick? No, I decided. A more personal answer was required.

"In the summer, the government pays me to think. If I believe I have a good idea, I am supposed to write it down," I finally responded. It was the truth, encapsulating the fact that I had active research grants and that one of the tangible outputs of research is scientific publication. Yet, it was also a bit flippant, for it failed to capture all the nuance and complexity that academic research truly entails: the thrill of discovery, the camaraderie of a research team, the friendly intellectual competition, and the long hours of hard work.

After a moment's reflection, the family member smiled and asked jokingly, "How do I get one of those jobs?" "It's harder than it sounds," I replied.

Indeed it is. I am older and (I hope) a bit wiser now, and I would have given a much more nuanced answer. 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 explaining why research is important.

And yes, it means thinking clearly about the future.

Commencement: The Inside Story

It is that time of year, when universities, colleges and secondary schools hold commencement exercises. Graduation, the completion of an educational endeavor, and commencement, the beginning of a new life role, are demarked with the pomp and circumstance of celebration ceremonies and solemn pronouncements of responsibility and opportunity.

I recently received an honorary degree from my alma mater, Missouri University of Science and Technology (MST), which made me reflect on the less formal aspects of commencement ceremonies, the practical and whimsical elements. It also brought to mind my years as Head of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and my experience as a commencement ceremony participant in the platform party. Herewith are a few personal and whimsical reflections and a few insights.

Dress for Success

First, 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 these ceremonies. A mortarboard, despite the name, should not be confused with bricklaying or a brick hod. The mortarboard is a hat, albeit a funny looking one. Its origins date to most likely to those of the biretta. 

Similarly, the history of university robes and gowns can be traced to medieval times, and they have just about the same utility as parchment does for a modern laser printer. Wearing your robe and mortarboard, you are now dressed for success, at least for a commencement ceremony.

As a parent or student, sitting in an auditorium, an arena or a stadium, you may have wondered about the platform party, that group of middle aged academics sitting on stage. They are wearing even more colorful academic regalia, denoting doctoral degrees from a variety of institutions. What are they thinking? What are they wearing beneath those robes? The answers are not necessarily what one might think.

Odds are that the platform party members, like the students and parents, are hot and uncomfortable, either because they are sitting in the outdoor sun or under bright lights in an auditorium that lacks air-conditioning. (It was for this reason that I chose to forego participation and hooding for my doctoral degree at Purdue. We literally stood in the sun. )

If any students or administrators have participated in commencement ceremonies before, they are probably wearing as few clothes as possible under their academic robes. Lest this conjure images of aging, flabby academic flashers, let me illuminate this with a personal anecdote.

At Illinois, the university and the College of Engineering commencement ceremonies are held in the Assembly Hall, which is normally used for basketball games and concerts. In preparation to meet happy parents and students as a department head, I dressed in suit and tie and drove to the arena, where I donned my robe, doctoral hood and mortarboard. After a two hour ceremony, the platform party – the college dean, associate deans and department heads – exited in the recessional.

As we removed our regalia in an anteroom, I was drenched in sweat and remarked to one of my colleagues that it was very warm. He glanced at me, laughed and said, "It's clear you are a newbie." In response to my quizzical look, he waved his hands across his attire – slacks, shirt and loosely knotted tie, but no jacket – and said, "Next time, dress for comfort!" I never quite mustered the courage to come in shorts and a tee-shirt, but I did heed his sartorial advice.

What's My Name

The logistics of commencement ceremonies vary with location and the size of the student body, though university-wide ceremonies rarely deviate from a hoary norm. After a processional, which seats the graduates and the platform party, there are one or more speeches and introductions, then the awarding of degrees – earned and honorary. The wise commencement speaker recognizes that nobody, neither the academics nor the students and families, are in the mood to hear learned observations or words of wisdom for the life ahead. Brevity and humor are prized above all else. (See my earlier essay on Presentations, Humor and Memes.)

At large universities, the awarding of degrees is a mass event. The provost or chancellor asks the graduates to stand, announces they are now graduates of the great institution with all the rights and privileges attached thereunto, asks them to be seated, and informs them that their first donations to the alumni association are now due. I jest only a little. If the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had the forensic skills and tenacity of university alumni associations in tracking the movements of alumni, the U.S. might now be debating how to spend its federal budget surplus.

At smaller universities, colleges (small institutions and colleges within universities) and secondary schools, the awarding of degrees includes the march of students across the podium to receive their diplomas. Each of these institutions designates an individual whose role is reading the name of each graduate as they step onstage. This is a thankless, though dangerous task, for names range from the mundane (.e.g., "Dan Reed") to the phonetically challenging that cross cultures.

One of my former colleagues, who read names for many years, shared a few of his secrets. The first is to roam the halls of the preparation area, asking students for pronunciation tips. By far the most important, though, is to show no fear, speaking forcefully and without hesitation. Hesitation exposes uncertainty to the entire audience. In contrast, an erroneous pronunciation, if forceful and confident, will be evident only to the student, their friends and family.

Grip and Grin

As students troop across the platform, they shake hands with selected members of the platform party, receive a diploma cover (redeemable for an actual diploma if all fees have been paid, final grades are satisfactory, and a valid address is on file), and pose for a "grip and grin" photograph. The diploma cover handoff and photograph are very carefully choreographed, as names must be matched with photographs for subsequent mailing.

Graduating students express their individuality in different ways. Some write messages atop their mortarboards, visible to those sitting above. Others add the accoutrements of their disciplines. I recently watched with wry amusement at MS&T as the mining engineering graduates crossed the platform wearing mining helmets under their mortarboards. In a reflection of computing's limited number of physical symbols, the MS&T computer science students had simply placed DVDs atop their mortarboards.

At Illinois, I participated in the platform commencement handshaking as a department head during the height of the dot.com boom. Because undergraduate computer science enrollments numbered then nearly 1500, I shook lots of hands. I was amazed at the diversity of grips, from bone crushing to passive, and the wide dynamic range of perspiration viscosity and volume.

On a more serious note, I also had the very satisfying opportunity to express personal congratulations to undergraduate and graduate students from my classes. I was also thrilled to hood my Ph.D. students.

So there you have it. Wear comfortable clothes, wipe your hands and enjoy the moment.