Derailment
A Train Of Thought That Jumped The Track

I put this note on my Facebook profile on New Year's Eve 2010. It's good to maintain perspective on all aspects of one's life. Living as we do at "internet speed" we can easily get caught up in thinking that such-and-such isn't fast enough or that we just can't exist another second without $SHINYTHING. We live in an incredible time and we should appreciate it more.

By the way: this list was somewhat inspired by Louis C.K.'s appearance on Conan O'Brien's show that went viral as the "Everything is Amazing and Nobody's Happy" video.

Almost to 2011. I'm a big fan of maintaining perspective on things, so here are a few interesting things that happened 100 years ago, in 1911.

First U.S. coast-to-coast flight arrives in Pasadena, California after a journey of 49 days, during which the pilot, Calbraith Rodgers, made 69 stops and 16 crash landings and was followed by a train carrying spare parts. It had only been eight years since the Wright Brothers first flew for two minutes at Kitty Hawk. You can now fly non-stop across the country in a few hours.

The U.S. Supreme Court dissolves Standard Oil using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Successor entities become Exxon, Chevron, Amoco (among others) which are still with us today.

New York Public Library building at 5th Avenue dedicated by President Taft. 73 years later, the Ghostbusters show up. Taft is nowhere to be seen, however.

First running of the Indianapolis 500 auto race. The average speed was about 75 mph. Today's Indy 500 speeds average over 160, with top speeds over 220 mph.

Ground breaking begins in Boston for Fenway Park. The Green Monster is soon to be born.

The first public elevator begins service at London's Earl's Court Metro Station. The date of the first passing of gas in an elevator remains unknown.

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen becomes the first person to reach the South Pole. Local penguins are unimpressed.

Procter & Gamble unveils its Crisco shortening as a healthier alternative to lard. Hydrogenated oils enter the American diet and we've been getting fatter ever since.

Sony has announced that it is ending production of the venerable 3.5" floppy disk. Additional coverage at Ars Technica.

Things like this cause me to wax nostalgic (a sure sign of advancing age, at least in Internet terms,) but I'll simply recall that my first OS (MS-DOS) came on something like 3-4 floppies. We also thought the boot-sector viruses that often rode around on floppies were a terrible scourge. If only we'd known what was to come.

Every so often I stumble on a book that opens up an entirely new area of knowledge for me. Last Thanksgiving I was on vacation in Florida and picked up Bernard Cornwell's historical novel, Sword Song in a used book store. Only later did I learn that this was the fourth in a series of books set in ninth-century England that tell the story of King Alfred the Great and the defense of Wessex, the last remaining Anglo-Saxon kingdom during the period of Danish invasions.

This is a time period of which I knew little, and though these are novels, they have been thoroughly researched and I've felt transported to that time. When I read the actual historical accounts, I can relate to them much better. That's what I love about historical fiction-- it breathes life into the dry facts of history and fires the imagination. I'm half tempted to try to learn Old English!

Ed Felten's latest post on his "Freedom to Tinker" blog, entitled What's the Cyber in Cyber-Security?, looks at the roots of the prefix "cyber" that has become ubiquitous in the public mind. I love finding out the origins of terms that we all take for granted and about which we don't usually think in depth. Thanks, Ed.

Ben Franklin's famous quote about liberty versus safety frames Bruce Schneier's latest column for Wired, in which he sums up post-9/11 politics as a false dichotomy between security and privacy. As is typical for Bruce's writing, it is full of links to supporting information and is well worth your time to explore.

We do indeed have a reason to be terrified in this country-- we should be terrified that our republic may well be undone by the very government that exists to safeguard it. As long as we're quoting 18th-century luminaries, I'll add another favorite. In a 1783 speech to the House of Commons, Prime Minister William Pitt said:

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

I couldn't agree more.

Computer technology is a fast-paced industry. Even though I'm directly involved in it, I'm still sometimes unaware of just how quickly it evolves. Today I was thinking back to my first semester of college, which began 15 years ago this month. Yikes. I already feel some perspective coming on, the kind where you find yourself saying things that begin with, "In my day..."

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