Victor Rozek
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As I See It: Cloud Cover
May 14, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreHerb Grosch was the second scientist ever hired by IBM. And he was a good hire. His resume resembled an achievement highlight reel. It included doing calculations for the Manhattan Project, and helping develop the Whirlwind computer at MIT–the first system that actually operated in real time and used video displays for output. He was also the first to formalize the relationship between cost and performance in what has become known as Grosch’s Law: “economy is as the square root of the speed.”
But perhaps his most fascinating insight dates back to the 1950s–more than a half-century ago–when he
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As I See It: Spooky Action at Great Distance
April 30, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreFrom Alaska to Chile, Norway to New Zealand, 65 random number generators (RNGs) were going about their business generating random numbers. Then the unexplainable happened. But more about that later. The RNGs are part of a larger scientific effort called the Global Coherence Initiative (GCI), a research project that uses a vast array of magnetic field detectors to monitor fluctuations in the earth’s geomagnetic fields. They also measure pulsations and resonances in the ionosphere–the portion of the atmosphere extending approximately 30 to 250 miles above the Earth–associated with what scientists call “excitations.”
Picking up good vibrations and monitoring excitations. .
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As I See It: You’ve Got Interviews
April 2, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreHigh traffic websites require a daily supply of new material to entertain the surfing masses. But curing the ills of the terminally jaded requires taking a broad-spectrum antibiotic approach: provide a wide variety of postings as remedy for a wide variety of tastes, from the serious to the vacuous.
On Yahoo!, for example, you can find everything from video of the Annual Wife-Carrying Obstacle Race (my wife and my back decided to abstain this year), to Rick Santorum insisting that he doesn’t care about the unemployment rate. Sometimes it’s hard to know where vacuous ends and serious begins.
On
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As I See It: No, It’s Not Painless
March 19, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIn the hierarchy of bad work days, having a colleague hurl herself out of a fourth story window ranks right up there near the top. Though thankfully rare, workplace suicide is on the rise, a reflection of mounting desperation as, for many, economic options run out. A single telecommunications company in France (the former employer of the fourth floor flyer) had a horrific, mind-boggling string of 23 employee suicides. The company had been busy restructuring–a pallid euphemism for discarding workers–and apparently forgot it was altering lives as well as spreadsheets.
Back home, where compassion and corporation have become all but
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As I See It: Unhappy Anniversary
March 5, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreThere aren’t many days when I wake up deciding to annoy a lot of people. Nor is this one of them. But that’s the risk a writer takes when tackling any controversial subject: passions run high, tolerance runs low, and minds are usually made up before a single word is uttered. Over the years, few issues have been more polarizing than Affirmative Action, a program which is either: a) well-intended and successful, b) imperfect but still necessary, c) unfair and outdated, or d) outright racist, depending on your point of view.
Like it or not, Affirmative Action has been part
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As I See It: Overrated
February 20, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreThere are places in Hawaii where paradise still looks like paradise should. Even on the Western side of the Big Island where massive lava flows blanket miles of once-verdant land, there are small surviving oases where blue water laps against white sand beaches dotted with arching palms. These are the spots coveted by luxury hotel developers.
One such beach is ringed by manicured lawns and flowering plants masking a discrete open-air restaurant with a full bar to help the wealthy keep their levels up. Behind lush greenery, bungalows rent for $4,000 a night, which is one reason I don’t belong
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As I See It: Failure Is Not Just For Executives Anymore
February 6, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIf you want to become successful, every few years someone will write a book telling you how. Just follow these three steps, develop these seven habits, add stock options and voila, you too can be a screaming success. Or, if that doesn’t work, it helps to have the good fortune to be born to rich, connected parents.
Success is all well and good, but given the number of “successes” who were once thought to be shining stars in the corporate firmament but turned out to be cheap fireworks instead, it’s high time someone paid homage to the qualities that
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As I See It: The Second Concern
January 23, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreRecently, I contacted a number of colleagues around the country to find out what concerns occupy their quiet moments. Not surprisingly, at the top of the list was keeping or, in one case, finding a job. Most reported working for years with no prospect of a raise, and several whose spouses were no longer employed had been forced to make lifestyle adjustments. But close behind employment was the desire to maintain or find affordable healthcare.
There is an ironic timeliness to their concern. Every January many Americans try to preempt the need for healthcare by getting fit. After a holiday
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As I See It: Punxsutawney Blue
January 9, 2012 Victor Rozek
… Read moreIf you were the kind of kid who plotted the ignition point of ants frying under a magnifying glass, or dreamed of creating artificial intelligence because your family didn’t understand you, then growing up to be an IBM researcher is not unlike winning the lottery. Eccentricity is not a barrier. If you’re brilliant enough and have a compelling idea–even an idea that may not find practical application for decades–the vault will open, cash will come pouring out, and you can play with house money for years.
IBM invests billions in R&D, much of which remains closely guarded. But each year
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As I See It: Looking Ahead
December 12, 2011 Victor Rozek
… Read moreTwain and Corleone, the unsung duo of economic prognostication, aptly describe two probable scenarios for IT in the coming year. One prospect is hopeful and the other is cautionary. One provides reason for celebration, the other frustration. In one scenario, we are the masters of our fate, in the other, not so much.
“Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”–Mark Twain
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”–Michael Corleone
First the good news.
Who knew that Sam Clemens was a closet economist? Indeed, predictions of economic collapse appear to be premature. The