Monday, August 5, 2024

Memory - present, past

TL;DR -- The cloud and such? What's the use? Science was an early motivation for the research and engineering. We're at a crossroad, somewhat. So, posts on technology themes will be a regular occurrence. 

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Technology is the theme as it has given us a universal memory machine, somewhat. That is, computing and its cloud and the related trackers provide a seemingly endless memory. That digital ocean was one of the things used to train GenAI (ChatGPT, &c). Back in 2015, we had a post (Web/cloud presence) that brought up the choice for us all, ought what we do be forgotten? 

At that time, the cloud was 10 years old (we date it from GSA's decision that the US Government could use the emerging resource). We found out the other day, that Microsoft's cloud is used in the work of 85% of the US Departments. What comes to mind? Single point of failure, for one thing. 

Technology brings changes to which we have to adapt. That neverending affair can be a little offsetting. We do have choices in the matter which will be discussed on a regular basis. 

Today, let's look at keeping something that has value. 

The context is Physics and its rewards. The technology is a blog that quit adding new material a few years ago: Lady Science. There were two contributors from 2014 (see Archive - of their Monthly Issue). The first of these was titled "Delivery Room Drama" (17 Oct 2014). The last issue of a post was 8 Oct 2021. On browsing the site, we thought that it's good that this material is still around dealing with the topics of women, history and science. Some of the earlier posts were oriented toward art. One of the writers went back to school to learn the history of science. 

And, the blog got attention. Fortunately, it's archived at the Library of Congress. After a pause to look at our interest, we will discuss how we found this blog. 

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So, our technology focus will make use of this material. Too, we like to do some comparisons related to time. In 2014 (see posts from that year), we were working in this blog plus our website which was hosted by a site using Linux as the OS. We started with blogger in 2010 which was picked up by Google. Having started our site with Microsoft, we moved when they went to Office365. After researching content vs configuration, we went with custom development. We have blogged about the technical aspects on the necessary choices and will organize a better summary review at some point. As, right now,we're looking at the future of software from several angles. We can all see the edges fraying. How did this happen? Can we recover without too much pain? Lots off questions. 

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Also, we have paid attention to women and science in posts. See post on the daughter (Geertruida de Haas-Lorentz) of Hendrik Lorentz. We discovered her through the experiment of Einstein that she gave to a museum which represented the facility of small experiments. 

Today, in LinkedIn, we saw a post of The Nobel Prize group about the 1912 marriage of (Margrethe Nørland Bohr) of Neils Bohr. She was actively involved in his research and writing, but that work is not mentioned by the group. A comment provided this post: Crafting Quantum Theory: Margrethe Bohr and the Labor of Theoretical Physics. Their son got a Nobel Prize for his work on the nucleus. 

This blog represents several things. It's content will be apropos to the continuing discussions of STEM and its uses. Too, though, the structure of the content and the approach to the subjects are remarkable. As well, we like how it was designed for several reasons. Which of the various subjects to be addressed will be first is unknown. We're bringing the blog to awareness, in general. 

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Our new project deals with a redux on AI along several fronts which deals with the timely problems that will emerge soon enough. 

Remarks: Modified: 08/05/2024

08/05/2024 --    

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