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Happy 60th Birthday IBM Research
HockeyPuck writes "On Tuesday, IBM Research celebrated it's 60th Birthday "IBM inventions and discoveries include the programming language Fortran (1957), magnetic storage (1955), the relational database (1970), DRAM (dynamic random access memory) cells (1962), the RISC (reduced instruction set computer) chip architecture (1980), fractals (1967), superconductivity (1987) and the Data Encryption Standard (1974). In the last 12 years, IBM has received 29,021 patents--more than any other company or individual in the world.""
We should be celebrating the people of IBM research along with the organization. Several very genius individuals were the driving force behind the listed patents. Of course, IBM was great to house them and help them succeed, but let's bless the baby too, not just the carriage.
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Whilst it's popular and fashionable here on Slashdot to dismiss large corporations, particularly IT behomoths like Big Blue, as a CS student I am impressed by the quality of IBM's research and development. Real work that deserves real patents, and real recognition.
Rather than talk about inventing Fortran, wouldn't it be slightly more impressive to have invented the first widely used high level programming language? I mean, inventing a programming language that is still in use after 50 or so years is a rather impressive feat, but inventing "programming languages" is an order of magnitude more impressive.
It's probably appropriate to mention that IBM Research once had a rival of sorts: Bell Labs. Bell Labs and IBM Research were two of the very few commercial institutions that engaged in basic scientific research -- research that would often yield scientific breakthroughs but much less often commercial success. Now Bell Labs is all but gone, but IBM Research thrives. Thank goodness for IBM Research, and kudos to the IBM managers who still keep the "this quarter" Wall Street monsters at bay in order to spend the billions it takes for science.
Troll? This guy has some good points...while I disagree about DES - okay, okay, we all know about the NSA and the crackable 56bit stuff...DES still helped the economy and the industry to innovate more and better solutions - what he has to say is not trollish.
Granted your comment may be relevant, but I'm interested in finding the mythical corporation in which the conditions you describe do NOT exist.
Size = bureacracy. Can't be avoided. But where many many other organisations have been choked by their own paperwork, IBM continues to be relevant in a very fast paced industry. Not a perfect company by any means, but better than most based on its track record.
Generally speaking, the weight of "IBM Fellow" on your business card is worth more than a PhD IMHO.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
That is the problem with quantum mechanics: It all looks terribly funny until you try to use it. The side effects are killers. But just read the IBM article which the grandfather linked too, it is pretty clear in describing it. They call it disrupting. Actually it is randomizing the quanta, which will result in a 50/50 state of the quanta in which 50% is left in original state (or ended up in original state) and the other 50% will be altered to the second state. This is pretty disruptive, effects of it are still theoretical too. I guess it will be nice shiny lights as in a transporter. The thing which they do not describe in the article though, is that you will end up with the start situation again (B&C are detangled and both in different places, thus just mirroring the descriptive image of IBM with your source and target switching from left to right), thus being able to transport the object back.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
So you would be okay ceasing to exist in favor of a perfect copy of yourself? You realize that you would not be around to be fine with it or not. I know I would much rather not cease to exist for the convenience of teleportation.
I guess if we amount to nothing more than a bunch of atoms in a certain configuration, then it doesn't really matter pragmatically. Ethically and morally it seems suspect though.