Sunset.

Moonset

Sunset

A few years ago, I did a thing with Anthony Daniels. What I said then I still stand by today.

Sentience is an exquisite consequence of the laws of physics, and the embodied mind of organisms shaped by millions of years of evolution is the remarkable product of a billions upon billions of failed experiments and dead ends and strange loops.

Sentience is an exquisite yet rare consequence of the laws of physics.

Evolution has shaped minds for the physical world and all of its complexity, ambiguity, contradiction, noise, and indifference to our presence. We are embodied creatures, in and of the world, and our continuing presence is a testament to the evolutionary value of sentience.

Art is the tangible expression of the subjective experience of the artist, serving to connect with its observers in a manner that engenders an emotional, intellectual, or experiential response.

Science is the pursuit of understanding through observation, experimentation, and theory-building while faith is an encounter with the ineffable; both seek to explain the cosmos, although in radically different ways.

Science is a way for us to understand the cosmos, from the vastness of space and time to the strange behavior of subatomic particles, across the forces that give rise to the exquisite dance between order and chaos, and even...

A nation is a special kind of community, one defined by physical boundaries, a common history, a shared identity, and an evolving culture.

Individuals seek to see and be seen, hear and be heard, know and be known, love and to be loved. To that end, we bind ourselves to communities established by birth, proximity, interests, and values, so as to meet our innate needs for safety, companionship, intimacy, meaning, and identity.

Mythology is filled with stories of machines that served as companions, as helpmates, as servants, as gods. Now, we build them from sand and animate them with lightning.

When an individual, a community, or a nation offers a service or product that another needs or wants and cannot or does not want to make themselves, trade emerges, and in so doing contributes to the formation of complex economic, social, and political connections that in turn shapes cultures.

Computing and warfare have evolved in concert, each profoundly influencing the other. During World War II, computing was a companion to war.

There was a time when computers were human. Over the years we built computers we could walk inside; now we carry them with us or even inside us.

In the style of The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein the Younger's Renaissance masterpiece painted in 1533, The Computers portrays many of the concepts and artifacts that define the world of computing.

We live in a world exquisitely dependent on computing, with artifacts that range from the profoundly simple to the staggeringly complex. Nonetheless, its fundamental concepts are still within the grasp of every person touched by its possibilities. booch.com/computing/co...

Many of computing's significant artifacts may be found in museums around the world, a testament to the reality that the fabric of computing has draped itself across all of civilization. Following the link herein, you’ll find my collection of many of these places. booch.com/computing/re...

The story of computing is written in its artifacts, in the organizations in which they were forged, and expecially in the people who shaped them.

The story of computing is the story of humanity: this is a story of ambition, invention, creativity, vision, avarice, power, and serendipity, powered by a refusal to accept the limits of our bodies and our minds.

Blue skies smilin’ at me.