Taming the Wild Blue Ether

The AETHER Project:

European citizens are now living in a world of “pervasive computing”, where virtually every object has a processing power. Undoubtedly, computing devices are more ubiquitous and interconnected than ever, fulfilling the most varied tasks with little human intervention.

The size of these “pervasive computing” networks is significantly increasing, as well as the variety of the computing devices, both at chip (multicore and reconfigurable architectures) and system level (distributed processing). As their scope of application broadens, processing resources require greater flexibility and scalability to meet the various needs of users.

By the year 2020, embedded computing architectures will be far more complex, due mainly to the convergence of High Performance Computing and Embedded Computing technologies, the emergence of new hardware technologies and finally, the multiplication of heterogeneous computing devices.

SKYNET:

Perhaps the greatest advantage of the new microprocessor architecture was its inherent ability to network, on instant demand, with any other similar microprocessor family based system. The code that ran the microprocessor was modular, with different program modules able to be written for different hardware, and the seamless integration of all parts under one operating system was a technological breakthrough…

UPDATE:

From plot summary of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003):

There is no Skynet core; Skynet is software running on thousands of computers throughout the world, making Judgment Day unavoidable. Skynet launches nuclear missiles, starting the war against humans.

From description of “Crystal Peak“:

Skynet, being distributed computing, never had a control center or system core that could be shut down.

Of course, “the wild blue yonder” is a much more common phrase in the American lexicon, referring to flight and aviation.

Articles:

• In the Temple of the Wild Blue Yonder (The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2008)
• Taming the Wild Blu, yonder… (Ken Stone’s Final Cut Pro Web Site)

Book:

• Into the Wild Blue Yonder: My Life in the Air Force, Allan T. Stein (Texas A&M University Press, 2005)

Song:

• The U.S. Air Force Song (“Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder”)

Film:

• The Wild Blue Yonder (2005) – a science-fiction film set in space

I keep coming back to the title I’ve chosen for this blog, the meaning behind it, and related concepts and ideas that come to mind upon hearing or reading it.  Well, here are a few more thoughts on the subject.

Frances FitzGerald (who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam) wrote a book in 2000 about my favorite president, entitled Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War.  It was a Finalist for the Pulitzer in 2001.

Also, a few articles (with interesting titles, at least) on “cloud computing”:

• Computing Heads for the Clouds (BusinessWeek, Nov. 16, 2007)
  
• Computing pushes into the ether (The Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 22, 2008)
• Google’s Chrome browser gets us closer to computing in the clouds (The Chicago Tribune, Sept. 4, 2008)

Essentially, what I hope to focus on in this space is that ever-changing “New Frontier” — the idea of always pressing outward, expanding the boundaries of human knowledge, capability, and existence — and how we are getting there.

On the computing frontier, before too long, we will all be “living” (working, operating) “in the cloud(s)” or “in the ether” (on the Internet).  It is that Wild Blue Ether, that we are even now in the process of taming, that is the subject of this blog.

What, you ask, is the meaning behind the name of this blog?

From Webster’s:

ether

Etymology:
Middle English, from Latin aether, from Greek aithēr, from aithein to ignite [or perhaps ignite -JJM], blaze [or perhaps blaze -JJM]; akin to Old English ād pyre — more at edify

1 a : the rarefied element formerly believed to fill the upper regions of space b : the upper regions of space : heavens

2 a also ae·ther : a medium that in the wave theory of light permeates all space and transmits transverse waves b : airwaves

(Emphasis and links mine)

From Wikipedia:

The general structure for an ether

(Link mine)

Do either of these clippings (or both together) represent an omen? 

UPDATE:  Another snippet from Wikipedia, which I should have thought of at the outset:

Ethernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LANs). The name comes from the physical concept of the ether.