Thankfully, ....

there is this thing called the Internet which allows anyone like me to connect a server to it and host content like this blog post.

Thankfully there is open source software like WordPress that allows me to do all of this without using a proprietary service.

Thankfully there is a range of operating systems (some open source) that we can choose from and a range of browsers (many open source) that we can choose from to access this content.

It is this permissionless environment, designed fifty years ago, and developed over the next thirty years, that has done so much for society.

Of course, there are many things about this permissionless environment that are problematic and we are faced now with the need to address them intelligently without undoing all that is good about it.

I am thankful that my lifetime has roughly lined up against this incredible invention and development and that I have been able to play a small role in it and that I can also play a small role in addressing the challenges we now face.

I am also very thankful for my family, friends, colleagues, supporters, and readers.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

#life lessons

Comments (Archived):

  1. ilovemyschoolharriettubman

    Indeed. 10 years ago, I responded with “the Internet” when going around the Thanksgiving table to say what we were most thankful for that year. My mother was not pleased.

  2. Christopher Seshadri

    Happy Thanksgiving!! Lots to be thankful for!!

  3. TeddyBeingTeddy

    Fred we’re thankful you take the time every morning to educate and entertain us.

  4. JimHirshfield

    Happy Thanksgiving!

  5. awaldstein

    Happy Thanksgiving Fred!I’m choosing wine, setting the table, tasting the Waldstein raw cranberry relish and trying to reason with samthecat that laying on the set table is not where i want him to be.Most beautiful purely natural champagne from Andre Beaufort finally chosen.

  6. Donna Brewington White

    My young adult son is making the turkey, a much more gourmet version than his mom ever attempted, and I find myself sitting leisurely next to the fire with a cup of tea.Life is good and parenting is fun.Happy Thanksgiving, all!

  7. Tom Labus

    Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!!Good day here. Good smells and sounds from the kitchen. Everyone home and In good spirits.Enjoy!!

  8. Pranay Srinivasan

    Thankful for your blog and the effort you put in EVERY Day to put your wisdom and thoughts out into the world.Happy Turkey Day to you, Joanne and the Wilson / Solomon family!

  9. Richard

    Thanksgiving is day to be thankful for the settlers – whose journeys took them to and across this land known as America – the land built for the individual’s pursuit and respect for its neighbor – special thanks for the many parts thereof free from the mistake of slavery. We owe these men and women a thousand years of thanks.

  10. BillMcNeely

    Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

  11. sigmaalgebra

    You are correct:A) Computing from mechanical gears to vacuum tubes to discrete transistors to integrated circuits to … an 8 core, 64 bit addressing, 4.0 GHz clock processor for $100 to the current 7 nm line width microelectronics lithography and 32 cores on a chip, is one of the biggest steps up in civilization and economic productivity in history and maybe close to one of the biggest even possible in this universe, (B) solid state lasers lighting long-haul optical fibers with dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), the fibers maybe 144 per cable along rights of way from electric grid power lines, pipelines, highways, lakes, rivers, oceans, etc. bringing data rates of ~1 Gbps to individual homes in the days of 110 baud teletype writers beyond belief and another big step up in civilization and economic productivity, and (C) yup, the corresponding steps in software infrastructure (e.g., software development tools) for operating systems, middle ware (e.g., device drivers, SQL database), and applications (e.g., Web browsers, search engines, etc.) are more of the same.Related astounding results include GPS, encryption, IP routers, 4 GB rotating disk drives, 14 TB solid state disk drives, very low power microelectronics, laptop computers, mobile computers, wireless communications for mobile devices, flat screen, low power video displays without CRTs, surprisingly good tiny cameras (with electronic technology also important for the detectors in the explosion of big telescopes for astronomy), and more.So, for economic productivity, we’ve had huge improvements in computer based product design, computer based automated production (both farm and factory), computer based supply chain management, search engine and Web based shopping, on-line banking and payments, computer assisted physical distribution, etc.Who’d u thunk???? If someone had and spoken, nearly no one would have believed.Twitter, Disqus, MySQL, etc. are not really “small”.The future? Additional powerful, valuable information for all that is wanted and to be done. The paradigm, bring in data, manipulate it, and report the information. The manipulations? From pure and applied math.

  12. RichardF

    Amen, couldn’t agree more,a belated Happy Thanksgiving

  13. Jeremy Shatan

    Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful! We still have pie left, but the rest is but a memory…

  14. Michael Elling

    Permissionless = extreme risk imbalance