I see in the Spartanburg paper that the “Father of the Internet” spoke to some students in the Upstate yesterday, and then I found to my surprise that his name is Leonard Kleinrock:
Speaking to the 18 students in Adriana Ahner’s Web page construction class — appropriately, via a 90-minute Webcast from his home in southern California, UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock spoke of how he overcame humble beginnings to eventually develop the mathematical theory of packet networks that became the foundation of Internet technology.
“I had a background of curiosity, independence and trying to make new things happen,” said Kleinrock, the son of Polish immigrants who was born and raised in New York City. “When I got to (Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a graduate student in the early 1960s), I decided not to follow the pack. I noticed that we were surrounded by computers that were full of information and interesting applications and capabilities and services, but they couldn’t talk to each other, and I figured that sooner or later that’s going to happen.”
Which makes me wonder — if this Kleinrock guy is the father of the Internet, then the Mother of the Internet needs to have a long talk with Al Gore.
Seriously, though, apparently the headline meant A father rather than THE father, because there were a number of guys involved in siring the ARPANet. Apparently, Mr. Kleinrock is actually the father (or a father) of packet switching, which I don’t really understand any more than I do the rest of how the Internet works; I just know it does.
But all this reminds me of the irony of the Internet — the most open, vulnerable (in a security sense) invention in the history of the world — starting as a defense thing. As we learned from the recent intel breach story regarding the Joint Strike Fighter, the LAST thing you want to put on the Internet is defense secrets. And yet, that’s now the whole thing started.
Related Posts
Oh, and before my Democratic friends get all bent out of shape and cry, “He never claimed to have invented the Internet!” (just as Republicans will cry, “Dan Quayle did TOO know how to spell ‘potatoe!‘”) let me point out that it’s a joke, so lighten up. Like Bill Clinton being a skirt-chaser — OK, maybe that’s not a good example…
The reason things like that stick, even if their provenance is shaky, is that the anecdotes tend to reinforce impressions the public formed of those people anyway. The stories seem to confirm something undefinable. Al Gore seemed like the kind of stuffed shirt who would brag about inventing the Internet. Dan Quayle seemed dumb enough not to be able to spell potato. The stories just give people something to point to to reinforce their gut impressions. And they’re funny.
Anyway, what Al actually said was: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system”
And I don’t care what was on the flash card, Dan got it wrong, and the kid had it right.
Sorry, but I didn’t have any pictures of me and Al to post — which is weird, since I interacted with him a LOT back in my Tennessee days, and only met Quayle that once. But here’s a picture of me with another prominent Tennessee senator, just to make up for it.
Lord Christopher Monckton, former science advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was scheduled to testify right after Al Gore at the hearings on “global warming” (now “climate change”) legislation, but Nancy Pelosi blocked his appearance at the last minute.
Lord Mockton was involved in a recent lawsuit to remove Al Gore’s science fiction film from the public schools. The court agreed, writing a scathing 77-page critique of inaccuracies and outright fabrications in the Gore film.
After looking at the picture with Howard Baker, now we know who Peter Sellers’ double was in the Pink Panther and Inspector Clouseau movies. It was Brad. Great hat and beard.
Actually, I enjoyed Al’s movie. I was proud of him, because he FINALLY seems to have gotten over being so stiff in front of people (you should have seen him in his Tennessee days; cigar store Indians ain’t in it), and the movie was the first time I’d realized that. Too bad for him he didn’t get that smooth and natural during the 2000 election.
I agree with you about Gore’s apparent comfort level in An Inconvenient Truth compared to his appearances on the stump. He found something that he cares more deeply about than playing politics. Good for him. We should all care so deeply about something.
Gore is most comfortable when he knows his lies can be edited professionally.
How could you possibly know something like that?
Well, I have observed how stiff, nervous and fumbling Al Gore has been at ad hoc lying, such as on his illegal Buddhist Temple donations, and his firing of all the forensics experts in the TWA 800 investigation.
But maybe his idiotic docudrama was not skillfully edited to make him look more articulate and credible. Maybe he is insane enough to believe that baloney about global warming. I just thought it was all the money he was making with his carbon credits scam.
If only W et al. hadn’t driven the country into a ditch, I would say that Gore’s losing the election turned out to be a great thing because he was able to produce An Inconvenient Truth.
The economy was doing way better than it had since 1988, until the Democrats took over in 2007 and doubled the deficit spending.
Clinton’s removal of the firewall between commercial banking and investment banking blew up when it was discovered that FNMA and FMAC had been falsifying quarterly reports. The boards, 60% of them appointed by Clinton and serving as advisors to Obama, had pocketed $400,000,000 in bonuses for profits which did not exist.
The stock market began to collapse as soon as Hillary dropped out of the race, and businesses put investment on hold to see if Obama lived up to his Marxist rhetoric.
The “Inconvenient Truth” for Al Gore is that he is being proven over and over again guilty of being untruthful. When sensible people without a political agenda actually look at facts, the hysteria created by Gore and his propaganda movie is disputed.
Climate change is affected by a myriad of influences none as important as the sun and its affect on our climate.
Those of us who do not buy into the entire “manmade” scenario are not against protecting the environment, eliminating pollutants from the atmosphere, cleaning up waste dumped into our water system, and other common sense measures. Hazardous waste material should be handled with caution and the public should be kept out of harms way.
What I object to is the use of fear tactics to reach a political or social engineering objective. Cap and Trade will do nothing but eventually cost those who cannot afford it to pay an ever increasing price for energy. Al Gore lives in a house that consumes 12 times the energy an average home does has no legitimacy preaching to us. When Al Gore who has increased his personal worth to the $100 million mark since his defeat is proving once again that personal gain and influence is the objective, not protecting the environment. He can afford to buy carbon credits but can the guy who still drives an older vehicle afford it?
If there was some balance, maybe the American public would be overwhelmingly supportive of global warming or as referred to now, climate change. Liberals, progressives, and Democrats in general object to Christians preaching to them about their choices and how they need to change. Now the shoe is on the other foot and the other side is resentful of being preached to and told how to live. The big difference is that getting a law enacted based on biblical law is impossible, enacting laws based on the religion of environmentalists will be very easy for the next two years.
This “climate change” hoax is all about increasing taxes and government control over business and person lives. Capping emissions and trading credits does nothing to clean up the air or water. It brings in tax revenue and it makes money for those with the inside political connections to become brokers. It is collected as a hidden sales tax on every product.
Democrats and phony “liberals” who cry about the poor refuse to discuss the fact that a 20% increase in the cost of food, and a 100% to 200% increase in the cost of heating and cooling some homes will push many more people into real poverty.
Inconvenient fact of the day:
The Earth warmed up 1.5 degrees F between 1645 and 1715, when the human population was small, energy use was small, and there were no powered machines, before the steam engine and the Industrial Revolution.
The Earth has only warmed up 7/10 degree F since then.