August 2026: My short piece titled Richardson’s “GPUs,” circa 1922 appeared in the August 2026 ACM SIGHPC Connect e-newsletter. It contrasts the human computers outlined in Lewis F. Richardson’s 1922 book Weather Prediction by Numerical Process with today’s silicon GPUs. I first explain how Richardson’s offered a “two-fold solution [that] comprised a novel computational architecture combined with the required calculations being done by thousands of human computers, or Richardson’s GPUs as I will call them.” Then I go on to discuss “what began as a CPU-bound challenge for Richardson is now an I/O-bound problem for HPC.”
May 2026: Back home from a 16-day Grand Canyon rafting trip arranged with the OARS rowing company. Plenty of big (and small) rapids, fun day hikes, and yummy food, it was a fabulous adventure with the serenity of the Grand Canyon towering overhead every day. The long history of the canyon and the numerous geological layers on view made this journey a delight for a historian of science as well as a welcomed break from the turmoils of the outside world (which were there waiting for us when we exited the river at Pearce Ferry).
February 2026: Since moving to Reno, Nevada, in 2023, I have made it a point to get to know the surrounding area and especially to stop and take time to check out places along the roads I have driven in the past. For example, on a recent trip from Southern California back to Reno I paused at two roadside attractions of minor yet fun note: Cabazon Dinosaur theme park just off I-10 east of Riverside, California, and the Giant Rock in the California Mojave Desert. Not much in the way of history of science to be found at these two locations, but worth the time and gas to investigate something you don’t see every day.
