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We call it "IT," and the reason is because a physicist first realized that information, like any other subatomic phenomenon, was both a particle and a wave. It was a product unto itself, and Dr. Jacob "Jack" Goldman created the environment for the concept to take root.

I know you're thinking Xerox PARC. Actually, I was thinking the Ford Motor Company.

There are two important concepts first articulated by Prof. John McCarthy of Stanford University, neither of which actually imply that computers will ever evolve to become intelligent, rational creatures. One is that electronic machines can learn functions and processes. Throughout the 56 years since this concept was introduced, it has been declared an undeniable fact numerous times, only for someone to subsequently reposition the qualifications bar for "learning."

The other is that artificial intelligence (AI) is implied by any process which, when done well and correctly, appears to have required human intelligence. In other words, like legislative gridlock, you don't have to see it yourself to know it exists.

Dennis M. Ritchie, co-creator of UNIX and father of the C programming language, died this past weekend after a long illness. It's no exaggeration to say that without Ritchie, modern computing would not be what it is today.

Often known as "dmr," Ritchie was born in Bronxville, NY in 1941. He studied at Harvard University, initially focusing on physics. Ritchie said that he entered computing because "my undergraduate experience convinced me that I was not smart enough to be a physicist, and that computers were quite neat."