Computer Scientists From The United States

"Rule 1 of cryptanalysis: check for plaintext."

"It is easy to run a secure computer system. You merely have to disconnect all dial-up connections and permit only direct-wired terminals, put the machine and its terminals in a shielded room, and post a guard at the door."

"Never underestimate the attention, risk, money, and time that an opponent will put into reading traffic."

"Role models are critical for anyone, including Black women in STEM in academia."

"I am still learning ways that my presence will impact the institution. However, one thing that I have noticed is that I am an important resource for women and people of color in engineering and computer science."

"Second, understand that failure is part of the journey. We often hear about people's successes but not so much about their failures. Many prominent people have had their own share of failures, which were necessary to their success."

"All mountains are surmountable simply by taking one step at a time."

"Third, persist. All mountains are surmountable simply by taking one step at a time. I believe the main thing that has paid off in my journey is persistence."

"Crowdsourcing is a powerful way to build datasets that can support research."

"“It’s hard to learn about something that you have no data on.”"

"Good health is fundamental to living a fruitful life, and although I don't contribute to people's health as a doctor, a nurse or a clinical personnel, I contribute with technology-based solutions."

"The most exciting part of what I do is that it has a direct impact on people. I get to mentor students and contribute to shaping their future paths. I also get to develop and contribute to technology that can improve people's health. These are the things that motivate me."

"Finally, ask for help. I learned early in my academic journey not to be afraid to ask for help. It doesn't matter how you learn whether it be a concept or skill, what matters is that you learn even if it takes many tries."

"Many important lessons stand out to me. First, do not underestimate yourself. I have done and am doing more things than I ever thought I was capable of."

"I chose academia because I learned that through research I could push the boundaries more in academia than I could in industry. In academia I am free to ask any questions that I think are important or potentially beneficial."

"One of the hurdles that I have and continue to encounter is being a minority in various circles in my field, this includes being a young Black woman in male-dominated spaces. This made it particularly difficult for me to find role models."

"The overwhelming majority of people who contracted COVID-19 have journeyed through their illness in self-isolation. These people have been suffering and recovering in silence. What we learn from them can help society at large understand the different facets of COVID-19."

"Rug the spammers."

"Barter works well at small volumes but becomes increasingly costly at large volumes, until it becomes too costly to be worth the effort. If there are n goods and services to be traded, a barter market requires n^2 prices."

"Nevertheless, this nice fiction allowed the United States to avoid creating a real locus of sovereignty by creating a fictional sovereignty to satisfy the Romanists. Sovereignty, under this doctrine, is vested in "We The People." Some of this political power is granted, charter-like, to the United States federal government. The rest is granted (per the 10th Amendment) "to the States, or to the people, respectively" -- that is to each State and to individuals. In reality, political power is distributed amongst the federal government, states, counties, and munipalities, with a variety of enumerated and unenumerated rights that these governments may not infringe being retained by private persons."

"All banks go bankrupt"

"On a larger scale, the Laffer curve may be the most important economic law of political history. Charles Adams uses it to explain the rise and fall of empires."

"Only a handful of tribes, such as the Narragansetts, specialized in manufacturing wampum, while hundreds of other tribes, many of them hunter-gatherers, used it. Wampum pendants came in a variety of lengths, with the number of beads proportional to the length. Pendants could be cut or joined to form a pendant of length equal to the price paid. Once they got over their hangup about what constitutes real money, the colonists went wild trading for and with wampum. Clams entered the American vernacular as another way to say “money”. The Dutch governor of New Amsterdam (now New York) took out a large loan from an English-American bank – in wampum. After a while the British authorities were forced to go along. So between 1637 and 1661, wampum became legal tender in New England. Colonists now had a liquid medium of exchange, and trade in the colonies flourished. The beginning of the end of wampum came when the British started shipping more coin to the Americas, and Europeans started applying their mass-manufacturing techniques."

"Clock time is a fungible measure of sacrifice. Of all measurement instruments, the clock is the most valuable because so many of the things we sacrifice to create are not fungible. The massive clock towers of Europe, with their enormous loud and resonant bells, broadcasting time fairly across the town and even the countryside, rather than the last relics of the medieval, were the first building block of the wealthy modern world. The Europeans evolved their institutions and deployed two very different but complementary timekeeping devices, the sandglass and the mechanical clock, to partition the day into frequently rung and equal hours. Europe progressed in a virtuous circle where bells and clocks improved the productivity of relationships; the resulting wealthy institutions in turn funded more advances in timekeeping... The massive change on the farm, the dominant form of industry, in the 14th and successive centuries from serfdom and slavery to markets and wage labor, was caused not only by the temporary labor shortages of the Black Plague, but more fundamentally and permanently by the time-rate contract and the new ability to accurately and fairly verify its crucial measurement of sacrifice, time. Time rates also became the most common relationship for the mines, mills, factories, and other industries that rapidly grew after the advent of the clock."

"the New England natives used neither silver nor gold. Instead, they used the most appropriate money to be found in their environment – durable skeleton parts of their prey. Specifically, they used wampum, shells of the clam Venus mercenaria and its relatives, strung onto pendants."

"Human values don’t exist in isolation, It’s not like there’s privacy over here, and trust over there, and security there."

"At the time, if you did any search on values and computing or anything related to that, you would come up with nothing. It just was not on people’s radars"

"I wanted to do my work from within computing. I wanted to do it as an insider, not as an outside critic, to provide leadership for the field."

"But the benefits of this technology go beyond digital photo albums, he says. "Medical researchers can use it to study hundreds of MRI images all at once and identify problems," he says, to give just one practical example."

"We’re fast and furious with these technologies that are at a scale and power that’s beyond our current moral capacities, I think right now we have a really great mismatch between the power of our tools and our wisdom to use them well."

"Our approach is different: instead of a linear analysis, we look at all the possible variables all at once and put together hypotheses that simultaneously try to figure out what all the images are about.""

"The same tools can also be used to analyze documents by grouping together similar sentences and summarizing their meaning.""

"People with gene mutation A are more likely to get disease B"

"I am proud of my teaching scores (which are consistently between "above average" and "excellent" for all classes that I teach). These scores are listed below for your information. I work really hard on the classes I teach both because teaching is important to me and because I am enthusiastic about computer science, especially artificial intelligence and robotics, and I want the students to be as enthusiastic about these topics as I am. Four of my teaching assistants won best teaching assistant awards."

"We put it all together into one big system, Our ability to interpret the genome is growing very rapidly now. I think in 10 years we’re going to understand most of what the genome does, which mutations cause which diseases and why. Even if we could just address 10 per cent of genetic disease more accurately, it would have a huge impact on people’s lives.."

"I believe that if you work really hard on researching and coming up with new ideas, then everything else will fall into place."

"I was lucky enough to have the Adirondacks close by growing up in the Capital District. I have also felt that Union needs to take more advantage of our location near the Adirondacks, the capital, and many high tech corporations. When the opportunity arose for the College to acquire the center, it was a perfect opportunity for us to step up and make it happen. We are thrilled to see the center’s programs expanding, and so many students, faculty, and neighbors benefiting from it."

"Union is a unique institution and we occupy a special place in higher education. Quite frankly, we are very distinctive. I have come to realize what this singular education has meant to my success in life and my career. I simply felt that I must give back and help ensure that this college prospers and is available for generations to come."

"Not surprisingly, most of what I read these days are scientific articles and books. I have become particularly interested in the future of “Cognitive Computing,” or what some may call Artificial Intelligence (AI). While we will never be able to replicate the amazing human brain, I firmly believe that we can build machines to supplement our human intelligence. Think of what this could mean to such fields as healthcare, where doctors are being swamped with more discoveries and data (such as genomic data) than they can possibly make sense of, much less act on. This technology will help transform healthcare, providing better outcomes at lower cost."

"When I’m not working, it’s all about my family. I have a wonderful wife of 39 years, three fantastic sons, and recently a grandson. We like to enjoy sailing and just spending time together."

"I am listing the scores for the question "Overall, how would you rate this instructor?" for ALL course evaluations available at www.usc.edu/course-eval in 2010 and earlier and some additional ones. The scores mean: 1 = poor, 2 = below average, 3 = average, 4 = above average, 5 = excellent. The scores of on-campus and DEN (= Distance Education Network) students get reported separately. Three scores means that I taught two sections since there are two scores for on-campus students and one for DEN students."

"After the human genome was sequenced, we had the text, but we didn’t know how to make sense of it, Now we have a ‘deep genomics’ engine – a machine-learning system where you feed in the genetics and it will tell you what’s going to happen in the cells."

"The kind of research we do is leading edge in information technology."

"For example, the traditional approach to organizing images is a step-by-step analysis that says, 'if there's colour then do this, and once you've completed that step, then see if there's a border around the image and then do this,' and so on."

"For the millions of people on the planet who use digital cameras, the work of Dr. Frey and his team has the potential to make it easier to organize and sort through countless pictures stored on a computer's hard drive."

"Similar pictures - for instance, all pictures of beach vacations - would be grouped together automatically by a computer program."

"Like so many students, my experience at Union was incredible. As a physics major, I naturally took a lot of science and math, but two things stood out for me. First, I was able to take world-class liberal arts classes in addition to all the science and math. I particularly enjoyed political science and psychology. This part of my education was so foundational to developing my thinking and handling of complex problems to this day. Secondly, the direct relationships with faculty were critical. It allowed me to do research and be responsible for complex scientific equipment, which helped prepare me for graduate school and my career. This is very rare at the undergraduate level."

"I believe that Union is in a very solid position. That said, we must understand that higher education is facing many challenges due to demographics, cost, technology and the like. Recognizing this, we have a very strong strategic plan that we are implementing."

"We need to continually leverage our strengths in combining liberal arts and engineering, and our geographic location, to provide unique opportunities for students."

"The president, working with our board, has laid out a set of project priorities that support our strategic plan. These projects require substantial financial investment and time to complete. We are discussing several aging facilities such as dining, housing, the arts, and Science and Engineering."