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-Fluteman quote: "B-b-b-but Clarence! I don't want to go to j-j-j-jail!", Oswald-

Had a dream about crossing an intersection last night. Took forever for the "walk" signal to come on. It was one of those traffic lights that counts the seconds off, and I think it went up to something like 100! Psh. I STILL didn't notice how suspicious this was!

I need to talk today about the term "cloud computing". Specifically, why is it called that?? I mean, yes, it is euphonic, yes, perhaps it even evokes lovely childhood images of your data being secreted away in some magical realm in the sky, but it doesn't make sense. First of all, what is the "cloud" referring to in real life? The computers? Well, we had a cloud of computers before cloud computing became fashionable. The data? Er, think about that for a moment.

Let me give you some background about me: I live in California (The Great Domesticated Desert of Doom^TM). So the idea of my data being little droplets of water in the sky is not altogether reassuring to me. Imagine being at work one day:

Boss: Ahem, Mr. Stubblesbon, where is the weekly report you were supposed to have finished today?
Mr. S: Ah, boss... I emailed it to you...but, uh, you see! Our next door neighbors, PettaBitBot Co, well, their servers have so many mountains of information that, heh heh, all our data precipitated on them!

(at PettaBitBot Co)
Employee: What is this???


Okay, so perhaps I'm not being completely fair. Perhaps they meant cloud as in... I know! An electron cloud! Yes! I still feel this apprehension:

Boss: Mr. Stubblesbon, what is your excuse THIS time?
Mr. S: Well, if you'll hearken back to your days of physics, you'll remember Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle!
Boss: (raises eyebrow)
Mr. S: The principle states that there is no way to know the position and momentum of our data at the same time... the weekly report could be anywhere! We can only predict where it is likely to be...

(at the ISS)
Astronaut: What is this? Expenses? Profit? (switches on vox) Uh, Houston? What's the word on the "weekly report"?
Mission Control: (collective brandishing of slide rules)


However, all this is not to say that I can think of a better term... (changes subject, rapidly)

Remember to reality check!