[FRIAM] Institutional reminiscences...

[Steven A Smith]

Marcus - I believe that is the very same division.  It was D when I was
there, recently TSA before that which was a merger of A and TS before
that I think!  

To be fair it wasn't *all* *always* like that, but there was a strong
over/undertone.   I fled HPC (formerly CIC, formerly C) to evade the
"over-funded" "big iron" mentality (after most of 20 years), thinking
that a scrappier place would be more satisfying.  It was "merely
different".  The Snake Oil came in *much* larger containers and I got in
(mildly) hot water any number of times for calling "emperor's new
clothes!" while in C/CIC/HPC.

I started (1981) in AT (accelerator technology) and kept in touch with
some of those folks for the 27 years I was there and saw the paradoxes
that came with production/experimental environments vs the
uber-computing/production world.  

I got to play with some interesting folks in the TLA domain along the
way but I had a creepy feeling the whole time I was going to discover
(with an SCI) something that would put me in the dilemma Ed Snowden
ended up in....   I ducked a few projects because they looked like they
might lead me to things I didn't want to know.  I was in DC 1 week
before 9/11 gazing at the planes flying into Reagan, making a sharp turn
over Georgetown at low altitude, thinking  "what if one of those failed
to make that turn?"

Reminiscences aRE Us!

- Steve

On 3/5/19 2:20 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> < My "elder" colleague was making a
> good point in that new context where there was always a lot of "hype"
> flying around (program managers selling it to sponsors and tech folks
> selling it to program managers) and it appeared that every "new face"
> was given a grace period, but after a few years if they hadn't
> *consistently* kept their snake-oil fresh, they could be treated as
> *stale* snake-oil salesmen.   >
>
> That's a wonderful description of what is now called A division.
> I stop my commentary there.  (
>
> Marcus 
>
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