|
|
|
|
Gregory A Jackson 5801 South
Ellis Avenue
|
As Vice President and
CIO, reporting to the President, I oversee information technology at The University of
Chicago. The University
is a private, non-sectarian research and teaching institution competing at
the highest levels for research, faculty, and students, and deeply involved
with its local and regional communities. Most of the University's myriad activities are
on its campus in Hyde
Park/Woodlawn/South Kenwood. I deal with IT-related issues ranging from policy and resource allocation
to protocol and organization, and represent the University's
information-technology interests regionally and nationally. Networking
Services and Information Technologies (NSIT),
the University's principal information-technology organization, reports to
me. NSIT comprises five
overlapping substantive areas, each managed by a team of Directors led by
a Senior Director. Three of these areas focus on services: Academic
Technologies (Chad Kainz),
Administrative Systems (David Trevvett),
and General Services (Greg Anderson).
The other two focus on infrastructure: Networking (Bob Vonderohe), and NSIT employs about 370
individuals. Its annual expenditures approximate $65-million, of which just
under half purchases and manages goods and services for internal resale,
and about 20% goes to capital projects and renewal. I estimate total University
spending on information technology, including staff, hardware, software,
and services, to be about $100-million. My curriculum vitæ includes
four years as Director of Academic
Computing at MIT, where I was
responsible for general oversight and coordination of Athena and other central
academic computing. At MIT I taught a freshman seminar called The Murder Mystery:
Science and Art.
Before coming to MIT I spent about fifteen years on the Stanford and Harvard faculties, where I taught
statistics and other quantitative social-science research methods. My
research back then focused on how financial aid influences college choice and
on University decision making. I'm also active in numerous
information-technology efforts nationally, such as the Seminars
on Academic Computing, EDUCAUSE,
the Common Solutions Group, the CIO
groups from Ivy+ and CIC institutions,
Internet2, National LambdaRail, and various corporate
advisory bodies. As a result of these, I travel too much, but only rarely to
interesting places. Aside from stuff related to work or some scientific and historical topics, I collect 1888s and college and university coffee cups. Not just because Ronald Knox was born in 1888, I read an awful lot of mysteries (Knox, an eminent British theologian, famously codified the “Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction”, which Agatha Christie then proceeded systematically to violate, culminating in the immensely heretical Ackroyd). More important, whether eating in or out I usually drink only red wine (especially old-vine Zinfandels from Amador County or from the Chiles Valley, Howell Mountain, Dry Creek, Rockpile, or a few other places that eschew the lightweight Napa zin style). That red wine goes with everything is one of many principles I find useful, both directly and metaphorically, in organizational life. |
"Hello, Jeffrey, are you there?... Now don't SHOUT at me! I'm in
JAIL, and I want you to get me out!... I'm in the Susquehanna Street jail...
Susquehanna!... SusqueHANNA!! ... Susque- Q! Q!! Q!!! You know, the
thing you play billiards with!... Billiards!... Billiards!!... B... I...
L.. . - no, L! L! L!! ... L, for Larynx... L...A... R... Y... N... No,
not M! N!!!... N as in Neighbor... Neighbor...
N...E...I...G...H...B... No, B!!... B!!!... Bzzz, Bzzz!...
You know, the stingy insect!... INSECT!!!... I...N...S... S as in
symbol... Symbol... S...Y... Y!!... Y!!!...Y!!!!... Look, Jeffrey, I'm in
jail... The
-from Shall We Dance
Well, let's see, we have on the bags, Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third...
-Abbott
& Costello, various performances. The origins of the "Who's on
First?" routine are obscure and somewhat controversial. According to Lou
Costello's daughter, the routine resulted from collaboration among Bud Abbott,
Lou Costello, and John
Grant, who later wrote most of the Abbott & Costello movies
(Chris Costello and Raymond Strait, Lou's on First [New York: Cooper
Square Press, 1981]). On the other hand, according to other sources and the
obituary of Irving Gordon (better
known for writing Nat King Cole's hit "Unforgettable"), Gordon wrote
the routine while working as a composer of parody numbers in the Catskills
during the 1930s (Myrna Oliver, "Irving Gordon, Composer of
`Unforgettable'," Los Angeles Times,
home edition, December 3, 1996, 26). Adding complication, unprocessed
manuscript documents in the Samuel L. Goldman Papers
at the
Hawkins: I've got it! I've got it! The pellet with the
poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the
brew that is true! Right?
Griselda: Right. But there's been a change: they broke the
chalice from the palace!
Hawkins: They broke the
chalice from the palace?
Griselda: And replaced it with a flagon.
Hawkins: A flagon...?
Griselda: With the figure of a dragon.
Hawkins: Flagon with a dragon.
Griselda: Right.
Hawkins: But did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel
with the pestle?
Griselda: No! The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the
dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!
Hawkins: The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the
dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.
Griselda: Just remember that.
-from The Court Jester, 1956
Bobby: I'll have an omelet, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, and a cup of
coffee.
Waitress: No substitutions.
Bobby: You don't have any tomatoes?
Waitress: Only what's on the menu. A Number Two: Plain omelet. It comes with
cottage fries and rolls.
Bobby: I know what it comes with, but that's not what I want.
Waitress: I'll come back when you've made up your mind.
Bobby: Wait, I have made up my mind. I want a
plain omelet, no potatoes on the plate, and give me a side of wheat toast and a
cup of coffee.
Waitress: I'm sorry, we don't have side orders of
toast. I can give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.
Bobby: What do you mean, you don't have side orders
of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?
Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?
Bobby: You have bread, don't you, and a toaster
of some kind?
Waitress: I don't make the rules.
Bobby: Okay, I'll make it as easy for you as I
can. Give me an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast --
no butter, no mayonnaise, no lettuce -- and a cup of coffee.
Waitress: One Number Two, and a chicken sal san --
hold the butter, the mayo, the lettuce -- and a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Bobby: Now all you have to do is hold the
chicken, bring me the toast, charge me for the sandwich, and you haven't broken
any rules.
Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken.
Bobby: Yeah. I want you to hold it between your
knees.
-from Five Easy Pieces, 1970
Lou: Last vehicle he wrote in was a tan Ciera
at
Marge: Uh-huh.
Lou: So I got the state lookin' for a Ciera
with a tag startin' DLR. They don't got no match yet.
Marge: I'm not sure I agree with you a hunnert
percent on your policework, there, Lou.
Lou: Yah?
Marge: Yah, I think that vehicle there probly had
dealer plates. DLR?
Lou: Oh.
Lou: ... Geez.
Marge: Yah. Say, Lou, ya hear the one about the
guy who couldn't afford personalized plates, so he went and changed his name to
J2L 4685?
Lou: Yah, that's a good one.
Marge: Yah.
-from Fargo, 1996
Not long after, they tooke me to one of their
great Counsells, where many of the generalitie were gathered in greater number
than ever I had seen before. And they being assembled about a great field of
open grasse, a score of their greatest men ran out upon the field, adorned each
in brightly hued jackets and breeches, with letters cunnmgly woven upon their
Chestes, and wearinge hats uppon their heads, of a sort I know not what. One of
their chiefs stood in the midst and would at his pleasure hurl a white ball at
another chief, whose attire was of a different colour, and whether by chance or
artyfice I know not the ball flew exceeding close to the man yet never injured
him, but sometimes he would strike att it with a wooden club, and so giveing it
a hard blow would throw down his club and run away. Such actions proceeded in
like manner at length too tedious to mention, but the generalitie waxed wroth,
with greate groaning and shoutinge, and seemed withall much pleased.
-how an
ethnographer of John Smith’s era (that’s Jamestown, etc.) might have described
his or her first encounter with baseball, from James West Davidson and Mark
Hamilton Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection (New York:
Knopf, 1982)
Announcer: He walks in! He's ready for mystery...he's
ready for excitement! He's ready for anything...he's (phone rings)
Nick: Nick Danger, Third Eye!
George (on phone): Uh-I wanna order a pizza
to go, and no anchovies.
Nick: No anchovies? You've got the wrong man. I
spell my name...Danger! (hangs up)
George: What?
-from Firesign Theater, Cut 'Em Off at the Past, 1969
Rick:
How can you
close me up? On what grounds?
Renault: I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on
in here!
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Renault: Oh. Thank you very much.
-from Casablanca,1942
Bluto: Looks like l missed something.
Boon: You did. War's over. Wormer dropped the
big one.
Bluto: What? "Over"? Did you say
"over"? Nothing's over until we decide it is! Was it over when the
Germans bombed
Boon: Germans?
Otter: Forget
it, he's rolling.
Bluto: And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the going
gets tough... the tough get going! Who's with me? Let's go! Come on!
Boon: Bluto's right. Psychotic... but absolutely
right.
-from Animal House, 1978
"You see, my dear Watson, it is not really difficult to construct a series of inferences, each dependent on its predecessor and each simple in itself. If, after doing so, one simply knocks out all the central inferences and presents one's audience with the starting-point and the conclusion, one may produce a startling, though possibly a meretricious, effect."
-Sherlock Holmes, in Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Dancing Men, 1903
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
-Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford, 1830
The Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction:
· The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
· All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
· Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
· No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
· No Chinaman must figure in the story.
· No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
· The detective must not himself commit the crime.
· The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
· The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
· Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.
-Roland Knox, Essays in Satire, 1929
"You know how I deal with problems: first I identify them, then I study them, then I analyze them, and then I make them bigger"
-Michael J. Fox to Tracy Pollard, in Family Ties, ca 1985
“Our sovereign Lord
the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to
disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their
lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of
King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.”
-as provided by the Riot Act of 1714, proclamation the King’s magistrates were required to read aloud an hour before beginning arrests if a group of more than twelve persons refused to disperse. The Act was not repealed until 1973.
The Stranger: How things been goin'?
Dude: Strikes and gutters, ups and downs.
The Stranger: Sure, I gotcha.
Dude: ...Take care, man, I gotta get back.
The Stranger: Sure.
Take it easy, Dude--I know that you will.
Dude: Yeah man. Well, you know, the Dude abides.
The Stranger: The Dude abides.
-from The Big Lebowski (1998)
Last revised 2/17/2008
If the wrong answer is "The Beach Boys", what's the question?