In other news, the clever folks at CiteSeer, that cross-referenced index of scientific papers, have come up with a clever way to measure how quickly each journal can get the word out. All they do is to list the age of the latest citation in each journal. While not eminently useful to the average citizen, these publication delays are a terrific example of how useful information can be culled from the blandest data with very little human effort.
Useful information for free is one of the ideals computer scientists and programmers strive for. We are often accused of robbing or neglecting humans of their humanity, in favor of blind tedium. In fact the reverse is true: the thought of a literature grad student poring over pages and pages of Joyce quotations, correlating each word with something ancient and Greek—this is abhorrent to us. The words should find their mates alone. Why should a human have to lose his human life in that exercise? Let us explore our creativity, our imagination, not be slaves to a text. Hence computation.
Tomorrow: the other role of computers.