To the Cloud!

David Pogue has a little mini-rant today on the use of "cloud" as a generic term to mean "internet" which I found fun, if only because it reminded me of the odd origins of the term.



As far as I can guess, the term leaked out of white-board shorthand used by folks drawing up high-level architecture diagrams. Who it was who popularized that diagram convention is a mystery, probably it is an elaboration on some even earlier trope. Now, thanks to Microsoft marketing, the term means... nothing? everything? kung fu music? computers-can-magically-solve-anything?