Monthly Archives: November 2009

Thursday night – Bionic Genius Roundtable

Big media couple of days.. last night i was interviewed for a show called DesignChat. It was live cast on on Mashable.com  and will eventually be out as a podcast.

Today I got word that an interview I did  a few weeks back for Bionic Genius Roundtable came out today . Here’s the podcast... kinda long… but I really like it.. It has some good stories about The Colony.   Even though I liked hte message, i’s so very wierd to sit and listen to yourself ramble on about stuff.. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.. I’ll tell you this.. listening to yourself talk that much makes me want to talk less..

I wish I could be more succint

so bye. (nite all, nite Sam !)
-me

Ps. ent by Talnet last night.. saw Hannah. Phil L was there as well

Tonight Gabe and Kristen made me a surprise dinner..   a lettuce leaf, a Gummi (as in Gummi worms) hamberger and a bottle of tobasco. Yum (?) I did put the tobasco on the hotsauce which tasted just like you think it would. !

Thanks Gabe!.. it made my night !

Wednesday afternoon – Glorious Dawn

OMG…
    I’m sitting here waiting for a conference call to start , reading my email .. and trying to write  a rap song about sicene.. when I found a note from my friend David, In it was a link to a site called The Symphony of Science. It’s a project about conveying scientific though through music. On the fron  tpage is this really wonderful and inspiring remix of an episode of the show Cosmos (which I’ve never seen) , They’ve used signal processing to put the spoken words of Carl Sagan and Stephan Hawkins to music

The reason I’m sharing this is not just because I think it’s cool and wierd.. it’s because this fellsin my lap as I sit here tryign to write a rap song about sceince for a work project

How does that work ?
Sam.. any ideas ?
-jc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

Lyrics:

Sagan
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch
You must first invent the universe

Space is filled with a network of wormholes
You might emerge somewhere else in space
Some when-else in time

The sky calls to us
If we do not destroy ourselves
We will one day venture to the stars

A still more glorious dawn awaits
Not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise
A morning filled with 400 billion suns
The rising of the milky way

The Cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths
Of exquisite interrelationships
Of the awesome machinery of nature

I believe our future depends powerfully
On how well we understand this cosmos
In which we float like a mote of dust
In the morning sky

But the brain does much more than just recollect
It inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes
it generates abstractions

The simplest thought like the concept of the number one
Has an elaborate logical underpinning
The brain has its own language
For testing the structure and consistency of the world

Hawking
For thousands of years
People have wondered about the universe
Did it stretch out forever
Or was there a limit

From the big bang to black holes
From dark matter to a possible big crunch
Our image of the universe today
Is full of strange sounding ideas

Sagan}
How lucky we are to live in this time
The first moment in human history
When we are in fact visiting other worlds

The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean
Recently we’ve waded a little way out
And the water seems inviting
—————————————

Monday night -Technologically challenged

Nothing at all worked today… my laptop died yesterday…. and I spent the entire day trying to unsuccessfully to get it repaired..  As a consequence.. I was late or absent to several meetings… I also lost access too (hopefully temporarily) to the presentations I needed for today and tomorrow. My cell phone became my only link to the business world…    then.. for some crazy reason it too decided to go belly up mid day.. as it decided to resynch with the IBM mothership.   It came back for a bit until it finally gave up the ghost since the resynch had exhausted it’s battery.. I was unable to recharge it since the prongs had fallen off it’s recharger. That was OK since my bluetooth headset.. the one I bought just 2 weeks ago finally fell over dead after all the plastic pieces on it broke off in my pocket. he help desk were trying to breath life into my laptop all day.. but were unable to do so.. the error seemed to be somewhere in that pergatory  between hardware and software that no one knows how to (or feels obligated to) repair… In the end they gave me an ancient clunker as a loner.. it has scotch tape where the hard drive door should be.. and guess hwat.. it happens to be my old machine from 2 years back .. I’m dooooooooooooomed I tel you… dooooooooooooooomed.

     I know it sounds bad.. but it was like a little shot of the Colony.. I was cut off from the world for a few blissful hours mid day.. I could reach the world… and the world couldn’t reach me. All I could do was to give my undivided attention to my peers.. I mean it was awful !. No really. tit was great.. I’m thinking of having a media free day every week just to let myself think….

What do you think ?

OK.. I’m getting off this old clunker before anything else goes wrong.. more tomorrow, technology allowing..

night folks night hardware, night Sam
-me

ps. Diane and I got engaged 24 years ago today.. Happy a-day diane.. I love you !

Sunday night – Windows

Oy.. my laptop is really hosed. It won’t boot up no matter what I try… . I think it has a motherboard problem.. and I have a super busy week coming up. I’m going to be working from Linux for a while..(I am now)  I like it better anyway .
    I may not have have gotten Windows working on my computer..   But.. I still had to  work on our windows.. Diane, Gabe and I mounted the exterior storm widows this afternoon.  A major ritual of the changing seasons. We usually wait until a freezing cold rainy day in late November to do this.. but today was exceptionally nice and warm.. in the 50’s and sunny.   I have to admit I sort of enjoy the job.. I know i’s been going on for this building for at least 100 years.. first you dig your way to the storms hidden behind mountains of summer time stuff in the front closet. The closet used to bye a bathroom for the school.. then it was like a little jail cell.. Our friend skip remembers being locked in there by his teacher… our fried Janet.. in the late 50’s.. She says it never happened.. and I tend to believe her.
   Anyway..once you’ve reached the windows you have to drag them outside  It’s not that bad.. but they’re more than 7 feet hig and 3 and a half feet wide.. and heavy as heck…

Once they’re outside you need to wash off the last winters’ grime.. then comes the task of matching the window to it’s frame.. which goes where.. yo would thing with n28 years of practice, we’d have developed some sort of fail proof marking system.. but somehow.. every year it’s the same old guessing game.. there are so many old labeling systems on each window.. with  some of them telling contradictory stories.. that it’s usually a guessing game for the last couple.. It’s all part of the fun..

Some of the windows have been modified over the years to fit the weird nooks and cranny’s fo the window frames.. that makes them easier to match.. and gives them more character.

There sre about five differnt fastening systems for the windows.. another fun challenge when you fill your pockets with tools.. Here’s one of the ‘new’ turnbuckles.. these I like

Many hands makes light work.. with three of us working the whole job took less than an hour…   I remember spending 4 hours or more in the early days of owning this lace..

I was up on a ladder today as diane held one of the windows.. one of

the toughest to put in.. when I saw a Sam butto wedge inside the window

.I hae a vaque memory of our friends putting them up in the days after

sam’s passing.. I remember trying to help.. but not being very uselful..   Our freinds are so wonderful to us.

Ahhhhh. done.. the house is now warm.. and .. so quiet.  the double panes block out so much more of the outside noise…

Here’s a statistic for you.. during winter, our house has 508 individual panes of glass in its windows.. not counting the barn.. 508.. incredble !

WIn addition to getting the windows up today, we cleaned the garage so the cars can get in, remoutned some of the themral shades , reversed and cleaned the ceiling fans so we’re all ready for winter… which is why it’s goign to be in the 60’s tomorrow.. We’re goign to roast ! 🙂

    We did stop and have some fun today.. Gabe d a dry land practice for MMMSC at Burton today.. they had one ral set up with trucked in snow.. I missed that.. but I did get there for the skateboard work.. First they warmed up on the half pipe.. then Gabe worked the bowl for the first time.. in 10 minutes he got it.. and was getting good !

OK.. not much else to report… I think I’ll go work on the movie Gabe and I are making about engineering…   Talk to you all tomorrow.. Nite all.. Nite Sam
-me