Ok.. so I’ve taken much heat for my spelling over tae last couple of years.. I have to confess that freinds and friends both look just as right to me without a spell checker.. and sometimes i don’t even get close enough for the spell checker to guess. I think that the touch of dyslexia that makes me a poor speller makes me better at scrabble  .. and for that I’m grateful   I was discussing this with freinds in Facebook .. particularly the ‘i-before-e-excpet-after-c’ rules.when my friend Brain pointed me at the following 

I Before E, if Taken with Caffeine

Poem ©1995 by Jef Raskin

“I before E

Except after C,

Unless pronounced A

As in ‘neighbor‘ or ‘weigh‘”

Education is forfeit for reinforcing such rules!

Sound a feisty reveille while eyeing the schools!
Neither will our heirs be agreeing to deceptions

Once seeing, herein, these sufficient exceptions:

We were seized by a feeling

For fleeing on the ceiling

To a leisurely meal

With Keith, Sheila, and Neil

We drank madeira, so foreign, in steins

Along with a surfeit of weird blueish wines
Being foolish, took codeine, ate ancient proteins
Therein guaranteeing these ogreish scenes

Wherein we’re canoeing to a new sovereign state

While deicing a kaleidoscope on a hot jadeite plate

And kneeing obeisance to an overseeing king

Our plebeian lips kissed his counterfeit ring.

Then we unveiled their sleight-of-hand trick
Deifying a heifer, with effect atheistic

And falling from the heights with a loud seismic crunch

We reignited the nonpareils we had heisted for lunch.

So I before E

Except after C

Unless pronounced A?

False decreeing, I say!

Now, I think i’m going to go to sleep for a spell 🙂

note all, note Sam

-me

A couple of weeks back I was interviewed for Focus Magazine one of Germany’s largest news magazine. (5.5M readers, I’m told) I was part of an article that was speculating about technology in 2030. I have no idea how they foudn there way to me.. but it was fun doing the interview The article came out today.. and it’s pretty interesting.. I’m not sure why they picked the excerpts they did from our conversation.. but the article is kind of cool.. Best yet, I’m quoted in the same article as one of my heroes , Leah Beuchley from the MIT media lab. She pioneered a bunch of the wearable computing stuff I like.  I even own soem of her ‘washable computer circuits’

Here’s the images from the magazine..

Here’s a rough summary  translation that the interviewer sent me..

Germany, Focus Magazine, 16/2010, 19.4.2010, 2030: How we will live tomorrow 2nd part: Invisible Technology (7 page article)

Summary:
In the year 2030 we will be surrounded by intelligent everyday objects, which communicate among themselves. The Technology itsself becomes invisible. …

John Cohn photograph: “At your service: IBM scientist John Cohn sees us talking to smart machines in the future – mind control, altough technologically feasible – will not be accepted by mankind.”

Computer as we know them today – experts agree on that – will play only a minor role. Instead, the things around us will become intelligent. … Technology will then appear in the form of computing capacity not as a device. Just like we receive power from a power plug without the need to buy a power generator. At the same time we have to get used to continuous, inaudible whispering. All those smart devices will communicate with themselves and merge to the internet of things.  The human user will then only choose the desired service. Leah Buechley at MIT’s Media Lab describes a scenario where the smart tapestry wirelessly communicates with  the computer or the handy. Such smart tapestry could help to remote monitor elderly people.

Mainly by speech we will communicate with technology in 2030 – that’s what John Cohn sees it. As a senior scientist at IBM, he looks into the future. “Even with everyday objects we will be able to communicate via speech. This could be the toaster, the fridge or the car. You will never have to deal with dumb things again,” he says. However, this raises also new problems: “Is it acceptable to yell at our mobile phone?”.
Similar topics are also being researched at T-Gallery, the future lab of Telekom.  How do we interact with smart things? Is it ok to use the informal “Du” or do peope prefer the formal “Sie” when they interact with technology? Among the technologies researched one approach is a advanced smartphone as the central point of interaction with our smart environment. Philipp McKinney, Chief technologist at HP prognosts how such a multi-talent could look like. …

Instead to improve the human being, Japanese researchers work ambitiously on an alternative – the roboter. Tomotaka Takahashi believes that in 20 years we will have roboter helping us at home. …

There is no common opinion among experts, when and if at all we will eventually reach truly “artificial intelligence”.
IBM scientist John Cohn estimates that between 2020 and 2025, computer chips will process as fast as the human brain – and in 2030, chips will most likely reach the complexity of the human brain.
“Does some kind of consciousness develop through complexity and programming? This question is open,” explains Rüdiger Spies from market research and analyst firm IDC. “If the answer is only a little bit of yes, then the next level of evolution will be much faster and happening between robots and supercomputers.”

Hmm.. not much more to report today.. Diane and I went to Gabes Lacrosse practive and ran with the dogs in the woods. It was a perfect spring evening.. cool and clear…

that’s about it for the day.. more tomorrow..
nite all, nite sam !
-me

I am intentionally trying to slow down a bit this week after the last 4 hectic weeks of work prep. What better way to start the week than by lying down and getting your back rubbed ?    Diane had arranged for her friend Uwe to come over and do a private Feldenkrais class for us.   It was pretty amazing… For those who don’t know.. 

The Feldenkrais Method  (according to Wikipedia) is somatic educational system designed by Moshé Feldenkrais

(1904-1984).

The Feldenkrais method is designed to improve movement

repertoire, aiming to expand and refine the use of the self through

awareness, in order to reduce pain or limitations in movement, and

promote general well-being.

Well. I don’t know about general well being.. but it did feel good.. and for several hours it stopped the pain I always have i my back. In fact.. the last time my back felt this good was when I was sleeping on pallets and cardboard at the Colony.  

I don’t think of myself as someone in constant pain, until it stops……

OK.. enough of that.. I’m going to go sleep on my wonderful back..

nite all, nite sam !
-me