I took a much needed vacation today and attended two events in Burlington. I began the day with a an informal roundtable discussion at UVM with a group of really interesting and bright folks on the topic of ‘complex systems’ the room was full of physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists who were turning their tools and skills to the study of large complex systems with huge data-sets. Many of the problems were around social systems and used data gleaned form social networking sites.. It was strange and cool to see the cross application of disciplines. It would be interesting to see what would happen if sociologists suddenly started delving into particle physics.. (The analogy was made.. elementary particles can be either attractive or repulsive as can be people 🙂

 

Around 10L30 I had to bug out and go downtown to the Techjam.. it was held in the old Borders bookstore.. It was weird seeing the bookstore devoid of books.. I guess folks like me who by ebooks off amazon spelled the demise fof the brick and mortar bookstore.. *sigh*..

Anyway.. Techjam was AMAZING> it was absolutely packed with visitors and with cool high tech companies.. and most of them were hiring. !  It had such an upbeat feel it didn’t not feel like a recession inside the building today !

 

Here are some picks.. most of them from Stephen Mees of Champlain College .. my own camera ran out of batteries.. Stephen.. I hope it’s ok to reuse these. they have your name on them..

 

My show was at 11.. I even got introduce by Governor. Shunlin  .. only in Vermont !  (The Gov is a huge backer of science and technology.. thanks for that Peter !!!)

 

 

 

 

My show went pretty well.. lots of people there.. I couldn’t tunr the lights off.. which was a bit hard.. but overall.. went ok.

 

then after my show.. I quickly pacekd up and headed back to UVM for the TEDx talks..abotu a dozen talks on complex systems and ‘big data’

Cool stuff. including friends peter, chris and isabell’s project to measure happiness using analysis of the worlds twitter feeds. analysis of the frequency of human conflict (the answer is 2.5) .. progress that right equeations and telephone poles that tells who’s a stay at home dad.. all very cool.. Finally a quick beer withthe speakers and now home…

 

All iand all a very stimulating and enjoyable day.. and I really, really needed it.

 

ok. now I gotta sleep. more tomorrow..

 

night all, nite sam,

 

-me