Yearly Archives: 2011

Friday night – montreal

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greetings from Montreal.. we’re up here visiting friend Hannah.. It was a very busy day..I didn’t move from my desk.. but I could see that it was sunny out.. the computer told me it was 55 degrees today.. that’s 60 degrees warmer than to days ago…

The warm temperature started to work it’s magic on the 2 feet of snow we have.. .. everywhere you could hear water flowing.   All day I heard snow and ice falling from our high roof. .. One of the big icicles from the corner of the house dropped an bounced off of the garbage can and broke one of our windows…

Just before 5 , 8 of us piled into Deb’s suburban and headed north.. i must have slept most of the way because it seemed like we were in Montreal in minutes.

We got to Hannah’s in downtown Montreal about 7. She has a beautiful and small 1 bedroom apartment..   Just perfect for 8 people 🙂

Hannah’s place is very welcoming.. She has lots of sam stuff around here.. Here’s the bear we gave her. made from a sam shirt.

. I like looking at it..

Deb and Diane made us all dinner in Hannahs small kitchen.

Around 10 we all headed out to a nearby0ish Irish pub with fresh Guinness and decent live music.

It’s been a nice night .. I could use this getaway..

More tomorrow..

nite all, nite Sam

-me

Thursday night – old sole

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Woke today to an empty tank of gas.. .. automotively and personally. Step 1 was to get gas in the car.. I coasted into the gas station just as the (very accurate) gas gauge dripped to zero…

I gassed up the car.. and then set about thinking about how to do the same to myself …..  I’m still thinking.. I need to to get back to the place of coming from love and fun.. it’s tough to do that now.. I tool several moments through the day to stop and breathe and stare out my window at work..

I did one thing today to restore my soul.. (pun.. sorry). I ran out in what would have been my lunch break and bought a new pair of shoes.   I go through them so fast.. just like cameras.. I want to find some way to honor this old pair of shoes.. their not much more than 6 months old, but they are beat.. I bought these in July when I was going to eat dinner with Al Gore in Las Vegas. .. .. Since then, these shoes have been in eight countires, h. have served as snowshoes, slippers, bathing sandals. I should be a spokesman for Rockport…

What should I do wit these old guys  ? Any suggestions..  What to do with an old soul..

OK.. I gotta go..

gnite all. gnite sam

-me

ps. Welcome back  Airman Cafferky !

Wednesday night – what is Watson ?

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I just finished watching the third day of the Watson Jeopardy challenge..The Watson computer handily defeated the two best human champions.   What an amazing experiment..  We don’t have TV hooked up here, so I had to wait till now to see the shows recorded by someone else. I ‘watched’ the three day match real time in Twitter. which was very interesting.. By and large, the reaction was very positive.. .The funny thing is.. many folks grew up on Hollywood’s version of computers . The idea of a ‘HAL’ or a star trek computer is so imprinted on us that many folks don’t get that computers have a hard time understanding written language very well.. and  just don’t ‘know’ things the way we do. Quite a few people have reacted to the Watson Jeopardy challenge in that way.. saying.. ‘of course it will win it’s a computer’.. Others were joking that this is the beginning of the end.. (many references to the Terminator’s ‘skynet’) .. ..

Most just see it for what it is.. ..  an amazing breakthrough..

I am so proud of my friends and colleagues across the company that made this happen. My own contribution was pretty indirect.. i worked on the Power processor chips used in Watson;s  ‘brain’. .. Folks from all over the company helped… in designing the hardware. software I’m particularly impressed and proud of the guys in Research,( Dave F and co. ) who drove the project and developed the deep Q & A algorithms that Watson uses to decode the clues and codify all that information. It is fun to imagine what they are thinking tonight.. !

. I’ve watched the project mature for about 2 years.. I remember seeing some of the first scoring results about 18 months ago that showed how  the machine stacked up against average jeopardy players.. The machine staked up pretty well, but it was well beneath the historical record of games played by some of the all time champs like Jennings and Rutter  .. I  remember wondering if it would ever meet the goal… Then I saw some data a few months back that showed it winning over these guys.. and I just couldn’t believe it.

I’m a huge Jeopardy fan..and a huge fan of computing.. I know how hard a task it is to decode the cryptic clues and codify all that knowledge used to frame the answers… i mean questions.   en imagine the ways that this type of deep computing is going to change the world.  in ways we can’t even imagine…

Really an amazing experiment… What is Watson …?

We’re so proud of you !

night folks, nite sam

-me

Tuesday night – seven fifty eight

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I had a special treat tonight.. I got to kick off the science fair at Richmond Elementary School.. All three boys went there.. and its the place I got my start as a mad scientist performer.. I remember doing a science show for max’s kindergarten class in 1993.. .From then on, I did several shows a year for each of Max, Sam and Gabes classes.. and eventually for all the teachers in that school.. then the district, then the region.. then..the state.. the the northeast.. It all started here for me and it felt very good to be walkign around in there again. The science fair was wonderful.. there were about 50 kids showing there smart stuff.. there were projects on hydroponics, on magnetism, on electricity, on languages of cats even .

I really liked one kids project on fulgarites.. fulgarites are pieces of melted sand cased usually by lightening.. these were caused by a downed high voltage line in the wind storms last fall.. how cool is that ?

Around 6L30 everyone filed into the cafeteria and my show began. I was so surprised to see as many of my freinds there with young kids.. here’s Sara my work buddy with her daughter Dahlia (hey.. where’s dahlia ? )

it wasa nice size crowd, lots of familiar face.. I only had 30 min, so I gave an abbreviated version of my show.. I think  it went pretty well..

Even my buddy Erin was in the roo.. still not completely sure how she ended up there..

I loved being back in the school.. I left a sam stone in the library .. i remember reading all three kids books in there.

I had lots of helpers as I reloaded the car.. As I got in.. I guessed that it was 7:58 PM.. I turned on the car..and was surprised to see that I had guessed exactly right.. then I realized, I was looking at the trip odometer.. how funny I thought..

Then I looked at the clock..!

The world has wierd ways of tellign you things.. what did it just say to me ?

nite all, nite sam

-me