Yearly Archives: 2014

Monday night – Davids retirement

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I never thought I'd see the day… But my good friend David has decided to retire from Ibm. Tonight about 20 of us gathered the local restaurant to toast the smartest guy that any of us probably have ever met.

I don't say that lightly… I know a lot of people and this guy really stands out. He has a very sharp mathematical mind and can quickly extract the essence of any problem you bring to him. More often than not you walk away an elegant solution. It's incredible.
He's also the nicest and most humble person I've ever worked with.

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Is the inventor of incremental timing, common path pessimism removal, static power analysis, incremental integrated placement and timing… And so many other inventions I can't even recall them all… More than hundred Patents.

I wrote the following tribute on the drive-in. Not much but it was all I could come up with

David Hath-a-way
to make big problems go away

While we were blinded by distraction
Dave saw the world in neat abstraction

We'd lay our problems at his feet
he'd give us alg'ythms nice and neat

Never boastful nor judgemental
Only his timing was incremental

One thing our commoon path produed
I found My pessimism much reduced

So ..lift your glass.. Now that we've et'
And toast the smartest guy … Weve ever met !

 

It really does feel like it end of an era seeing him go. He has so many interests and hobbies I know he's going to be busy next life

 

it's just who's going to do all of the thinking for us now?

Night all, night Sam
– Me

 

Sunday night – The Dude

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I am so proud.. Gabe is taking a an english class called “Storytelling:  The Power of Film” and he picked ‘The Big Labowski’ as his project movie. The Big Labowski,  IMHO is the best move ever made..  Labowski, aka ‘The Dude’  is the perfect anti-hero .. the real hero for all those who have not learned.. or who have forgotten how to slack off…  (Said the nerd who’s still working at 12:47 am on a sunday night )

 

I’m just so … so verklempt .. (is there a good word for that in English) that my son would see the beauty in that movie..

In the words of ‘the stranger’ in the movie . ‘ Gabe, I like your style’

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

Saturday night – safety not guaranteed

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Just taking in one of those strange coincidences that sometimes come in to your life and make you wonder. Today I had a really good visit from new friends Ryan, Hillary and Nathan. Ryan is making a set of short movies about folks in Vermont who are making ‘stuff’ .. (things music, art, robots, etc). Ryan is a recent-ish transplant to the 802 and is using this project to  build some roots in the place.. i think it’s gonna work.. Anyway..  we had a great , wide ranging conversation.. then they headed off in to the afternoon,..

fade to this evening…..

Diane and I decided to watch a movie.. something we do maybe once a month. I hit netflix looking for a suggestion and took one of the top recommendations it made for me in ‘critically acclaimed comedy’.. There was a movie called ‘safety not guaranteed‘  which i don’t think i ever heard of.. We watched (and really liked) it.. as the credits rolled i saw that ryan had written and performed the music in it.. .. huh ?!?.. i then found out that my friend jared  had engineered it and my friend ken had done some of the audio effects..   I keep trying to remember if ryan subliminally put the name of the movie in my head…     but even if he did. how in the heck did it end up at the top of Dianes netflix queue ?!?!.. Coincidence ?.. insane big data ? alien intelligence ? im baffled..

anyway. check out the moview.. we really liked it ..

 

Speakign of safety not guaranteed. Gabe and I took advantage of having an audience here.. and the timely delivery of some left over liquid nitrogen (another coincidence) to do some quick science mayhem..

 

first we used soem thermite to fuse a big pile of coins.. (run gabe !!!!!)

 

Then we blew up a bucket of water with liguid nitrogen in a soda bottle (sorry no pics… too scared !)

OK.. time for bed.. still pondering the strangeness of the universe.

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Friday night – smarter in Turkish

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I was working late this afternoon when I got a Facebook message from my friend Jale in Istanbul. She was flicking through the channels and found The Colony on .. dubbed in Turkish. She send me this clip. I think we all sound smarter and nicer  in Turkish..

 

Not much more to to report for the day. My week has been insanely busy and I’m in great need of goofing off. Oh.. I did get this nice vid from my friend Liggy of fans playing a section of the EEL keyboard in Bolder the other night. I’ts really nice to see folks enjoying something we made 🙂

The EEL on tour from john cohn on Vimeo.

OK. time for bed.. still jetlagged

nite all, nite sam
-me