beautiful day today with a bunch of new people showing up. Becky’s parents George and Doreen got in late last night.. They showed up bright and rested
George and Doreen are both fun and very interesting people. THey’re both scientists. Doreen retired from Nasa after a long career of building weather sattelites. George is a laser scientist who has the world record for the highest energy tunable laser. Actually the whole faimily are scientist.. Becky as a Neuro Sceine degree and her brother Danny is a computer scientist. George poitned out that one of our geraniums is called a fibonacci geranium.. Can you see how the spiral of its leaves are a fibonacci spiral ?
We all went in differnt directiosn today.. Max and Becky went to the town office to pick up a blank marriage licence …
Oh wait.. I don tthink I said this yet.. Max and Becky are here to sign their wedding papers !!!!! THeyre havinf a small private certemony on Friday.. and then a pig party back in Santa Fe soemtime next year.
We are SO excited for the two of them.. and s so happy to get Becky as an official family member.. even though she’s been one unofficially for many years. We’re gettign a daughter !
WHile Max and becky worked on the paperwork, diane and doreen went off shopping.. even though we were only goign to be 15 of us.. we wanted averyoen to feel at home, loved and well fed..
Meanwhile George and I headed out in the beutifual fall weather for a fast hike. George has been an marathon runner for many years and has completed at least one marathon on every continent (including Antartica !) he and I were good hiking partners as we both keep a quick pace. It was great being out in the beautiful fall weather
As we were hiking we both got a test emergency alert oon our phoens and watches.. I guess everyone did.. a momemnt of shared expereince !
Seeign the pond surrounded by the fall leaves was beautiful as always.. made me think of our dogs chai and satori.. they loved the traill . we miss them very much…
We all came back together for dinner.. I made the first jackolantern of the sason using a grape as a proxy for a pumpkin
around 10 Max and Becky went to the airport to pick up Gabe and their friends Zen , Bill and Karen.. We now have a housefull .. with just one more guest coming tomorrow
Max, Becky and Gabe stayed up late workign on the ceremony. Gabe is officiating..
Today was pretty qiet. We spent the day with Max and Becky resting up and getting ready for gabe , becky’s family and soem of becky and maxs freinds. We took a short ride out to Hunnington to see a house that our freond Mason is building for another freind of ours. Our freind RJ was there too. It was nice seeign the bones of the house. Mason is really good at this !
Woke up excited for three things: another day of NAE meeting, the grand opening of the BETA Manufacturing building back in VT, and Max and Becky’s arrival in VT. It’s a big day all around 🙂
The NAE meeting began at 8:30 today. THe big item today wasan excellent presentation and panel on the engineering challenges posed by climate change. The main sppaker was Prof Arun Mujumdar , The Director of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He gave an excellent fact filled talk on the engineering priorities posed by climate change. What I enjoyed most was his ability to quantify the relative impact of various human systems as they related to green house gas accumulation. He also did a great job laying out the technical challenges and costs of a variety of mitigation proposals, Aruns talk was followed by a great interactive panel of other experts on the subject. I was very impressed by the panelists command of their subjects and their ability to answer the many questions they got from this very smart audience. Often climate talks leave me with a sense of hopelessness due to the size of the problem.. this time I came away with a more realistic understanding of the challenges and a bit more hopeful sense of all that was going on to mitigate their impact.. Here a re a few of the many quantifications in Prof Majumdars talk
I’m goign to see if I can share the slides… I’ll let you know if I can get them and if I can share them.
After the pannel there were soem major awards given out.. then we broe for lunch.
I had a great lunch with my friend Neil and two new friends from the National academy of Science(NAS) abdnd NAE. Anne is with the NAS and is the WEExecutive Director of the Sceince and Entertainment Exchange.
which is a collaberation between the National Academy of Science and the enterntainment energy. THe goal is to to provide sceince and domain experteise to things like Hollywood movies. The exchange ahs been instrumental in giving expert advise to movies you’ve seen.. eg Minority Report .
The exchange is being extended to include the National Academy of Engineering.. and I’m one of the new members of that consortium. I’ve done a fair bit of science consulting for reality shows and such.. would love to do more !
From there we went to our section meetings. I’m in sectios 7.. the Electronics and communications group. As I said last night,. I’m very impressed with our new group leadership. We had a good meeting. It always starts on a bit of a solemn note where we review the folks in the section who have passed away in the last year.. Attending members can offer stories and thoughts abotu the people they new. I’m always surprised abotu how connected this group is. NAE membership is for life.. and many of our members are older and wiser.. so it comes woth the territory. Here’s the list for this year. .. Some very well knwn and well loved names on there
I grew up using textbooks by Gummel and Hodges.. and we all use Ziv’s compression algorithms everyday and Gordon Moore was an icon in our industry who gave us “Moores Law”.. As sad as it is to discuss the loss of these folks. the stories people tell of working with these folks are really funny and inspiring.
Most of the rest of the discussion was brainstorming about how to get more diversity in our group. Diversity here means more people from Industry. more women, more bipac, more LGBTQ, more differently abled folks. I know that DEI can be just a buzword exercise.. but here we thrive on diversity of thought.. and for that you need people from different backgrounds and experiences. We also discussed how to better connect our group.. It will be a challenge to do that but it will be worth the effort, I think
I had to leave a bit early to catch my plane home. at the airport I ran into my freinds Jose and Manuela.. a husband and wife team who are both NAe members. I really like them both.
.. The flight howm was uneventful.. so I’ll tell you about another amazing thing from the day. Today was the grand openign of the BETA manufacturing building in VT. at 188,500-square-feet the largest net zero energy building east if the mississippi .. and the first large scale manufacturing plant for electric aircraft in the world. I was sad to be out of town for the opening. but I was able to watch the live stream durign breaks in the NAE memeting. It was an amazing day with Gov Scott , Rwetired Snator Pat Leahy, Both current Senators Sanders and Welch and the Mayor of BTV Miro W. . Our leaderr Kyle did a fantastic job of introducign the building and its impact. nearly the whole company was there in Beta shirts to celebrate the opening.. At the end, 2 F35 flew over.. then Alia SN1 flew over.. the F35s were earsplitting (as always).. while ALia made a beautifully soft hum.. It was really impressive. Here are some screen clips from the day.
I was really proud to be part of this team. its great for BETA, great for Vermont, Great for the US. and great for the climate of the world..
OK.. back to the eveing. I got to the airport just al little after Max and Becky landed. I came down and foudn them in the airport.. . .It was so exciting to see them. / Diane picked us up and we drove home.. happy , tired and excited for the week ahead.
I just love the annual meeting of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).. It is the biggest nerd-fest you could imagine. Each year we get together to welcome new members and see old friends. THere are great talks.. and super great networking.
I started the day with a run down to the mall.. I ran by the National Academies Building just to be sure I could find it.
The NAE shares the building with the National Academy of Science )NAS) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). The combined organization National Academy organization was created by President Lincoln in 1863 Its mission is to ” advance the welfare and prosperity of the nation by providing independent advice on matters involving engineering and technology,” ..What I love about the NAE is that it brings together engineers of all sorts pf disciplines.. civil engineers , mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, chemical engineers, environmental engieers, computer engineers, power system engineers, ., aerospace engineners.. you name it .. from all walks of life.. from academia, from industry and from the government and military. .Its full of inventors, professors, CEO’s , Generals and many other interesting and fun people. Most of the oidy is from the US.. but we also have many international members..
I ran back to the hotel and tool a shower.. .. Is it just me or does this shower control look sad ?
at 10 we all lined up and caught a bus to the venue. THe fun conversations staerted as soon as I got on the bus. I sat next to a a very interesting Material Sceince Prof from RPI.. it was going to be a fun day of interactions like this.. My first meetign was a group of us that are workign to increase the diversity of the NAE… Its a predominantly male and white organization. thought its gotten much more diversi in recent years. I’m part of a committee to hep find a more diverse set of candidates to stand for election. I’m looking forward to helping if I can.
AFter that meetign and a little more mingline, we all filed in to the great ha;; to meet the new members elected this year. I had several freinds elected this year including my friends Anirudh,. Neil. Kerrie, Adalio and Bill. I was super happy fr all of them .
We rhten had an excellent talk from MIT prof Sandy Pentland on the importance of using sociology data to improve AI data analysis on everything from the spread of diseases to the planning of cities. He made a complelign cad how Large Language Models liek GPT might be used to help middle wage workers advance by allowing them to leverage the expertise captured in thos e models to broaden their thinking and improve their productivity.
THen more mingling ( i love the wingling) . I ran into Rod P.. a freind of my brothers.. He staretd tellign a freind about Billys magic tricks.. that was fun !
AFter luch there was a very moving tribute to one of the former NAe presidents Bill Wulf. I didn’t knwo bill.. but it was really great to hear so many tributes.. and fun stories abotu a guy who hlped build the NAE into the org it now is. He was a brilliant, humble ad funny man.. I was moved by all I heard of him.. I particually loved hearng from Bills daughters who gave a warm and funny trbute to their famous dad.. callign him the ‘inventor of the dad joke’.. .. eg. “Dad.. are you alright ?! .. No… I’m, not.. I’m half left”.. groan.. now thats a real leader.. a guy who can argue with the president of the usa .. and still tell a good dad joke !
THere was a great reception..t hen we all headed out to section dinners. I’m in section 7.. (ELectroica, communiocatiosn and information systems ) dinner. I’d never been to one of the section dinners.. and I really enjoyed it. I got to speak more with our new Sec 7 president Bernd G .. and talk to other members. I sat next to Tsu-Jae King Liu, the Dean of Engineering at UC Berkley.. It was great speaking with her and the other folks at our table..
From there we all walked hoem to the hotel.. .. Its’ great walkign aroudn DC at night. We saw a ‘birthday cake’ on the lawn of the white house celibrating immy Carters 99th birthday ! Happy birthday Jimmy !
On my way up to my room I ran into my friend Neil and his wife Laura.. Neil is a propf at mit who is the fatehr o the fablab movement.. he teaches a class called how to make just about everythign that is famous on campus. I love talign to neil.. he’s so funny and so smart.. really one of my heros. He came up to see me at BETA last year. we’re plannign another meet up in Vermont later this year. Here’ is Neil usine Lara to illustrate a robotic mechanism one of his students had worked on..
