Saturday night – icarus

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Just back from the Icarus burn at friend Chris’s.. and it was my favorite ever.. !  My only job on this one was to bring my flamethrower.. which I happily did. I dropped it by mid afternoon..

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then went home annd went ou with , gabe, max, jak, and diane to have d a little pre-burn sushi

 

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We got to chris’s just after 8.. the guys were still rigging icarus up with fireworks..

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Once again Chris had built a thing of of beauty. Icarus was about  15 feelt tall and standing on one strong leg. his wings were held together by cannon fuse and his body was full of fireworks.   The idea is that as the fuse burned , his feathers would fall just as in greek myth, the character Icarus’s feathers started to fall off when he flew near the son/ That icarus’s wings were fashioned for him by his father.. the great ‘artificer’ Deadilus.. a man I’ve always fet a great affinity for. He was a wizard and magician.. IMG_0921 IMG_0923

 

here are our hosts kim and chris.. IMG_0925

 

 

along with their friends shane and amber .. who are flame dancers from Connecticut (and really nice people !) IMG_0927

 

Here are the four of us from burning man: chris, homer, dave and iIMG_0930

 

some last explosive rigging..

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wouldn’t be complete without a samstone !IMG_0943

 

when it got sark. out came shane and amber. They did a wonderful set of fire poi staffs, fire hips and fire eating. it was fluid and beitiful !IMG_0952 IMG_0967 IMG_0985 IMG_0987 IMG_0988 IMG_1004 IMG_1011

 

Their routine ended with both of them blowing fire on Icarus to set him alight !!! it was incredible .. IMG_1016

 

Then up he went.. first a little, then alot !IMG_1026 IMG_1034 IMG_1038 IMG_1046 IMG_1049 IMG_1058 IMG_1063 IMG_1064 IMG_1070 IMG_1081 IMG_1088

 

a very appreciative crowd looked on.. IMG_1097 IMG_1108 IMG_1111

Just when it looked like things were dying down. an magnesium engine block that Homer had put into the fire caught fire and bathed everything in a searing white ligt for nearly 20 minutes.. it was so crazy!

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as things queted with teh fire, shancene and amber came out and did a few tricks.. then max stepped up and tried the staff.. He was outstanding !.. he looked like a pro !!!  i was really proud of him !IMG_1129 IMG_1133 IMG_1142 IMG_1146 IMG_1152 IMG_1156 IMG_1175

 

i took a few more shote of the flame thrower before we all called it a night.. IMG_1181 IMG_1183

 

Later on i had a great conversation wiht Shane about life, fire and everything else.. he taught me a good trick.. when someone says “I can’t do X”.. invite them to add the work ‘yet’ onto the end..

ie. I cant do fire poi”   translates to .. “I can’t do fire poi yet ?”  there’s always time to learn !

 

and he let me play with fire baton’s.. how cool is that ?!?!?

what a great evening..!

 

nowI”m too sleepy to keep typing.. so more from here tomorrow..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Friday night – the software defined supply chain

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Ahhh , the end of a very interesting week.. I managed to stay here all week even though I was supposed to be both in China and Russia at the same time. The last three days I’ve stayed up most of the night attending a very interesting set of meetings in Shanghai.. I went to bed as the sun was coming up last night with my head spinning with ideas.

I woke this morning just in time to watch my friend Paul Brody present a piece of work called ‘The Software Defined Supply Chain” at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) . I watched it sreaming live from Russia.. it had been delayed because the previous speaker, Russian President Vladimir Putin (!!!!) was late !

At 10:18 on came paul..

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Paul  and my friend Veena P have been working on for nearly 8 moths. I’ve been working with them all along and was so proud to see Paul role out the message. .. And its an important message.. Behind all the hype on technologies like 3D printing , robotics and open source hardware is an even more amazing transformation that is occurring in the supply chain. That is the process where parts from multiple sources come together to create the complex objects we use every day..Whats happening is that the supply chain is going digital….   just as things like music, movies and books have given way to digital files, .. the physical objects around us are beginning their existence as 1’s and 0’s in cyberspace.. The implication are huge..

Consider the implications of the fact  that it will no longer be cheaper to build small parts  for things like washing machines in low  labor cost geographies and then ship them to across the world..for assembly and cosnumption.. There are huge implication to the way things will be made, how much they will cost.. and the environmental impact of making things.. There are some surprises there in the study.. for example, it’s not always ‘greener’ to make objects using digital manufacture. What is clear, hoever is that the cost of persoanlizing things. ie. makign objects that suit special needs of an application or individual are goign to come way down. it’s going to open up completely new markets for folks wh design things, build things, repair things, etc..

The whole report will come out in next couple of weeks.. and will be availabe for anyon e to download..When it does, I’lll share it here..   In the mean time, here’s a small preview of the work that Paul gaeve a few months back..

I’m very excited to have been involved.
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My congrats to Paul. Veena and the team for pullign this together !

-nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Thursday night – Shanghaid

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Tonight is day three of a Meeting I'm attending in Shanghai China… The only problem is I'm actually in Vermont. That means the meetings start at 8 PM and end around 5 AM. It is a long time to sit in the same chair by yourself

 

It's not so bad. I can hear every word that spoken, I have all of the charts. I can ask questions. It really makes it a small world. The only thing I'm missing is eating great Chinese food and drinking great Chinese beer with my good friends who are in the meeting. Still it was a good decision not to go there are things around the house and family that needs my attention. So I guess I have the best of both worlds. Last night I was actually able to take a 3 mile walk with my friend John at two in the morning during lunch break

Okay… The meeting is about to start up. Again… I better pay attention.
More tomorrow
Nite all, nite sam

–me

 

Wednesday morning – Job prospects in the 802 ?

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Folks,

I appreciate all the folksthat  have sent me ideas for job  leads  for our many friends affected in the recent resource action. .. Here are a few things I have herd about,

  • UVM smart grid PhD: UVM has  several openings in their smart grid PhD program (http://www.uvm.edu/~cems/igert/)  (need to be citizens or green card holders).
  • K-12 Teaching:  there is a local Teacher Apprenticeship Program (TAP), an 8 month program to prepare professionals from other careers to enter a 7-12 classroom.  They have an excellent track record of preparing and placing transitioning professionals in Vermont schools. Their upcoming class is close to full, but it’s something to consider.  TAP has been based at Chittenden Central SU for the past 10 years but is moving to Champlain College on July 1.  One advantage of that is that applicants will have access to federal loans to help with the tuition costs ($10,900 most recently).
  • Mywebgrocer  an excellent  locally grown who does online shopping analytics had 17 positions open as of last week. I suspect that they’re goign fast.
  • UTAS in Vergennes s lookign for an RF engineer The description is “Specific responsibilities include antenna design, wireless component evaluation and selection, RF circuit design, signal propagation characterization, link budget analysis, spectrum sharing and coexistence analyses. Good sense of practical implementation of RF systems and board-level design skills are essential. An ability to quickly prototype, test and modify new solutions is highly desired.”  There are also several links here.
  •  Dealer.Com I’ve heard second had that they have soem positions open.. but have not verified

Also.. just found these in the Tech Jam News from Seven Days

Hope its helpful to share…

nite all, nite sam

-me