Saturday night – dropping antacid

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Diane and I are down in Endicott. We’re down here for three reasons. First., it’s always good seeing Diane’s folks.. 2nd , I’m giving a talk tomorrow at BU and  3rd yesterday was our friend Linda’s birthday..   We were on our way out to Vietnamese dinner with Linda and David when I realized that my tummy was bugging me a bit. .. I’m at the end of a minor  stomach bug courtesy of my trip to India last night.  Before we left I asked David if he had an antacid or something.. He slipped me a Prilosec … It was the quintessential middle age moment.. dropping antacid before going out with freinds on a Saturday night. We spent the rest of the night making jokes about fiber content of foods, mattress firmness, easy listening music and other AARP topics. It a it was a good time .  It’s great to have old freinds.. even if we’re not old… yet…

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nite all, nite sam

-me

Friday night – clutter

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The funny thing about blogging is that it drives every day to the resolution of a theme word.. . Every day I search the air for an anthem… an impression.. a scent of something that can be summed up in one or two pithy words in the title line right up there ^^^. it’s more than just a literary exercise.. naming a day can.. for better or worse… define it. Today’s word is ‘clutter’ ..(the house is clean.. I have to admit) but I walked over to my lab.. what did I see ? Clutter.. I went to my office.. there again: clutter.. I looked at my calendar .. and there’s time clutter. By the end of the day.. my head was swimming in it. All of that, i have to admit.. is par for the course. But, what really set the tone of the day was my new Facebook homepage. Like many folks. been pushed over to the new Facebook ‘timeline’ homepage. I just hate it.. it’s so cluttered !.. Too much stuff to look at,, too many things going on.. it reminds me of the old Myspace days..

Makes me long for the monochrome clacking of the teletype.. ahhh those were the days..

nite all, nite sam
-me

Thursday night – senior moment

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Last night was a good geek out night. 3 out of the 4 guys from the UVM senior capstone project team I’m mentoring came out to the house to work on their project. The team is made up of Colin, Bryan, Casey and Chris (couldn’t make it last night) They’re making great progress. he device is going to be an interactive light sculpture that will be displayed at the ECHO Center.. and with luck.. will go with us to Bonnaroo.

The project will combine computer controlled lighting. water and computer controlled bubbles. The team is still experimenting with the mix of all of those elements. I love watching them all think things through. Much of this is new to them. .. but they’re proving to be very resourceful . Bryan had never programmed a microcontroller. now he’s a master of controlling our fancy LED strips.

 

Colin and Casey have never worked with pneumatics, but they’ve managed to work out how to plumb clear pvc and control solenoid valves.. pretty impressive. Here are a few test runs with no liquid

here are some early bubble tests with clear liquid using a small tube (photos don’t do the effect justice.. beleive me)

here are some tests with dispersive medium (ie. we added milk to the water.)

Again.. pictures don’t show how amazing this is in person.. It will be so fun to watch this project evolve… I’ll keep you all posted..

I love working with creative people like this  !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Wednesday Eveing – PopSci

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Folks,
Little brother has done it again. You just have to pick up the March addition of Popular Science. Billy’s artificial heart picture is on the front cover.. and there’s a great, great, great 6 page spread on him and his work partner Bud Frazer inside. It’s an amazing story.. that just gets more amazing every time i hear it. The article makes a prophetic observation about Billy’s turbine powered heart. (which I’m sure came from billy) that all previous artificial hearts that attempted to replicate the lub-dub pumping of the human heart will someday be viewed as mans early attempt to  build airplanes that flapped their wings.

Go baby bro !!!!!!!!!! We are so proud of you !

nite all, nite sam

–me