Just came back from a really great talk with my friend Kyle Clark did at generator tonight. ‘Kyle has started this crazy cool company called Beta technologies here in Burlington. They’re making vertical takeoff and landing fixed wing electric airplanes.… I’ve been spending a fair amount of time over there and cannot believe the wonderful things that they’re making.… Kyle Talked about the technology, the application and the culture behind building that’s wonderful machine. I was particularly proud to hear that they have six people who trained at the generator.… That’s exactly the kind of thing we’re trying to do to build people skills and help the state build high-tech businesses. It was seriously one of the best talks I’ve ever heard!…
Can’t specifically asked us not to share Photos from his talk… So instead I’ll share an old photo of their first Prototype… The new plane is so much more amazing… Can’t wait till that goes public
Nice peaceful day at home. Got out in the snow with the dogs and went for a ski by myself. Spent most of the day catching up on work.
One cool thing is that ‘Diane and I got our 23 and me results back last night. 23 and me is a genetic service that scans your DNA for variety of health and ancestry information. The good news is all the health stuff checked out pretty well.… It was really fun looking at the genetics data. Though the results of my ethnicity were no surprise… I’m just about 100% AshkenazI Jew. I could’ve told them that and saved 75 bucks
It is interesting to see about 2% of other stuff mixed in there… Wonder what happened there?
It was also very cool to see The map they made of near and distant relatives. I found Max in there of course… But I also found a second cousin and another person I knew was related to my dad. Aside from that I knew nothing about all the names and people. They were spread out all over the world and in keeping with the Jewish diaspora
Another fun thing about the reports was the traits they listed. For example I am less likely than most people to be able to carry a tune. Like 70% of people I have the gene that allows me to smell the metabolites of asparagus in someone’s urine… (Not just your own)… It said that I was genetically predisposed to like vanilla over chocolate ( totally false)… And that I was slightly more than average to dislike cilantro… Also false.
It’s fun to learn new facts about yourself… I’m looking forward to digging deeper
Nice long day here. A walk to -12°F… Considerably warmer than it might’ve been but still friggin cold. I noticed before coming to bed but it was about 27° above zero Fahrenheit… That’s almost a 40° swing the day. That would be like having it 50° in the morning and 90° at night. Guess that’s like the desert or something.
I spent the entire day at the Vermont first tech challenge ( FTC) event at CVU high school. I got there around 7:15 am but the judges had been there since 6 AM. I headed towards home around 6 PM… So about 11 hours. It was an amazing event. We had 31 teams… 13 of which were from Vermont and the balance from neighboring states. I haven’t been to a first event in at least five years… It’s a very well run exercise in chaos. The teams are generally between five and seven high school students. They all collaborate on a single robot about 20 inches on a side. The robot is operating wirelessly and has to perform some pretty amazing tasks… It needs to grab these blocks move them under some obstacles and then stack them. Some parts of the competition our one on one and some of them are co-opetition’s with other teams. The whole thing is underscored Buy a concept called “gracious professionalism”… We’re teams help each other even as they compete. It was an incredible display of good sportsmanship all Through the day. It was amazing to see the technical achievements of some of these teams. I have to say the Vermont teams need to become more sophisticated… And that’s what I’m hoping to help on. Do you like
I was there to gather information… And show a little nerd pride… I had every blinking gadget on me that I don’t. I think for this crowd it worked well
We had Miss Vermont and miss Jr Vermont there… Both are pursuing stem careers. They were really fun to hang out with. There’s been a few hours going around talking to the teams. Miss Vermont saying the national anthem beautifully. To kick off the competition
In the end… Most of the big prizes went to out of state teams… But that was fine. Vermont crew had a pretty good showing. And we learned a lot more about what we’re going to need to up our game here in the state. I’m really looking forward to working on that.
Right now I’m just really looking forward to getting some sleep.
It’s 1130 at night and I just got home from Cambridge. We had a nice work gathering this afternoon and I had trouble pulling myself away. It was really fun.… The drive home was really nice. I’ve been trying to listen to more podcasts… ‘Diane has me hooked on something called 99% invisible… It’s really great. So great in fact that I didn’t notice the gas gauge. By the time I looked up I had 3 miles left to go before I ran out of gas.… Even though that Prius gets about 500 miles when it’s fully fueled and charged up… It’s still has a finite capacity… And I was just about to find it. I nervously watched as the “miles left”counter went to zero. I knew I was just about to run out of gas when I came over a hill and lo and behold there was the south Royalton exit. I’ve never been happier to turn into that tiny town. There was a gas station still open right at the exit and I coasted in on fumes. I had 0 miles to go and by my calculation about a half a cup of gas left in the tank.
