First Outdoor Swim

Woo-hoo! First outdoor swim of the season (that brief bout of bodysurfing back in March in La Jolla obviously not counting)! Biked out to Walden Pond this afternoon, and swam a mile, plus. Later, when I was biking back through the farms and open land in Lincoln, the air was so clear that it looked like pictures of the French Countryside before WW I.

Shmexting

Say you have a traditional Jewish mother, and she asks you to do something for her. If you were to say to her, "I can't right now, Ma, I'm texting", she'd probably reply, "Texting, shmexting!"

I don't know what Shmexting is yet, but it sounds like the next big thing. Anyone for a Start Up?

Skunks

As Annie likes to say, skunks make wonderful, affectionate pets. But, they have to be descented first. This is expensive and, I think, leaves them defenseless. But what about genetically-modified skunks that could spray Clove or Cedarwood Oil? Either one would probably be a good deterrent, without ruining your backyard's ambiance. And the Cedarwood Oil would not just repel fleas and ticks, but actually kill them. So get to work, Mad Scientist guys.

Of course, the followup to this would be skunks with Designer Scents. You'd go over to someone's house, and they'd want to show you their new pet, "Lavender", or "Patchouli"....

Today's Trivia

Oddly enough, there are no Operas set during the Korean War. To make up for this, here are some suggestions (feel free to add your own):

Collina Cotoletta Porco,

Il Perimetero Pusano (featured aria, "MacArturo, non piscio in Yalu"), and, finally,

Un Ballo in MASH (with climatic duet, "O Franco! O Margaretta!).

Turkey Hill

Went for a 54-mile bike ride, from Centerville in Beverly up through Ipswich and Newburyport, with my friend Linda.

We went through Newburyport on some busy roads, finally turning off onto Turkey Hill Rd. Nowadays, there is actually a good chance that, if something is called Turkey Hill, you will see wild Turkeys there. We didn't see any, but we did stop at the old Quaker Cemetary. Instead of the usual rectangular plot, the 18th Century Marble gravestones were arranged in family goupings (Sawyers, then Browns) along a trail that leads down to the Artichoke Reservoir.

Further along, in Byfield and Rowley, we saw plenty of Turkeys--in fields, yards, and along the side of the road. We passed by a house where Linda has often seen a Peacock standing on top of a car in the driveway. No Peacock this time, but we did see a shy Guinea Hen by the side of a shiny Maroon Lincoln.

Extreme Sport #1

Marathong: Just imagine trying to run 26.2 miles, in uber-uncomfortable underwear that is trying to cut you in half, and you'll have an idea of this exciting new sport. Coming soon to a Patriot's Day near you.

News Flash

Desperate to gain market share, LinkedIn buys Ancestry.com for 1.3 Billion. Now they can send out emails that say, "Laura Packer is connected to the Baal Shem Tov", "Annie Crockett is connected to Queen Elizabeth I", and "Mike Cohen is connected to the Alien that crashed in Roswell in 1947"....

(From the Book of Faces, April 13, 2012)

Time for some Nerd Talk

My computer died this weekend. What to do? Upgrading from one computer to another is tough enough, but replicating a dead one is very difficult and time consuming (and it's never the way it was before).

Did a Hard Drive-ectomy, and put it into an external drive enclosure (after a quick refresher course on SATA vs. IDE drives). Drive still working. Yay! Went to Microcenter in Cambridge, and found what was supposedly the exact same computer (a refurbished Dell Optiplex GX520) for only $149. Back at home, opened the box and discovered it was actually a GX620, which is smaller and laid out differently.

Performed another Drive-ectomy, and then transplanted the original Hard Drive into the new computer. Closed it up, connected the external cables, and turned on the power. Amazingly, "Plug and Pray" actually worked--the BIOS accepted the new drive, and Windows came up. After Windows registered the new box's different hardware (Disk & DVD drive, USB Controllers, etc.) and rebooted, there was my desktop--exactly the way it was before!

Robot Journalist

Just came back from Ignite Boston 9, which is put on by O'Reilly, the Tech Publishing Company. One of the coolest presentations was on Boxie, the Story Gathering Robot:

Imagine a cardboard version of Pixar's Wall-e character, but with added über-cute human voice, and you've got a fair picture of Boxie, Alexander Reben's documentary-video-making robot.

Here is another video:


We sent this robot out to autonomously gather human narrative about its environment. The robot had a specific story capture goal and leveraged humans to attain that goal.