Friday, June 26, 2015

Changing My Designers


  • My shirts are no longer from Custo Barcelona, my new shirts are all from Lenka Srsnova
  • My shoes were Fluevog and after a brief detour through Cydwoq,  am back to exclusively Fluevog again.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Art in Mission


I hosted a ludic art show and brunch at Chez Poulet the other weekend in SF.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Rutgers CS Professors Do the Hard Thing Twice.

Here are 3 examples of Rutgers CS professors being recognized twice, where once is already a big achievement:

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Organic

In early 90's, I followed the emergence of organic fruits and vegetables, and that meant, at that time, buying uneven, knarly, deformed fruits (apples!) at the east village buying club/coop because being organic meant you couldnt grow the fruits to be picturesque like in the regular supermarkets. Now I go to Rainbow grocery and the fruits are so perfect textbook that I need to check their product code to be sure they are organic (shld start with a "9").  What happened?

PS: I remember an old standup comedian quipping, "I see three types of gas in the station, leaded, unleaded, premium, but I see only one gasoline truck that stops by each week to refill the tanks in the station." 

Why I need the NYer

I was sick, shivering, my windpipe choked, that I woke up and with nothing to do, light still dimmed, peeked at the NYer lying on the desk, flipped it and started reading a random article, with a quarter open eye. Soon, my eyes opened, I brightened the room some more, I continued and finished reading the entire piece. It was on Mark Bradford. I discovered him a few years ago and blogged about him a couple of years ago. The piece is as sly as his work, his personality of living on "slippage" ("slipping is something I believe in, something I depend on"),  his journey triggered by James Baldwin and juxtaposed with his work in the hair salon, the backdrop of the social tensions of the past few  decades, and culminating with " "I never have artist's block," he said, as though the thought surprised him. "I work when I'm sick, happy, depressed, constipated, jet-lagged. I show up. If I can't work, I go to Home Depot."" Home Depot is where he gets his work supplies. 

Friday, June 12, 2015

Life Theme 3: Movies

Someone (a student, this fact matters seriously) asked me to watch the movie Whiplash, story of a promising Jazz drummer who wanted to be top class, reached out to a teacher at Juilliard who proves to be a taskmaster. Apparently the actors do a good job, but I loved the NYer review, which really focused on the fact that the movie got the Jazz wrong. Nothing wants to be compared to "benihana". 

Life Theme 2: New Little One

A colleague pointed out I didnt blog about the new little one in my life. Well, I sing to her:

  A B C
  It's easy as, 1 2 3
  As simple as, do re mi
  It's like counting up to 3
  Sing a simple melody
 That's how easy love can be

She usually moves her tiny hands gently, places them on my lips and shushes me.

Life Themes 1: NY

I was in NY for a few days, and after much hesitation, went to see the WTC memorial. I have more than 2 decades history of visceral reaction to the towers from the initial attack in '93 to the last weekend when I saw the world's contemplative reaction to the events. My one wish was the waterfalls be eternal -- somehow tap into an infinite water source underground and unending power source, maybe solar, removed from the city's electric or public water supply grids -- so they would exist far past the survival of mankind itself. 

Gala Academia

The Computer History Museum in Mountainview has a Fellows program and I got to attend the Gala event where the Fellows for 2015 were awarded/recognized. The new fellows were

  • Evelyn Berezin, for her early work in computer design and a lifetime of entrepreneurial activity.
  • Charles Bachman, for his early work on developing database management systems.
  • Bjarne Stroustrup, for his invention of the C++ programming language.
The event was all gala, and I got to hear about interesting themes and early days. Bjorne quipped that the Museum should have more exhibits on Software, not just cool gadgets and hardware. Indeed.

Labels: