Pride Parade

We went to the San Francisco Pride Parade on Sunday, and had a blast. Here are some photos I took.

Until next time: be who you are, give love generously and peace out!

She Did It!

On Friday, Carrie defended her dissertation. On Saturday, she graduated from Stanford with a doctor of philosophy. On Sunday, her adviser "hooded" her.

I'm incredibly proud of my "dirt doctor."

(Photo by Jann, Dr. Nielsen Sr.)

Honest Abe in Oregon

Last weekend I was in Ashland, Oregon, where I saw five plays* at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in two-and-a-half days. It was heaven.

Since we’re moving to Gettysburg, I decided to take a six-CD, 12-lecture course on Abraham Lincoln with me (from the library). As luck would have it, the teacher, Professor Allen S. Guelzo, is from Gettysburg College, where Carrie will be next year.

Surprisingly, there was a statue of our 16th president in Ashland, at the entrance to the wonderful Lithia Park. Sadly, though, he was headless.

Vandals had beheaded the Great Emancipator. Fear not though, compatriot, a new head is on the way, according to a man at the visitors booth. The kindly gentleman also told me a tale that proves there are silly civic controversies everywhere (even outside Palo Alto).

Apparently, there was apparently an uproar when the populace learned that the replacement head (and the backup, just-in-case-this-atrocity-ever-occurs-again head) are coming from – Horrors! – Japan!

I also learned more local folklore: The statue in the plaza near the park of a soldier holding a rifle used to – long ago – face the other way. But the ladies in the brothel on the second floor of the downtown establishments complained the soldier was peering into their windows, watching them with their clients. The prostitutes made enough noise, they eventually convinced the town fathers (surely they were men then) to rotate the statue.

There he stands, a few paces from the headless Lincoln.

I’ve posted a number of photos from my trip on my Flickr page. Check them out here.

Also, wish Carrie good luck – she’s defending her dissertation on Friday. I’ll try to post about that next weekend, which also happens to be graduation

Until then: Learn about Lincoln, hear funny tales from old men and see An Inconvenient Truth.

*Intimate Apparel, Bus Stop, The Importance of Being Earnest, Up and A Winter’s Tale

The Singularity Summit

I caught two speakers at Saturday’s Singularity Summit at Stanford University. Both tried to convince the audience of the importance of the topic. Singularity, in this context, refers to the point when science and technology bring “humanity beyond its boundary of intelligence,” according to the conference Web site.

The first speaker I heard, Eliezer Yudkowsky, argued that Artificial Intelligence has been the victim of “ethnic stereotyping.” Science fiction movies and novels depict robots plotting to kill out their creator, man. But, Yudkowsky said, those storylines presume the robots will have the motivation to kill humans.

Maybe they’ll be more interested in curing cancer. Or creating a giant cheesecake.

Nevertheless, Yudkowsky firmly believes AI, with its ever-increasing intelligence, will alter “the fate of the world.”

“In a hundred million years, no one’s going to care about who won the World Series, but they’ll remember the first AI,” Yudkowsky said. He ended with a call to action to those attending the one-day conference. His plea: give money to his nonprofit, the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

“This matter does require your action and attention, not just your applause.”

The second speaker was author Bill McKibben (“End of Nature,” “The Hundred Dollar Holiday”), who acknowledged that his role was to play the flat-earth believer in a room of techno-Columbuses.

(Ironically, McKibben appeared at the summit thanks to technology – he wasn’t present but rather appeared via a realistic 3-D image using a Teleportec.)

McKibben argued the quest for endless technological advances is only valuable if the end result makes us happier, not if it helps us live forever. Life only has value if it ends, he said.

A survey of the major works of the singularity field, according to McKibben, shows only a tangential interest in helping people live more fulfilling lives. Singularity’s leaders, he said, primarily seek answers to such pseudo-philosophical inquiries as, What is it like to peer into “the naked soul of man.”

“Forgive me,” he said, but such queries sound “like sentiments shared outside a Phish concert.”

More profound questions for McKibben: “Can I give you a hand with that?” and “Do you think you could ever love me too?”

Until next time: Avoid the deadly robots, call your mother and lend a hand.

(P.S. Adam and Christa visited last week. Here are some photos from their trip.)

No Going Back

Tonight I signed my offer letter, accepting the job at Gettysburg College, and put it in the big blue mailbox across the street, so the decision is now official and irrevocable.

To celebrate, we drank the bottle of Korbel pink champagne that we put in the fridge after I got back from my interview, just in case. We had an all-appetizer dinner: veggies-and-dip, smoked salmon canapes, and baby quiches. And we did the New York Times Earth Day puzzle. In under three hours - not bad.

So we really are going to Gettysburg. There's no turning back now. It's hard to believe that a month ago, I was still trying to put together my Job Talk.

I still have dissertating to do and we have packing and moving and apartment-hunting in our future, but tonight it's all pink champagne and basking in the glow of a a big decision made and checked off the list.

May life bring you good decisions, solvable puzzles, and pink champagne.

(Photo by Bill)

Dissertation Fuel

A confession: I eat M&M's when I write.

It's a bad habit I developed in high school, perfected as an undergrad, and now can't seem to shake. So I've been buying M&Ms to help me through the process of writing my dissertation. One packet at a time, because if I have a 1lb bag, I'll eat a 1lb bag (and spend the rest of the day regretting it, with an upset tummy and frantic jitters.)

Well, at Costco last night (while killing time before going to see Inside Man), I found the Holy Grail. A box of 48 individual serving size packets of M&Ms. That's right - 11,520 calories of dissertation fuel. A daily fix from now through the middle of June. A fortunate discovery, indeed.

While I'm busy combining gluttony and industriousness - work hard, play gently, and celebrate what passes by.

(Photo by Bill)

California Ovation

With our time in California runnning out, I'm finding myself signing up for things left and right, especially some classes I've always wanted to take. It's kind of a new take on the classic "What would you do if you knew you were going to die in three months?"

Here's a *partial* list:
*dinner and a play at the Magic Theatre with Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel;
*the Singularity Summit at Stanford University;
*a weekend playwriting class with the Playwrights Foundation;
*a four-day moviemaking class at the Bay Area Video Coalition; and
*a weeklong trip through Northern California, ending at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.

I'll write about each of them as they come and go ...

Until then: Get high, fly low and tread lightly on your neighbor.