No good (environmental) deed goes unpunished…
By Brian | May 28, 2009
Here’s one for folks who, like me, are old enough to remember the Al Gore-like campaign to save the bald eagle:
PORTLAND, Maine
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Nerd Humor
By Brian | May 27, 2009
Nerd Humor from TumblFrog:
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Can’t go wrong with a good mime pun…
By Brian | May 26, 2009
Marcel Marceau’s personal items are going up for auction tomorrow.
Word is, it will be a silent auction.
(Thank you very much, ladies & germs. I’m here all night. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses…)
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 1 Comment »
New York City Sights – Madison Square Garden
By Brian | May 25, 2009
Not a particularly amazing picture this week (to truly photograph MSG well, you need a helicopter), but here it is:
Madison Square Garden – the “World’s Most Famous Arena,” or so they keep telling us. Home of the New York Knicks, the New York Rangers, the New York Liberty, and a virtually uncountable number of concerts and shows, including the Ringling Bros. Circus:
It’s also built directly over New York’s Penn Station, which is the train station I take to/from work everyday. So, to say the least, this is not an uncommon view for me.
Next week: What’s across the street?
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How to make Mickey blush
By Brian | May 23, 2009
Say what you want about the recession, but it’s bringing back nudity at Disneyland:
Disney parks stop scans for topless riders
May 5, 2009ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP)
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging, The Disneyverse | 1 Comment »
Expert Systems
By Brian | May 22, 2009
When I was in college, I took a CompSci course on what was then called “Expert Systems.” The idea was to build computer software that took a complex question with a large number of possible solutions (e.g., What is wrong with the patient?) and then ask a series of questions that would divide the possible solutions into two or more groups (e.g., Does the patient have a fever?). Based on the answer to the first question, one group of answers would remain possibilities, and the others would be declared wrong. Then, further questions could be asked to cull the list down even further. So, to carry on with the above example, if the patient had a fever, you could probably rule out things like gunshot or broken bone, and ask a question like “Does the patient have a rash?” If he/she did not have a fever, you might proceed with something like “Is the patient bleeding?” In the ideal world, you eventually get down to one possible solution, having ruled out all the others, and you have your answer.
The appeal of such systems at the time was that they could combine the knowledge of many experts into one repository, producing a system that was “smarter” than any one of the experts on his/her own. In other words, a given expert (a doctor, in the above example) would look at the question list, and add a question at a certain point in the “tree” that would further sub-divide the list of possible ailments vs. incorrect diagnoses. This led to discussions about artificial intelligence, which can basically be boiled down to “knowing a lot of facts doesn’t give you qualities like instinct, experimentation, or even common sense,” but I digress…
Today, systems like this aren’t necessarily curing patients’ ills, but they are quite prevalent in things like customer service centers. When you call that dreaded 800 number and finally get a human being (in India), and the person sounds like he/she is reading from a “script,” it is likely to be a system like this, hoping to get you to your answer in the minimum number of questions.
Anyway, I bring it up because someone recently pointed me to a neat little website called identifont.com. The site assumes you’re looking at a particular typeface and want to know what font it is. It asks you a series of questions, each designed to eliminate a bunch of fonts in it’s database. When it’s done asking questions, it “guesses” at the font you’re looking at (the one in the “remains possible” list with the highest calculated chance of success) and then gives you other alternatives to try if it guessed wrong (the remainder of the “remains possible” list).
In our web-filled world, I thought this was an excellent use of the Expert System approach. I’d also recommend they talk to my friend Jeff who has this freakish ability to distinguish between seemingly identical fonts using nothing but his own brain…
Categories: Tech Talk | 1 Comment »
A Shout Out to the Accenture Alumni
By Brian | May 22, 2009
I don’t normally post things here that only make sense to a select few people (normally, what I post makes sense to nobody! Hah!), but last night I attended Accenture’s annual alumni reception, and we spent a disturbingly high percentage of the time talking about blogs, Facebook, and other social networking tools. In the course of it, I promised I’d blog about some people, so here goes:
To Rich Wasch, who surprised me by telling me he reads this blog often – nice to have you here. I hope you like what you read and enjoy your upcoming travels!
To Suzanne Carlson and Jeff Turner, it was great seeing you last night. And don’t worry, I’m still adamantly refusing to join Facebook, so I won’t be clogging up your status page with the minutia of my life.
And to Steve Cooper, about whom I promised to blog something nasty (after he promised that he would never, ever read my blog), let’s just say that if I ever meet your wife, I have a story I can tell her about her about how her pregnant friends use Facebook.
Oh, and a special shoutout to Jennifer Ippoliti, who I know reads this blog. I saw you & waved to you, but never got to stop by & say hello. Let’s do lunch!
OK, the trap is set. Now let’s see how well Google and the various social networks of the web do their job of drawing the above people here to read and comment.
Go!
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 5 Comments »
Random Acts of Blogging – 5/20/09
By Brian | May 20, 2009
Two quick links that I found amusing:
There’s a guy in Philadelphia named Ted Vigilante running to be a judge in Philadelphia. His campaign ad (via YouTube) is called “Vigilante Justice 2.”
The Wall Street Run & Heart Walk took place yesterday in and around New York’s financial district. This from the event’s web page:
Please note that due to construction in the downtown area, the distance for this race has been changed from 5K to 3 miles.
So a bunch of Wall Street folks signed up for this event and contributed money, and then after they committed, the people in charge of it changed the rules on them. Why does that keep happening to Wall Street these days?
Categories: Random Acts of Blogging | 2 Comments »
New York City Sights – Radio City Music Hall
By Brian | May 20, 2009
As you can see in this handy, dandy map, my office building (50 Rockefeller Plaza) is actually the same physical building as Radio City Music Hall.
That made this set of pictures pretty easy to come by:
If you Google around, you’ll learn that the music hall holds almost 6,000 people and boasts a stage 20 meters deep and 44 meters wide (66.5 feet x 144 feet). You’ll also read that it used to be a movie theater (the largest in the world at the time), and that it houses the “Mighty Wurlitzer” pipe organ (4,410 pipes – the largest ever built for a movie theater). And, of course, you’ll read about the Radio City Rockettes, all 200+ of whom must be between 5’6″ and 5’10” to participate.
But what you won’t find out is this: how do they change that sign every day? No, no – for that information, you need to come here to Familygreenberg.com (“providing useless knowledge to the masses since 2005”). Just about every morning, I pass this plain, yellow cart filled with plastic panels engraved with letters:
and then two guys (both of whom are clearly not Rockettes, even if they are between 5’6″ and 5’10”) move slowly around the sign with a ladder and change each letter by hand.
I find this fascinating, since Radio City could probably put in an electronic LED display that could be changed from a laptop in their ticket office for less than the combined annual salary of these two guys. And yet, the cart, the letters, and the ladder live on.
Tradition!
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Learning from their mistakes
By Brian | May 13, 2009
Internal memo received at work today:
Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2009 1:28 PM
Subject: Authorized Flyover – May 20, 2009THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES A MILITARY FLYOVER AS PART OF THE FLEET WEEK FESTIVITIES
New York City Police Department advises [New Yorkers] regarding a military aircraft flyover that will occur on May 20, 2009 at 11:45 a.m. The flyover is part of the Fleet Week festivities and will include four military planes flying over New York City at a low altitude.
At approximately 11:45 a.m., four F-18 Hornets will pass over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge at an altitude of 2000 feet. The aircrafts will then turn and follow the Hudson River north over the assembled fleet while decreasing their altitude to 1000 feet. When the F-18s reach Pier 90, they will climb to 2500 feet and higher, exiting New York City airspace over the George Washington Bridge.
That’s more like it, folks. Thanks…
Categories: New York, New York, Political Rantings | 2 Comments »
