Wednesday

02009-06-10 | Uncategorized

Yesterday, I dropped my car off for an oil change before 08:00 and since I don’t like sitting in a room with a blaring TV (((why do car dealers always have a TV set on stun in their waiting rooms?))) I walked to the Treehouse for breakfast. At 10:00 I got together with Michael Chavez, who arrived on his BMX bike, for a fun hour of Bulerias-playing in my studio. After Michael left I enjoyed a few hours of guitar playing – I started playing the 2002 Negra for the solo performances in San Francisco in a couple of weeks and it was like visiting an old friend – and a few hours of work on the slideshow, which I think is coming along well. Here are a couple of new clips:


Today, I woke up to heavy rain. No leaks in the house, outside everything was glistening, and the trees were reaching toward the sky. Amazing how much growth piñons can produce after a rain!

First movie premier on YouTube:
Home by Yann Arthus Bertrand. You can watch it for free on YouTube until June 14th.

This sounds great!! Can’t wait to see it myself:

Inhabitat » New York’s High Line Park in the Sky Opens Today!
An elevated park in the sky built on top of the skeleton of an old rail system? It may have sounded impossible only five years ago, but today, the eagerly awaited High Line elevated urban park officially opens for thousands of New Yorkers looking to escape the hubbub of the city below!

File under education, culture and future:

Slashdot News Story | China Dominates In NSA-Backed Coding Contest
“With about 4,200 people participating in a US National Security Agency-supported international competition on everything from writing algorithms to designing components, 20 of the 70 finalists were from China, 10 from Russia, and 2 from the US. China’s showing in the finals was helped by its large number of entrants, 894. India followed at 705, but none of its programmers was a finalist. Russia had 380 participants; the United States, 234; Poland, 214; Egypt, 145; and Ukraine, 128. Participants in the TopCoder Open was open to anyone, from student to professional; the contest proceeded through rounds of elimination that finished this month in Las Vegas. Rob Hughes, president and COO of TopCoder, says the strong finish by programmers from China, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere is indicative of the importance those countries put on mathematics and science education. ‘We do the same thing with athletics here that they do with mathematics and science there.'”

That last sentence is funny/true enough, but along came this commenter who put it in perspective:

Slashdot News Story | China Dominates In NSA-Backed Coding Contest
What’s worse, the quote isn’t even true.
We don’t do the same thing with athletics here as they do with math and science over there. In fact, they do the same thing with athletics as they do with math and science.
That is, they consider athletics to be important and encourage every child to participate in at least one sport.
We, on the other hand, idolize a very small number of top achievers and encourage every child to watch them on TV.