Every wonder what was on the Bath Logo?
I did.
I enjoy sports, although I'm not good at
any. I'm not one of those people who just says they're bad, I
really am uncoordinated, but for some reason I enjoy things anyway.
At MIT I played soccer
with The
Cold Booters (I founded their
C-league team) and D-league ice hockey with the
Halting Problem
in 1995 & 2000 (I got to play D league 2 years because I never
learned
to skate). In Edinburgh I managed to find 3 different weekly bad
soccer
games. When I first came to Bath, sometimes the Math & CS
grad students let
me play football with them,
and Marina De Vos played
squash with me, but then I ran out of time for that. More often I hill walk (mostly to
work in Bath), cycle (mostly to work in Mannheim) and play
very occasionally play ping pong.
Every wonder what was on the Bath Logo?
I did.
I was stunned to learn that I have an MP3,
from my usenet music
days. I never could play lead, even pre-RSI. You really can find
anything on the net. Maybe I should start collecting art, well, art
links.
The best supported theory in science is
the theory
of evolution. We don't understand evolution perfectly, but we
understand it better than we understand
gravity. If you don't know basic evolution theory, you will have
trouble understanding not only biology, but also modern theories of
society (including religion) and intelligence (including artificial
intelligence).
So
what did you think of MIT?
That's not actually what I thought, but it seems a pretty good
answer anyway.
If I'd actually been male & undergraduate, I probably would
have joined
TEP, rather than the
relatively mainstream sounding frat the above guy was
in, but it's difficult to survive MIT without some kind of a housing group.
I survived because of Pearl Tsai (now Renaker), Eva Patalas & Elizabeth Wilmer.
For something more like my actual experience as an AI lab grad student
from the 8th floor, check out the GSB
archives.
Politics... Since I'm a US citizen but live abroad I vote at my last US residence, which is in the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts. My US congresspeople are Elizabeth Warren (no number yet, Ted Kennedy's was 565-3170), John Kerry 565-8519 and Michael E. Capuano 621-6208 (Rep for Cambridge and Somerville). Write your U.S. Representative. Click here to find out where to vote if you are in Massachusetts. Cambridge Civic Journal.
For a long time, this bit of my web page said "I'd like to have a president
who believes in science", but I've now raised my sights to having a president
who understands science. And I'd be happy to help!
I campaigned for Senator Paul Simon for president in 1988, Al Gore
in
2000, and Robert
Reich for Massachusetts governer in 2002. None of them won,
but
they sent me to Des Moines
Iowa, Oberlin Ohio, and Worcester Massachusetts,
respectively, which was at least interesting.
A couple of
good causes:
See also my page on Information for Americans.
The Better Business Bureau has online reports about (at least American) charities. The Consumer Price Index lets you compare prices and wages across years. Are you interested in US Constitutional Law?
My Past... In case you are trying to figure out if you know me, or if you just want to know about some really cool people and places, here's my life's history:
I am late of Marc Hauser's Lab at Harvard, the MIT AI Lab, the Division of Informatics and the Department of Psychology of the University of Edinburgh, LEGO both Futura (Boston Branch) and Digital / Darwin (Billund, Denmark), Marble Associates, LaSalle Street in Chicago, The College of the University of Chicago, and Glenbard North Highschool (I started 2 years after these guys graduated!), Saturday morning physics at Fermi Lab, Jay Stream Jr. High and Roy De Shane Elementary School. My three schools were all in Carol Stream, Illinois (I lived on this street from 1970-1982.) I spent the late 60's in Omaha, Nebraska (but I don't remember them,) and I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, like Herbert Simon.
Family stuff: my sister's web page and my brother-in-law's twitter account.
Do you need a foundry? (do you want your sculptures in brass?) My best friend from highschool, Amy Sterly works there...
 |
I've never owned a car. (I'd like to live here. Walk to Bath!) I sometimes rant. |
Quote of the random time interval:
"It's easy to lie
with statistics, but it's easier to lie without them."
[Since Winter 1996] I must acknowledge Will Lowe, though I can't say for what in public. (Parse that in British!)
MIT photo on this page [from Fall 1994] by Prof. Fernando J. Corbató.
[February 2002] CPI info is from Will Miller's home page.
[Since January 2003] My front page uses CSS style sheets. It is based on the old CSS home page, by Bert Bos. If you have any problems with it, let me know, or try a more CSS compliant browser, like Mozilla (any version greater than 0.8). Far cooler CSS stuff.
[January 2004] Behind this woman is Dr. William Lowe. Let it be known that Will taught me most of what little I know about science, philosophy and matlab (and history); he does fascinating research into both semantics and politics; and without whom I wouldn't be breathing (so heavily).
[January 2004] The woman in front of Will and me taking the
picture is Marty Bryson.
[April 2007] Photo on the front page is now by Will Lowe (coincidently.) The one on the top of this page I took myself, sort of.
[August 2008] Thanks to Paul Albers for pointing out that "jjb ahhht cs daht bath daht ac daht uk" doesn't make sense if you're not phonetically fluent in American English. I guess confusing computers without confusing people is getting harder -- we must be winning at building AI!
