Then, I head over to the University of Toronto, go for a swim and settle down for three hours of a lecture on some Accounting subject. Right now, it’s Management Accounting. Focused on manufacturing, because that’s “the most complicated”. Really this means Cost Accounting. It’s getting more interesting as my teacher weens himself of PowerPoint…. Slowly.
Then I come home. Last week this was EASY. I just chipped away at the CanWest/Hot Docs development funding application for this project until I dropped. This week… Humm dee dumm dumm daaaaa….
Now what? Ali is out with friends, so there is no taunting him! Damn.
After a glass of ginger wine, I get the brilliant idea to install the Facebook “like” button from FileMobile’s Steve Hulford. Maybe you noticed it at the bottom of this post (hint hint).
Further shenanigans uncovered a GREAT post made by my friend, George Spofford in Facebook: IBM and the Muppets – NO KIDDING
Who’s your top “information” pioneer? I voted for Ken Iverson, of course. And also, of course, I arrived at the polling station through a winding route.
For those of you who don’t know me, if I’ve mastered anything in this life, it’s the art of wandering.
So, I’m reading this article that I have on actual paper. I’m fairly certain it was given to me by Alex Bochannek at the Computer History Museum when I was down there last year. I’m a little confused by its title, but the ACM published it in 1981* and I’m reading it because I’m getting ready to talk some more with Adin Falkoff. I bought one of those phone recording things, so we’ll see how that goes.
So, I went to sleep last night having just read that:
The first use of the Language [APL] to describe a complete computing system was begun in early 1962 when Falkoff discussed with Dr. W.C. Carter his work in the standardization of the instruction set for the machines that were to become the IBM Systems/360 family. Falkoff agreed to undertake a formal description of the machine language, largely as a vehicle for demonstrating how parallel processes could be rigorously represented.
Page 663
My Translation for the folks who just can’t swallow that quote: Adin Falkoff used APL to describe parallel processes, an important problem in computing that people are still working on today – back in 1962!
So, of course I get all excited when I read my rss feeds this morning and notice the Lambda the Ultimate folks are discussing an article the ACM just published about the Resurgence of Parallelism.
We gotta watch those ACM guys, though. They put out an article about the history of parallelism that mentions IBM’s System/360, Haskell, disruptive innovation – AND NOT US? Anyway, this is what got me surfing about APL & Parallelism, and lo; I get to vote for Ken as my favourite information pioneer.
And I’m quite confident there’s a Jedi Knight among us who can work up and post a clever comment for those ACM guys. Go to: Resurgence of Parallelism.
*It’s called APL Session and credits Chairmen: JAN Lee; Speaker Kenneth E. Iverson; Discussant: Frederick Brooks and then has a secondary title: Paper: The Evolution of APL, Adin D. Falkoff;Kenneth E Iverson. ISBN 0-12-745040-8.
Well thank goodness I’ll be missing the G20 Summit in Toronto.
James-B, from Toronto’s Jazz FM radio station, one of our local a celebs who get his morning coffee at the cafe, asked how school was going because he saw me studying the other Saturday and the book I was reading looked haaarrddd!
Well, I’m an artist, so I need a plan B, Accounting.
James then informed me that the average, AVERAGE salary of an artist in Toronto 22K per year, which means some people make LESS.
Well, yes, I know.
This sure puts the billion dollar price tag on Toronto’s G20 Summit security into perspective, DOESN’T IT, he went on to say. Which brings me back to my point: I don’t have to worry about being kicked out of my own city because I’ll be in NEW YORK! YAY! 14 days to go! I love this job!
Jazz FM 91 is my father’s favouirte radio station, by the way.
Oh crap! I forgot to fill out a media request for the Stock Exchange.
Those of you who are following me on Twitter know full well what I was up to today. Or at least this afternoon. I was being-the-change for a conference called My Charity Connects which is all about teaching non-profits how to use cyberspace – social networking and cloud computing, stuff like that.
But before that something even better happened. I can’t tell you right now what… But something very exciting. Actually – someone – very exciting!
I know, I know… Social change and technology one day, Wall Street the next.
Really, it all comes together as one big love story. Just you watch.
APL array language family as love story! Oh! My!
But seriously folks, I’ve done it again. Things are shifting so quickly as new folks join the team, I’m suffering from whiplash. Of course, at the same time I scrambling frantically to get get my butt from Toronto to NYC next week. All I have to say is: Meet Me in Manhattan!
Tuesday June 22, 2010
Starts: 04:30PM
Ends: 09:00PM
I must be getting used to all this travel business, because my pre-trip anxiety is milder this time around. It hit me on Friday, but then passed and last night… no huge panic. My mum says that the fleeting feeling of what-the-hell-am-I-doing-are-you-completely-insane-or-what? is called an anxiety attack. And she would know, she’s a doctor.
Whew. So, I’m settling into this documentary film business and walking out the door in about two hours. I’ll be arriving in Newark a bit passed noon. YAY! I’m looking forward to seeing Gitte, Brooke, Morten, Simon, Janet & Michael (who you don’t know yet) this week.
How that for brandless name dropping? Pretty useless, huh? All in good time.
If packing for this trip is a metaphor for the state of my documentary, I’m for sure still in the before stage.
I hear, that’s how it goes with documentary film making… And to quote my new mentor,
You’re now on a voyage of discovery, and that voyage is to some extent, unmappable and unpredictable, but I will say I’m convinced you’re headed in the right direction, and you know what some of the fundamental challenges are. That’s enough for now.
I’m still in New York and of course… it rocks. Right at this minute, I’m in Bryant Park!
Who wouldn’t get great material and fresh ideas in this crazy-busy city? Between interviews, I’m exploring around almost everywhere: Manhattan, Queens & Brooklyn. On the lucky days, I get personal tours from array language folks.
Yesterday’s tour with Devon McCormick, of the J-language Jedi, included searching for cool used computer science and math books. Of course, we were on the look-out for Iverson and company.
I have to confess, I’m not too excited about going home. Even though it’s between 33 and 34 degrees Celsius here in NYC. And it’s only June.
Yesterday I walked around the Financial District with my big camera collecting “B-roll” for my demo. I started the day at the World Trade Center to tape rush hour at 9am. I felt a little too self conscious so close to Ground Zero, so I’m not thrilled with what I got. But later my foray onto Wall Street went pretty well, so… Good.
Now I’m off to catch my flight home to my somewhat rattled city – I mean, Yikes! Toronto made the news in NYC twice since I’ve been away. What!?! An earthquake at 5.5 and riots. RIOTS! ?
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