On Friday at G4G9, magician Derek Hughes asked Neil to come on stage with him for his act. Unfortunately for Derek, Neil has spent the morning listening to talks from illusionists on perspective and misdirection. My video is just awful, but the dialogue between the two of them is great: Derek has made Neil promise…
Category: Daft Musings
Hackers Hacking Conway’s Game of Life
There were only a few talks scheduled for Saturday morning, since we were all going off to the party at Tom’s house that afternoon, but they were very good talks. Al Seckel, who wrote Neil’s favorite illusions book, gave a talk about the Nature of Belief: how our own biases affect our perception, and how…
The Puzzlers’ Philosophy
G4G9 invited both those who like to make puzzles, and those who try to solve them. So when I had the chance to speak to one of the puzzle-solvers, Joe DeVincentis, I asked him how he goes about solving puzzles. He told me the first step is to figure out what kind of a puzzle…
Neil Meets Wolfram
Towards the end of the Friday lectures, I left Neil to go up to the hotel room and clean myself up for dinner. I dawdled, so when I went down, the G4G9 attendees were scattered, and I was unable to find Neil anywhere. Sure that we’d crossed paths, I set myself at the cocktail party,…
Neil Meets His Heroes at G4G9
As I discovered, the dress code for G4G9 is “math professor.” I made the mistake of dressing “business,” and ended up being confused with Ritz-Carlton staff. However, my costume turned out to be handy for crashing a business party upstairs and making off with a free glass of champagne. G4G9 is Neil’s ultimate party: it’s…
Our G4G9 Pre Preview
Bill Gosper travelled with us to Atlanta for G4G9. He gave us a first taste of what it might be like, when at 5:30 am on Tuesday morning, he absent-mindedly accessed the 6th dimension and bypassed the security check at the airport. Since I was holding his boarding pass, this confused everyone, so we called…
Ghost Jobs
Recently, a friend of mine quit her job because she objected to the ethics of her most recent employer. For one thing, he’d ask her to post job positions on Craigslist, with no intent of ever filling the job. For him, it was a cheap research tool–he’d cull the incoming resumes for the most qualified…
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Me is Already Public
A few weeks ago, I went to a job interview, and I was surprised how well-briefed all my interviewers were about me already. Did they want a copy of my resume? Well, no thanks, they’d already downloaded it from my LinkedIn profile. How about examples of my previous work? No worries–they knew who I had…
A Parking Ticket Leads to Some Random Relevations
A few days ago, I received a parking ticket in the mail. It was a surprise, especially since my car itself had not had a ticket on its dashboard after having been cited. I had parked in downtown San Jose in a metered parking spot, and carefully checked the meter, which was posted as only…
My First CES
At the spur of the moment last month, Peter and I decided to get tickets to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the monster industry show where you can see and try out all the new gadgets and electronics goodies scheduled to come out in the next year and beyond. Peter had told me it was…