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Showing posts from February 10, 2008

LavaCon 2026 and the future.

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LavaCon is a conference now going on 25 years. Its always fun at conferences where folks collaborate on what the future holds. This year I drove to Charlotte NC from Duluth GA to attend. I used the Tesla in Full Self Drive. I went park-to-park without touching the wheel for over 200 miles. It's crazy. I don't think most people understand how well it works. Lots of nay-sayers still, but it really does work. Be on guard, but enjoy. I spent some of my time "driving" while conversing with Grok as part of my daydreaming. I was discussing with Grok an idea I have of building a West system (cold molded) old style barrel-back runabout maybe 20 feet long- all varnished Mahogony. Of course this boat would have an exotic 12-cylinder engine under a transparent engine hatch between the twin cockpits. We discussed the designs, available actual study plans and pre-lofted design documents for the hull. We also discussed the best engine (perhaps a BMW N73) coupled with a Velvet Dri...
Some cool stuff at the conference. NLP or Natural Language Processing is a way of the future. Computers are fast enough. It is time to have the tools to copy edit english. The payoffs are huge in translation and quality management.
Pilots Arms Next time you have the opportunity look at your pilot's arms. The arms are not strong in an obvious sense. You would think that the particular part of the hero-body that with literal single-handedness guides hundreds of tons of metal and humanity would be well-formed, masculine and muscular. In fact, these very arms countering fears of passengers actually appear weak, almost stick-like. The elbow seems to drop from the shoulder unsupported, without the expected thigh-sized bicep. The short sleeve appears large and underfilled. There are tendons strongly connected from the core without strenght, but filled with confidence and grace. In place of muscle there are highly developed nerves in the elbow and shoulder that firmly connect with the brain and the art of flight.
I am on my way to North Carolina for the FrameMaker Chautaqua conference. This is a meeting of XML, DITA, FrameMaker nerds from around the world. I am waiting for my flight out of the Binghamton airport. There has been quite a weather delay. The driving was terrible. I almost went off the road this morning. The 4WD helps me get up the hills, but it doesn't do much otherwise. It actually creates a fair amount of oversteer. I am refinancing the farm. I am surprised how and fast and efficient the process has been so far. The property appreciated quite a bit in the 6 years we've owned it.
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The roads continue to be slick and unpredictable. It would be one thing if the roads were plain slippery, but they are clear and then occasionally have patches of ice or are otherwise changeable. It was 7 below zero F this morning. This guy's company car got stuck just south of here on RT 15 in PA.
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I ended up in Watkings Glen Saturday. I went to the Rochester Public Market went and saw some friends and generally had a very full day. This is the falls at Watkins Glen. Some weird and unlikely coincidences came up again with some friends who knew each other and didn't know me.