Back from China

Went to China at the start of the Summer to visit with Shulan’s family in Nanjing, and also took a trip to Beijing for a bit of sight seeing. This was just after the major earthquake in Chungdu, so as you see it has been some time since I got back, but wanted to post a few notes about the trip.

First some pictures. A lot of these are from our trip up to Beijing to do some sightseeing. We took an overnight sleeper train up north to get there, which was fun, haven’t done that since I was a child. But I’m sure the enjoyment factor would fade quickly after the novelty factor wears off. We got to see some of the Olympic buildings constructed for this summer, including the new main stadium known locally as the Bird’s Nest. We went and saw many of the historical sights while in Beijing, including the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, and of course since I was with Shulan sampled many of the authentic cuisines of Beijing, searching out the locals favorite restaurants and foods.

As you can imagine I was following the events of the earthquake quite closely. There was an amazing outpouring from the Chinese people while we were there. And the openness and effectiveness of the organized government response was equally impressive. Hopefully their openness signals some permanent future trends, and will not revert to old ways say after the Olympics. I know for example the criticisms by especially the parents of possible irregularities in construction techniques, especially for school and other public buildings, are beginning to be discouraged and quieted more and more by the Chinese officials. We will see if they can close the barn door after letting the horses of progress out this time.

Some of my favorite coverage of the Chengdu Earthquake came from NPR. I am a listener and supporter of public radio, and they happened to have some of their radio reporters in Chengdu for a feature on China focusing on Schizuan providence when the earthquake struck.

Rest in Peace Pappert.

Pappert: 1990-2008

She was a good cat.

noosphere

Main Entry: noo·sphere
Pronunciation: ‘nO-&-”sfir
Function: noun
Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary noo- mind (from Greek noos, nous) + sphere sphere
: the sphere of human consciousness and mental activity especially in regard to its influence on the biosphere and in relation to evolution

And welcome to my newly born Meta-Cortex. I am finally taking the plunge and starting a wee blog of my own. Most all of my professional content will (eventually) be moved over and available on the static pages of this address. But, in a bit of a change for me, I do plan to offer quite a bit more personal content than I have been used to previously on my own web pages.

Where to begin. I’ll leave lengthy details to my About pages, for those really interested. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Texas A&M University here at the Commerce campus. I suspect, like many other blogs, that most of my personal content will tend towards, and generally be related under the broad category of Techno Geekry. I thought I might, just to kick things off and in no particular order, start with a standard old boring favorites list:

• Favorite Book
  • Toughie. Like all academics I can imagine if I were that guy in the Twilight Zone episode, the last guy alive contemplating a life time of solitude in which to catch up on his reading, I too might be deliriously happy (not to mention my eyesight is 20/20 so no worries there). Should I mention Viktor Hugo’s “Les Misérables“, maybe pick Kelso’s “Dynamics Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior“, or perhaps along a similar professional line Hofstadter’s incomporable “Godel, Escher, Bach“? I think perhaps I’ll just settle on something simplier, but probably my all time favorite: “The Tao of Pooh” by Hoff
• Favorite Development System / Computing Platform
  • Let see, I grew up hacking 6502 assembly and Basic on an Apple II computer. (I’ve recently been playing around with virtualization on my Fedora Core 7 laptop, I wonder if there are any 6502/Apple II emulators available?) I am pretty much a hard core Unix/Linux developer, Emacs editor, make system , subversion versioning kinda guy. I must admit, though, I sometimes truly pine for my days as a NextStep developer. Nothing yet has quite matched that feel of simplicity and power, especially the GUI development tools, sigh…
• Favorite Fiction Book
  • I couldn’t really choose just one book, especially since I am a big fiction reader, mostly Science Fiction by nature. I grew up reading the classics, Heinelein, Sturgeon, Niven, Clark. Currently I am quite fascinated with so called post-humanist or singularity SF. Especially check out Vinge’s “True Names” for a great, and still possibly the best example of the genera. Stross is currently blazing away on my fiction radar. Get his “Accelerando” for what I consider his best so far.
• Favorite Movie
  • Wizard of Oz, no wait… Godfather, no wait… Monty Python and the Holy Grail, no wait…
• Favorite Editor
  • Emacs
• Favorite Scientist
  • Alan Turing
• Favorite Color
  • Blue, no yellow. aughhhh (c.f. favorite movie)