we're going to a fiftieth birthday party in a few minutes, for Oddgeir. Not a regular American name, and he is not a regular American. He is instead, a Norwegian, a Norski as some of my high school buddies would have sneered. But the Olsen twins used to say, "ten thousand Swedes ran through the weeds, pursued by one Norwegian".
Odd how your life unfolds. I married a girl whose grandmother emigrated from Oslo Norway, three years before the 1905 revolution from Sweden. Then, as luck would have it, my first seatmate at HP was Johann Sverdrup, whose grandfather was the admiral of the navy in 1905 when they won independence from Sweden. When my daughter Cindy and I traveled to Tallberg Sweden and then toured Norway, we landed in a small village and found a statue near Alesund erected in his honor. Our discovery included the fact that he mostly ran a small ferry boat service, and that was a prime source of his Admiralty title. In fact, his father was Prime Minister and earlier had been Minister of the Navy, and they did have two gunboats.
Kristiania was the capital of the new monarchy in 1905; the name was changed later to Oslo. Oddgeir is from a town 200 miles south, Kristiansand, as is Signe Churton, married to Jenny's nephew David. I visited Kristiansand in 2005, staying with them and touring the area, including a lot of the Nazi armament areas, especially out on a neighboring island, Ny-Hellesund. As it turns out, Oddgeir has built a war commemoration for his homeland that attempts to capture some of the horror and anguish that such events cause for humanity. He has been at Stanford for a term, studying in the Communication school, and leaves for home this month.
Ironic too that another Sverdrup, Harald, is credited with leading Scripps School of Oceanography to new heights of excellence, and hiring Roger Revelle as his replacement in 1947. Revelle and James Lovelock would use Don Hammond's HP temperature probe to begin the deep ocean measurements that underpin much of our current knowledge about global warming.
Yet another relative, Otto Sverdrup, became known for his Arctic sea explorations, including claiming three islands off the coast of Canada for Norway, still known as the Sverdrup Islands. Norway ceded claims to these in 1930.
The world is a wonderfully small place. We are privileged today to go honor Oddgeir.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
You look like my grand-dad
He answered the e-mail graciously, saying he'd love to talk about the upcoming four hour hike, as well as the Nature Preserve. I noted in the e-mail that if he were the son of Sharon, then I "knew of his grandfather from Scouting in Inglewood" a long long time ago.
We met; he greeted me with a big smile and a hearty handshake. For fifteen minutes, he regaled me with stories about the land, restoring the native flora, and how this all happened. Then, to the hike question, which I parried by saying I really had a different question by now, for which I needed to ask his confidence and his indulgence.
As I started the phrasing, he stopped me, backed away, and said, "you are the spitting image of my grand-dad; I've been looking for the Masonic ring, you're like a ghost from the past." The story unfolded easily from there, until he asked if his mother knew. As I said "no" he blurted out "well, she is pretty open-minded. Do you want to meet her?"
Ten minutes later, as I walked up to her door, she met me with folded arms and a quizzical look. "what's the story" she demanded. I froze, and blurted out, "do you want the short version or the long one?" She said, "let's try the short one" which turned out to be a show-stopper.
Recovery was not instantaneous. But when it happened, it was marvelous in terms of humanity and bonds that can exist even though we don't know them, or can't even imagine them. We embraced; we cried; we laughed.
And then, myriad questions. Who, how, how long, did she, did he??? It turns out that genetics does determine lots of things we decided that afternoon -- hobbies, habits, mannerisms, looks, attitudes, figures of speech even. Wild. Delicious. And somehow fulfilling to know, finally.
We met; he greeted me with a big smile and a hearty handshake. For fifteen minutes, he regaled me with stories about the land, restoring the native flora, and how this all happened. Then, to the hike question, which I parried by saying I really had a different question by now, for which I needed to ask his confidence and his indulgence.
As I started the phrasing, he stopped me, backed away, and said, "you are the spitting image of my grand-dad; I've been looking for the Masonic ring, you're like a ghost from the past." The story unfolded easily from there, until he asked if his mother knew. As I said "no" he blurted out "well, she is pretty open-minded. Do you want to meet her?"
Ten minutes later, as I walked up to her door, she met me with folded arms and a quizzical look. "what's the story" she demanded. I froze, and blurted out, "do you want the short version or the long one?" She said, "let's try the short one" which turned out to be a show-stopper.
Recovery was not instantaneous. But when it happened, it was marvelous in terms of humanity and bonds that can exist even though we don't know them, or can't even imagine them. We embraced; we cried; we laughed.
And then, myriad questions. Who, how, how long, did she, did he??? It turns out that genetics does determine lots of things we decided that afternoon -- hobbies, habits, mannerisms, looks, attitudes, figures of speech even. Wild. Delicious. And somehow fulfilling to know, finally.
Meeting your sister for lunch
I met my sister Sharon for lunch a few weeks ago. Not so remarkable, most might say. But those who know me said, "I didn't know you had a sister." And, as it turns out, my sister didn't know she had a brother either.
It was actually quite a story. She is 73 years young, spry with a great dimpled smile, and teasing eyes that danced and sparkled -- just as I had imagined for years. I am her "little brother", four years younger, the result of a tryst between her father and my mother when they worked together. Each was married to another, and the resultant "love child" -- me -- was raised by my mother and her husband without (to my knowledge at least) him ever knowing that I was sired by another. I had one younger (half)-brother with whom I was raised; she had an older sister who died in early adulthood.
I've known that my origin was "mixed" for fifty years, the result of a coincidental blood test when I first got engaged to be married. Twenty-five years after that, my mother confided in me on a trip we made through Europe -- my genetic father by then had passed away. Ten years after that, at a 60th wedding anniversary for our Scoutmaster, I wound up chatting, no it was more like chattering, to a girl I was certain that I knew -- and she likewise, but we could find no common ground. The next morning, my mother said softly "that was your sister, but I couldn't introduce you there"
Well, as it turns out, it wasn't -- she was a first cousin; fifty-five years and a similar name does confuse things a bit. But on her deathbed, my mother asked me to "find out" if I could, and once her husband (my father, as I have called him for my whole life) passed away, I was "free" to pursue the question.
It was not as easy as the genealogy books would have you believe. But the real test was once I had an idea of who to seek, the next immediate question was HOW? Do you just knock on the door, and say, "Hi, I'm your long-lost brother." I decided against that strategy.
The real dilemma, of course, was that the other party, upon learning the news, may just not view it as the greatest of stories. Anger, denial, a rude dismissal -- all could be likely outcomes. How this transpired, and how it unfolded was in fact a wonderful story in itself.
It was actually quite a story. She is 73 years young, spry with a great dimpled smile, and teasing eyes that danced and sparkled -- just as I had imagined for years. I am her "little brother", four years younger, the result of a tryst between her father and my mother when they worked together. Each was married to another, and the resultant "love child" -- me -- was raised by my mother and her husband without (to my knowledge at least) him ever knowing that I was sired by another. I had one younger (half)-brother with whom I was raised; she had an older sister who died in early adulthood.
I've known that my origin was "mixed" for fifty years, the result of a coincidental blood test when I first got engaged to be married. Twenty-five years after that, my mother confided in me on a trip we made through Europe -- my genetic father by then had passed away. Ten years after that, at a 60th wedding anniversary for our Scoutmaster, I wound up chatting, no it was more like chattering, to a girl I was certain that I knew -- and she likewise, but we could find no common ground. The next morning, my mother said softly "that was your sister, but I couldn't introduce you there"
Well, as it turns out, it wasn't -- she was a first cousin; fifty-five years and a similar name does confuse things a bit. But on her deathbed, my mother asked me to "find out" if I could, and once her husband (my father, as I have called him for my whole life) passed away, I was "free" to pursue the question.
It was not as easy as the genealogy books would have you believe. But the real test was once I had an idea of who to seek, the next immediate question was HOW? Do you just knock on the door, and say, "Hi, I'm your long-lost brother." I decided against that strategy.
The real dilemma, of course, was that the other party, upon learning the news, may just not view it as the greatest of stories. Anger, denial, a rude dismissal -- all could be likely outcomes. How this transpired, and how it unfolded was in fact a wonderful story in itself.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Video Immersive variations
There are several basic modes available today for Video Immersive environments that have significantly different predicates and display modes:
1. Big wall environments for multiple-person conferences -- these are thought of primarily as the heavily hyped and expensive HP Halo and the Cisco Telepresence "rooms". The basic configuration -- six people in three blocs of two people -- on "each side" of a wide video wall is set up to approximate two groups of people who are not proximate, able to discuss topics while viewing the body language, facial expressions, and contextual settings of the "other side". Each system can be reduced to a "smaller room" for two people; a variation allows and sometimes emphasizes multi-point meetings, using each of the three two-person screens to represent a new site. Sound-actuation switching can multiplex many such "rooms" -- we've experimented with up to one hundred participants for ten hours in fifteen sites -- a major tour de force.
2. Big TV screen "windows" for multiple-person conferences -- these are seen in LifeSize, Tandberg, Polycom, and Vidyo systems among others. Each can show "another person elsewhere" in High Definition image, or with various "windowed" tiled pictures (think TV Picture in Picture), can show multiple attendees from multiple locales simultaneously.
3. Small Picture Point-to-Point. Think Skype Video, which is essentially a Video Phone ala the famous "failed experiment" of AT&T in 1964 and 1970.
4. Specialty systems -- The Northrup / Applied Minds capability features heavy "war-room" interactive screens for integrated artifact display and spreadsheet and textual presentation plus social networking tools, along with augmented video walls with blurred edges between "rooms" and experimental "auto-director" editing plus archival / retrieval capability.
1. Big wall environments for multiple-person conferences -- these are thought of primarily as the heavily hyped and expensive HP Halo and the Cisco Telepresence "rooms". The basic configuration -- six people in three blocs of two people -- on "each side" of a wide video wall is set up to approximate two groups of people who are not proximate, able to discuss topics while viewing the body language, facial expressions, and contextual settings of the "other side". Each system can be reduced to a "smaller room" for two people; a variation allows and sometimes emphasizes multi-point meetings, using each of the three two-person screens to represent a new site. Sound-actuation switching can multiplex many such "rooms" -- we've experimented with up to one hundred participants for ten hours in fifteen sites -- a major tour de force.
2. Big TV screen "windows" for multiple-person conferences -- these are seen in LifeSize, Tandberg, Polycom, and Vidyo systems among others. Each can show "another person elsewhere" in High Definition image, or with various "windowed" tiled pictures (think TV Picture in Picture), can show multiple attendees from multiple locales simultaneously.
3. Small Picture Point-to-Point. Think Skype Video, which is essentially a Video Phone ala the famous "failed experiment" of AT&T in 1964 and 1970.
4. Specialty systems -- The Northrup / Applied Minds capability features heavy "war-room" interactive screens for integrated artifact display and spreadsheet and textual presentation plus social networking tools, along with augmented video walls with blurred edges between "rooms" and experimental "auto-director" editing plus archival / retrieval capability.
Mistrusting your collaboration system
John Canny, EE/CS professor at Berkeley, said it well yesterday at our demo fair -- "The vendors are all busy selling Eye Candy, the High Definition screens for Video Conferencing, while ignoring Eye Gaze which is the most important single ingredient in effective communication."
I had opened the conference by asserting that every single system today on the market, with some minor exceptions in the HP Halo system and "the sweet spot" for Cisco Telepresence, builds subconscious mistrust, because they all have optics that nearly completely precludes looking the other person in the eye. Every culture on the globe, and virtually all animal species as well, use eye gaze for engagement and trust establishment. Every system that disbars eye contact creates a barrier to effective communication.
Jeremy Bailenson's opening keynote elaborated on my assertion; twelve speakers during the day affirmed the point, and the evening demos clearly established the problem, as well as some suggested technical solutions.
But Tuesday afternoon, LiveSize presented at the Sun Microsystems' sponsored MediaX Spring Lecture series, and said High Definition was the key, and that users "quickly" adjust to the lack of eye contact. Suzie Wu at HP confidently told Harlyn Baker, on the original HP Halo research team, that "people integrate the perceived view". And this afternoon, the Cisco and HP tours will allow the conference participants to form their own judgments.
Make no mistake -- these systems are awesome in many respects, and represent substantial improvement in capability (and sometimes cost) over anything previously available. But they ignore basic human psychology in dramatically important ways. It would be wonderful to imagine that the teams at the key companies -- Cisco, HP, Polycom, Tandberg, LifeSize, and the interesting newcomer, Vidyo -- would be putting key research into these subtle but vital aspects. Alas, the evidence is otherwise.
I had opened the conference by asserting that every single system today on the market, with some minor exceptions in the HP Halo system and "the sweet spot" for Cisco Telepresence, builds subconscious mistrust, because they all have optics that nearly completely precludes looking the other person in the eye. Every culture on the globe, and virtually all animal species as well, use eye gaze for engagement and trust establishment. Every system that disbars eye contact creates a barrier to effective communication.
Jeremy Bailenson's opening keynote elaborated on my assertion; twelve speakers during the day affirmed the point, and the evening demos clearly established the problem, as well as some suggested technical solutions.
But Tuesday afternoon, LiveSize presented at the Sun Microsystems' sponsored MediaX Spring Lecture series, and said High Definition was the key, and that users "quickly" adjust to the lack of eye contact. Suzie Wu at HP confidently told Harlyn Baker, on the original HP Halo research team, that "people integrate the perceived view". And this afternoon, the Cisco and HP tours will allow the conference participants to form their own judgments.
Make no mistake -- these systems are awesome in many respects, and represent substantial improvement in capability (and sometimes cost) over anything previously available. But they ignore basic human psychology in dramatically important ways. It would be wonderful to imagine that the teams at the key companies -- Cisco, HP, Polycom, Tandberg, LifeSize, and the interesting newcomer, Vidyo -- would be putting key research into these subtle but vital aspects. Alas, the evidence is otherwise.
Immersive Video communications
I'm currently in the midst of a fascinating conference, IMMERSCOM 2009, for which Ruzena Bajcsy and I are co-chairs. It is being held -- the first conference ever in this new site -- in the new CITRIS building at U C Berkeley, a grand testament to interdisciplinary research into IT (information Technology) and its impact on society.
At the moment, four of the best programs in the world in IT and its Impact on Society (what I called ISIS at Stanford for my course in 1984-1989 to honor the Egyptian goddess of motherhood and fertility and nurturer of the earth) are on the West Coast -- our own MediaX at Stanford, the CITS program at UC Santa Barbara, the STS program at Santa Clara University, and the CITRIS program, mostly at UC Berkeley with outposts at Merced, Santa Cruz and Davis. I co-initiated the UCSB program, and still sit on the Advisory Board. Over the past two weeks, the Chair of both the Santa Clara program (Bill Coleman, the "B" of BEA Systems) and Ruzena Bajcsy, the director of CITRIS, have reached out to propose joint activities amongst us.
It is high time... in my opinion... to consider the IMPACT of our technologies on the users and inhabitants of the world, rather than just focus on the Whizziness of the Technologies. Hard for us technologists to say, let alone do. But a few quick examples may make the point, which I will do in some subsequent posts.
At the moment, four of the best programs in the world in IT and its Impact on Society (what I called ISIS at Stanford for my course in 1984-1989 to honor the Egyptian goddess of motherhood and fertility and nurturer of the earth) are on the West Coast -- our own MediaX at Stanford, the CITS program at UC Santa Barbara, the STS program at Santa Clara University, and the CITRIS program, mostly at UC Berkeley with outposts at Merced, Santa Cruz and Davis. I co-initiated the UCSB program, and still sit on the Advisory Board. Over the past two weeks, the Chair of both the Santa Clara program (Bill Coleman, the "B" of BEA Systems) and Ruzena Bajcsy, the director of CITRIS, have reached out to propose joint activities amongst us.
It is high time... in my opinion... to consider the IMPACT of our technologies on the users and inhabitants of the world, rather than just focus on the Whizziness of the Technologies. Hard for us technologists to say, let alone do. But a few quick examples may make the point, which I will do in some subsequent posts.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The Dogs sure set up a racket
Memorial Day weekend dawned cool and windy in our part of the world. Needed a coat to walk the dogs, and I decided to forego planting for a couple hours. But by the end of Saturday, the rockwall out front was finally completed, and it looks almost like it had been there for years.
Sunday was Indianapolis race day, something that my dad never missed (except for once when we went golfing and Jenny turned off the recorder that he had so carefully adjusted to capture it). Castroneves won, despite my rooting for Danica Patrick. Jenny knew Castroneves from the Dancing with the Stars program -- fame has a great way of traveling.
And Monday, more of the same. Chilly. And then the dogs, barking and growling at a woodpile from our ongoing construction. Wow, noisy beyond belief. And then, directly, the cause -- a very large, very angry raccoon that they'd treed in our smallish Persimmon tree. He/she was quite upset with the din, and Zoe especially seemed oblivious to the idea that this thing was able to defend itself.
Fortunately, he was able to get from the tree branches onto the roof, and then onto the spruce tree out front, which he climbed with ease. Four hours later, he was still ensconsed some thirty feet up in that tree. Jenny came home, and saw this great pile of fur and she was mighty impressed. We were both glad that Zoe missed her goal.
The next morning, today, no sign of the big creature.
Sunday was Indianapolis race day, something that my dad never missed (except for once when we went golfing and Jenny turned off the recorder that he had so carefully adjusted to capture it). Castroneves won, despite my rooting for Danica Patrick. Jenny knew Castroneves from the Dancing with the Stars program -- fame has a great way of traveling.
And Monday, more of the same. Chilly. And then the dogs, barking and growling at a woodpile from our ongoing construction. Wow, noisy beyond belief. And then, directly, the cause -- a very large, very angry raccoon that they'd treed in our smallish Persimmon tree. He/she was quite upset with the din, and Zoe especially seemed oblivious to the idea that this thing was able to defend itself.
Fortunately, he was able to get from the tree branches onto the roof, and then onto the spruce tree out front, which he climbed with ease. Four hours later, he was still ensconsed some thirty feet up in that tree. Jenny came home, and saw this great pile of fur and she was mighty impressed. We were both glad that Zoe missed her goal.
The next morning, today, no sign of the big creature.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
