Okay, I lied. Atlanta does not smell like flowers; Atlanta just smells. I was tired and drunk when I wrote that Atlanta smells like flowers. I don't like Atlanta and I am almost convinced Atlanta was trying to kill me. I did not feel safe there and it seemed more dirty and smelly than a normal city.

Things went well with the conference. I was in Atlanta for the week for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference and pre-conference. I was disappointed in the numbers some of our sessions got. We had well-prepared, informative presentations which deserved more attendees. But sometimes making solids out of marshmellows seems more enticing than learning about classroom connectivity.

One of the highlights for me was the keynote speaker, Thomas Friedman. He spoke about his book, "The World is Flat" which he is currently extending for the second time. He was marvelous. He looked sharp, gave a coherent and interesting talk that was animated and included humor. Another highlight was of course just being away in a new place with some friends for a short time. A change of scenery is needed once in a while. I did not get to do as much sightseeing as I wanted; my time there was quickly filled up with conference and work stuff.

Happy Hari Nyepi Everyone!

Hari Nyepi is the day marking the first day of the Balinese Saka calendar and is strictly observed island-wide with a day of absolute silence and meditation, including the shut down for a 24-hour period of the island's airport. All guest and inhabitants of the Island of Bali must take refuge in their hotels or homes before sunrise and stay there until the following morning. Not even television inside the home or hotel room is permitted.

Nyepi is determined using the Balinese calendar and the date for Nyepi changes every year, and there is not a constant number of days difference between each Nyepi. Whenever the new moon falls between mid-March and mid-April, that night will be the night of great activity, while the next day will be the day of total peace and quiet, where everything stops for a day.

Right now my father and sister are on the island of Bali and I can't help smirk at the idea of my dad sitting in a hotel room being quiet for an entire day. Hopefully they won't silently kill each other from bordem.

Sunday Baking

I got a craving for chocolate chip cookies this afternoon. So I headed to the kitchen to bake some. They turned out not so bad although perhaps I had more of a craving for cookie dough than actual cookies.

Tomorrow I am off to Atlanta. Even though it is a work trip I am quite excited about it. A change of scenery is much needed once in a while and I will take full advantage. I will try to update, but the updates may only be in photo form.

Zero is a silly card

I was playing Uno with a couple of 3-year olds. It wasn't Uno in the usual sense, but it was a game using Uno cards. One of the 3-year olds would pass out the cards to the rest of us and we would line them up on the table in front of us and match up colors if we wanted until the entire deck was dealt; whoever received the last card won - but that was arbitrary. All cards were shown to everyone and we could call out the numbers as they got passed out. The reverse, skip, wild, and draw 2 cards were deemed "silly cards" and put back into the Uno box.

And then came the first zero card.

The 3-year old who was dealing looked at the card for a moment and then said "silly card" and handed it to me to be put back in the box. Not a huge surprise, there is a lot of documentation regarding the trouble with zero. But what I found odd was when a 9 or a 6 came up for the first time. The 9's and 6's have a line underneath them to specify whether it is a 9 or a 6. The 3-year old looked at this card and passed it out to someone at the table. A nine (or six) with a bar underneath it is not a silly card but zero is. Huh. Symbolically I would think 9 with a line under it (or 6 with a line under it) is more confusing than a zero. I thought the 3-year old would have immediately dismissed the nine or six as silly but she didn't hesitate to pass this card out.

TED

This might be of interest to some...

The TED talks (Technology Entertainment Design) are now available as podcasts through iTunes. They have been available to download as mp4's from their website (although they haven't been available for that long).

TED2007 starts tomorrow and features such speakers as Philippe Starck (Designer), Carolyn Porco (Planetary Scientist), Stephen Pinker (Evolutionary Psychologist), Jeff Han (Founder/Chief Scientist, Perceptive Pixel, Inc.), Bill Clinton, Alan Kay (Computer Scientist and UI Specialist), JJ Abrams (Creator of LOST), and many more. This year 50 impressive people with various interests will share whatever they are most passionate about; as opposed to having a conference theme.

I have put several on my iPod but have only watched Barry Schwartz, Richard Dawkins, and Charles Leadbeater. All of which were really fantastic.

To get them from iTunes just do a search of TED from podcasts and it will pop up.

:(

Scarlett Hearts Reebok

Scarlett Johansson is now promoting Reebok with a "sporty new clothing line" called Scarlett Hearts Rbk.

It is surely a spiffy promotional move by Reebok and who doesn't love Scarlett Johansson?

Although after checking out the Reebok store, I think the name for the new clothing line really should be:
Scarlett + Reebok = $80 sweatpants