Friday I only had one meeting scheduled late, so I decided to brave the very foggy and rainy day and venture forth to the Sankeien Garden. It was out of the way, but I read great things about it, so not caring about pictures not turning out OK or getting lost, or getting wet, I went anyway.
I can only assume that the place was mostly empty because of the suboptimal weather, but I was very very happy to walk around there almost by myself.
[More pictures here]
Last Saturday I had the pleasure to attend Oxford’s Alumni Weekend with my son.
I knew he would not be the only teenager there, but I was surprised to see kids even younger than him accompanying their parents. The truth is that I wish I had brought him earlier. I’ll try to bring my daughter to the next one.
Besides the obvious networking opportunity, the true pleasure was to attend interesting lectures delivered by top academics, and to see my son actually interested in those lectures!
On May 6th, having just returned from quick trips to Cleveland and Atlanta, I attended with my wife the round table debate “Curiosity, Understanding, and Utility: Science and the Creative Economy” held at the City University of New York Graduate Center`s Proshansky Auditorium.
William Bialek, director of the Graduate Center`s Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences, moderated a discussion with Jennifer Tour Chayes, distinguished scientist and managing director of Microsoft Research New England and Microsoft Research New York City; Fernando Pereira, research at Google; and Chris Wiggins, chief data scientist at the New York Times and faculty member in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics at Columbia University.
Today I received this email (it was in Spanish, I have translated it into English because that is the main language of this blog, and in order to give this issue the international coverage that it deserves – sorry for any translation mistake since I am not a lawyer and he writes like an old-fashioned one trying to sound intimidating; here is the original):
Mr. Cortell:
Currently I am suing Greg Prévôt in the Courts of Barcelona, author of a defamatory site which infringes upon my honor, whose link appears in which you administer, at the following address:
Carna botnet offers us this amazing 24 hour visualization of relative IPv4 utilization observed using ICMP Ping requests.
Look at the data, just look at it! Dont you see peoples sleeping patterns, internet usage patterns, eating schedule habit, cultural differences, urban influence, regional inequalities…?
4 flights and 40 hours later (after having missed Japan Week), I am back in New York in the modern and technological Delta terminal (C, not D) at Laguardia Airport, with its tablets and card readers on all tables and bars at all bars and restaurants.What a difference from the Delta Terminal 4 at JFK! Luckily the new one will be finished in May, because the old one is falling apart.
[mudslide:picasa,0,111219615350942087056,5821499441712215169]
December 2nd I flew to Montevideo. I stayed at the Radisson Hotel, Plaza de la Independencia. Very conveniently located with some impressive views from the top floor. Good thing it had a pool, because it is not easy to keep my exercise regime when traveling so much.
Besides very productive meetings with IBM (very nice, professional, and friendly executives, by the way) and presentation to several hospital groups (one of the meetings at the Presidential Building, another one at the country`s largest hospital, and a presentation at the Solis Theater), I enjoyed the promenade by the river which seems like a sea, the old town, and a weird Ice Bar.
