L.A.B. Unleashed

What is the next three letters in this sequence: T F S E

A 6th grade math problem posed to a group of parents at "Back to School Night". 

Kevin and I were just chillin’ in typical Wednesday night fashion.  Dancing with the Stars was on, a personal favorite of mine, and we were just finishing up dinner … Indian Curry – YUM!  Next thing I know, Kevin turns to me with a stunned look on his face and says, ""there is a bird in our house".  I look over at the window, and sure enough, a little bird was fluttering at the window.  He swooped right in and was now caught on the opposite window.  Level headed and a quick thinker, Kevin didn’t panic …. confirmation of why I married him!

If you find yourself in this precarious position, follow these easy steps …
First observe that there is a bird trapped in your house, as I did below.  Similar to saying to a choking victium, "are you choking".  It seems like a step you could skip, and I find it optional, but it is always noted in the "life saving" documentation:

Next, Step 1: Get a towel and gently cover the subject

Step 2:  Carefully move subject in towel to open window:

Step 3: Eject arms outside of open window, towel and subject in hand, and gently release:

The last and unmentioned step is to vigorously wash the dirtty bird towel, because they carry diseases, such as a kind of deadly Flu.  Although it was a close call, all is well now in the Busque house hold … phew!

I attended a Sametime 7.5 demo yesterday afternoon in Cambridge and it was impressive!  The new Sametime is jam packed with features … think built in VOIP, emoticons, spell check, and embedded screen captures.  The presentation was nicely done, and it included a brief video of a few IBMers at work and how they have integrated Sametime 7.5 into their daily lives. 

The thing that really stuck with me is that Sametime 7.5 is so much more than instant messaging software.  It is its own platform, and beyond IM’ing, it supports web meetings, integration with your PBX phone systems, mobile phone support, and so much more. 

Today I downloaded the 7.5 gold + 1 version and tried out some of the new flashy features.  The overall look and feel is slick, and everything is so intuitive it’s easy to just jump right in and begin using the product.

The button highlighted in red, is how you get the screen capture I took in the Sametime window above. 

To check out a webcast of the launch event that happened in New York last week follow this link.

We had a wonderful weekend up at Lake Winnipesaukee with some friends.  They were nice enough to even invite the giant, drooling, monster we like to call our dog.  We went up to a gorgeous lake house on Sleepers Island, only accessible by boat.  It was a crisp fall weekend, but still warm enough to get some water sports in.  Kevin and our host Ryan treated us to a "Disneyesqe watersking show",

while Sarah, the dogs, and I relaxed passing the day with some cocktails.  The dogs were WAY into the cocktails!  Hinckley, a little black pug, was especially captivated by vodka tonics. 

This just about sums up the weekend for Kobe … he was tired on Sunday morning from all the swimming in the lake on Saturday …. big ol’ yawn …

I was riding out of Charlestown today, on my way to work, and noticed a vintage white Piaggio scooter swing around the corner in front of me.  Very classy looking scooter.  I am starting to see more and more scooters out there on the streets,  the classy and the not so classy.  All and all, I have seen many more this summer than last summer even.   We gave each other the standard scooter nod, you know … it’s kind of like the Jeep wave, a quick "what up" head nod to say "hey … nice to see another scooterer out there … isn’t it so much fun?!".  After the exchange of nods, we continued on our trails only to realize that we were headed to the same place.  While waiting in a bit of traffic on the bridge to Cambridge, I pulled up next to him we exchanged pleasantries.  The standard questions were asked, and my responses were this is a Honda, it gets 100 miles per gallon, I’ve been riding it to work for a couple summers now.  He shared that his scooter is a ‘82 Piaggio and he has to fill it up on a weekly basis.  Wow … what a difference 20 years makes in the scooter industry!  He then asked if I wanted to join his scooter gang, where we would ride around town reeking havoc where ever we went.  I politely declined, but thanked him for the generous offer. 

Every time I go out for a ride, someone always stops to make a friendly comment, or wave as I ride on by.  That has been a large part of the fun of riding around town.  Of course you get the other, less friendly comments too.  For instance, outside the Galleria the other day a group of teenage boys were screaming at me to pop a wheelie.  You should have seen the looks on their faces when I actually did!

It’s every math lovers fantasy … to solve the unsolvable problem.  Here’s a real story of that actually occurring by accident (Thanks Art)!

Dantzig, believing he was working on a couple of "homework" assignments, instead solved two famous "unsolvable" problems that had stumped generations of statisticians. A legend was born.

But what were these two famous math problems?  It is not noted in the urban legend story, and I was curious.  I did a little more digging and found that one of the problems was Gosset/Student problem – a problem in the area of statistics.  The problem was proposed by Wiliam Gosset to provide a mathematical basis for the Gosset or Student T distribution function.  Gosset wrote under the pen name "Student" while he worked at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.

Dantzig’s incredible story even inspired the movie Good Will Hunting.  It’s interesting to think about what Dantzig would have done if he had known the problems where "unsolvable".  Would he have even attempted a solution?  It goes to show, when your mind knows no barriers, anything is possible.