Entries tagged with motsscon20

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Lunch at Google

Jason (

nooks) and Harry hosted our tour at Google on Friday where we ate lunch and saw the many other places where you could eat. It was quite impressive to see the huge variety of food offered. Searching for food at Google is a no-brainer.

A special feature in one place was the bad-junk-food vending machine that charged an amount proportional to how bad (salt, sugar, transfat) the item was; the rest of the food at Google is free.

It's interesting that the Google sign hanging on the wall in the dining room wasn't in the standard Google colors that were prevalent everywhere else, even on the ice cream.

I think this is what Ned (

baybryj) was holding up:

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At San Francisco MOMA

On Tuesday, after lunch with Ned (

baybryj), Lars, and Jed )

jdev)

rsc and I went to San Francisco MOMA before the baseball game.

There were several special exhibits there (closing in mid-september). Matisse: Painter as Sculptor was particularly interesting in that it showed the relationship between his sculptures and painting and how he attempted to learn about what he was seeing and doing by switching from one medium to the other while depicting a subject. Also there were several instances of the same sculpture done at different times - where he'd make a mold of a casting out of clay, carve it up to change it (hair, facial properties, etc,) and then make another casting.

There was an extensive exhibition of photos Martin Munkacsi: Think While You Shoot!. He was originally a Hungarian sports photographer who branched out with lots of interesting takes on people.

There were a couple of pieces by Felix Schramm which I characterize as a spaceship made out of wall-board crashing into a room in the museum - parts of which were seen in an adjacent room. Since I was obey the no photos rule I didn't take any pictures of it.

Project, Transform, Erase: Anthony McCall and Imi Knoebel was an additional exhibit. In a dark room there was a projector with light and a smoke generator that created a cone of light with a varying pattern on the edge of the cone when seen from the side. People experimented with variations by standing in the light beam or waving their hands in it. The pattern of light which was projected on the wall was constantly changing.

try this.

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The Gamble Garden in Palo Alto

On Sunday (the 19th if I have my days right) we visited the Gamble Garden in Palo Alto. It had a mixture of formal and informal gardens with vegetables and flowers and several buildings (which were closed to the public because it was Sunday). The Rose garden was a bit past it, but there were lots of beautiful flowers.

We were sitting under this tree after most of us were finished looking at the garden

( some flowers )

( As you can see, other people took pictures of flowers )

( Another garden )

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Sunday trip to the American Heritage Museum in Palo Alto

On Sunday (Aug 19) some of us motss.con goers went to the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto. This is a historic house with early 20th century furnishings. There is also a room set up as a store and the garden houses a print shop among other things. Some things in this place looked a lot like

unzeugmatic's apartment except that he has more stuff.

( All the conveniences of home )

( Some more stuff - vibrators and the print shop )

( People seen in the garden )

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Saturday museums in San Jose

On Saturday as part of the motss.con trip to San Jose we went to several museums. On the way from the CalTrain station we crossed the Guadalupe river, which wasn't much of a river at this point, but there certainly were some interesting colors.

( Nearby were these swarms of bugs )

We went to the San Jose Quilt Museum, a lovely place that had several exhibits with War and Patriotism themes. Most of the quilts were from Afghanistan with emphasis on the Soviet occupation. There were also South African apartheid and Iraq themes as well. Some typical rugs whose pictures I snarfed:

( And then there were these knitted bombs in the entrance )

We also went to the San Jose Museum of Art. Among other things they had a striking exhibit of paintings by Martín Ramírez, a man who spent most of his life in a mental institution and did all his painting there. This exhibit closes Sept 9. Also there was an exhibit of Camille Rose Garcia (closing Sept 23) which is described as follows:

"an artist emerging from the Los Angeles underground scene, whose narrative-based works express an acute political consciousness. The artist’s seemingly light-hearted paintings and drawings of charming cartoon-like characters actually depict dark tales of violence, corruption and greed, and seek to comment on the turmoil of contemporary society."

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At the computer museum

Our friday trip to the Computer History Museum was interesting. We were led by a docent backwards through time and listened to his stories that at least to me were somewhat boring but semi-informative. There wasn't much emphasis on breakthoughs nor key people. Unlike the Association for Computing Machinery whose members are people and whose emphasis these days is software, the Computer History Museum is about old relics of hardware.

I had tried to arrange to see the Multics hardware they have there, but the custodian and another contact never responded to phone calls or email so it couldn't be seen. Too bad, the CPU had about 80 boards with about 100 ICs on each one and a back panel with 14,000 wires connecting the boards. They have a lot of stuff in the back and in a warehouse that you can't see (as is true for most museums).

My father had a Monroe calculator just like that - I used to like playing with it. I wonder if anyone makes slide rules anymore?

( More pictures )

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Segway tour at Pacifica

On Monday some of the remaining motss.con attendees went on a Segway tour at Pacifica

. After initial training (some of us had done it before last year at the MPLS con) we set off, first on flat ground --

and then up and down some hills where we had nice views of the surfers among other things. I discovered I could Segway with one hand and the other holding the camera.

This is a bit more what it is really like with a few bumps.

( emu and railroad station )

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Take me out to the ball game

As the last post-motss-con event, 12 of us went to AT&T Park to see the Giants Cubs game. You get a great view of the bay past the outfield. A group of kids sang the national anthem and a bunch more were in the outfield before the game along with the seal (I thought at first it might be a Panda) mascot. Our seats were way up in the nosebleed section behind 3rd base; it's fun seeing high pop flies from above. I was wearing my 1914 Cubs hat that I got at Cooperstown a few years ago.

The game was fast and close with the Giants ahead 1-0 until the top of the 9th when the Cubs scored 5 runs and won the game.

( The entire back of the field )
This boat was seen rowing in and out several times. We could see no kayaks looking for home run balls, and perhaps there were none.