Trip and baby photos here!

I am on vacation, but I have found ways to post to my family blog here! There is information about our trip there and some baby pictures. More baby pictures and video of our new grandson Jacob can be found on my son Jeff's blog.

Mobile blogging on vacation

I am in Amalfi at an Internet cafe. I am mobblogging from my phone and posting in cafes. You can follow our vacation here on my family blog.

Going off the grid

I will be back around October 9, 2007.

Happy Blogging!

~Steve

Looking back on a great birthday

Great birthday thanks to family and friends!
Yesterday I had a great birthday celebration with friends and family. We opened some of the best wine we have and enjoyed some great times and great food. It was a lot of fun!

Brunch at Stacks
We went to Stacks in Campbell for brunch. This is a big favorite of mine. They make terrific breakfasts. Sue's mom Frances, Sons Kenneth and Jeff, Jeff and his wife Nicole's daughter Madison joined Sue and I. We had a great time together as a family.

Model train operation session
After brunch Jeff, Madison and I went to the Model Railroad club in Agnews. It just so happened the club was having an operations session there that day. It was Jeff and Madison's first time at the train club. The club is in an old railroad depot from the 1870's and the mail line is right next to the tracks. So we got to see both little and real trains go by.

Dinner with friends
After the train club we joined Kevin and Jolyce at Viva's in Los Gatos. We brought two of the best bottles of wine we had and had them at dinner (they do corkage.) That was a real treat, thank you! After dinner we met Pam and Patty at our house. They brought some great wine to the evening. Pam brought a bottle of Opus One! It was the first time I have ever had that. It was wonderful. So far, 52 is good.

Still waiting for grandson news
We are still waiting for news regarding Jeff and Nicole's impending birth of their second child. It could come any time!

[More birthday photos on Flickr]

Singularity and AI

Artificial Intellegence (AI) "Sigularity" Coming?
Despite past failures, proponents of AI have Moore's Law going for them (the power of computers per unit cost - or more colloquially, "bangs per buck" - doubles every 24 months (or, equivalently, increases 32-fold in 10 years)).

I am in Sacramento

I am in Sacramento
Next month is the union's big bi-annual state wide convention. This year it is in San Jose and we are preparing to cover this event.

rms at SJSU

Camera Phone Post: "rms" speaking at SJSU
Richard Matthew Stallman who launched the GNU Project (Gnu's not Unix) expousing Free Software that sought to and finally brought to the world a free version of UNIX (with help from Linus Torvolds) spoke at SJSU today. Most of what he said I have already heard, but what a thrill it was to hear rms (lower case intentional) say it himself. In the first edition of the Hacker's Dictionary, he wrote, "'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'." This was the name he used in him computer accounts. Hacker, in those days, was a term for a person who made things work through unique and creative methods and it did not have the negative connotation it now has.

UPDATE: More and better photos here on Flickr

Did you know?

You have to see this!

Bikes on SJSU Campus?

Bikes Belong: On The Road!
Harry Lichtbach is a League Cycling Instructor (LCI) with the League of American Bicyclists. On top of this he is Vice Chancellor of the Almaden Cycle Touring Club (ACTC) Academy. Lichtbach is an expert in bike safety and has trained thousands of cyclists how to ride safely. He is a current member of, and former president of, the Academic Senate at Evergreen Valley College (EVC). This is what he recently wrote to me on the subject of bicycle riding on campus:

Steve,
I ride my bike to EVC (sometimes), using a road around the edge of campus to get to my office. I am opposed to cycling through the core of the EVC campus.

When I was a student at UCSB, I road a bike and objected to not being allowed to ride through the campus. (UCSB actually allowed this, in bike lanes, at low speeds, with stop signs where the lanes crossed walking paths. I was objecting to the speed and stop signs. Hey, I was "younger" then.) In researching police accident records for a Public Speaking course assignment, trying to gather evidence for my position, I learned of the many bike/pedestrian collisions and changed my mind. Bikes are vehicles and belong with other vehicles, not pedestrians! This is what we teach in the ACTC Academy. Stay off sidewalks, off walkways, out of crosswalks, unless you are walking your bike!

Feel free to use this where you think appropriate, along with my LCI #.

Harry Lichtbach LCI #1047
Almaden Cycle Touring Club
San Jose, CA. USA

[More SJSU bike related pictures on Flickr]

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, Campus Life, bicycling, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

Dane Doing iPhone Talk

Cameraphone Post: iPhone talk at SJSU
Dane Riley is shown here while giving a talk on the Apple iPhone today at SJSU. What a cool device this is. It is going to be especially fun to see where this platform goes. I shot this with my Treo and then posted it right to my blog via Instant Messaging.

First STEM meeting today

The first Student Technology and Emerging Media Club (STEM) meeting of the semester is today. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend. We will be having an informal meeting to plan out our activities and goals for the semester, as well as choosing some exciting guest speakers.

When: Monday, September 10th, 4:30 - 5:30

Where: Clark Hall, Academic Success Center, Room 116 (Conference Room)

Apple reboots the Newton?

The Newton and the iPod Touch
The iPod Touch on looks a lot to me like the Newton modernized, updated and rebooted. What do you have when you take the phone and the camera out of an iPhone and turn it into a Wi-Fi portable computing (and music/video enabled) device? In my opinion you just created an ultra-Mobile Tablet Mac. Kinda like, well, the Newton!

Maybe the problem with the Newton was it was before it's time? It will not be the first time it happened. I want to see some killer apps on the iPod Touch. I want to see a text editor, an email client and an iChat/jabber client. I would also like to see an iSight camera on the front of this thing, so this can be video iChat/Skype enabled. I also want to be able to subscribe to podcasts right in the device without having to dock with the mother ship. This thing should be designed from the start for the bandwidth of a fast WiFi connection. Apple should look at this video to get some ideas on, and remember some, other really cool stuff to put on the new Newton, I mean, the iPod Touch.

Hey, timing is everything!

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone, newton, Ipod Touch, ssloansjca

SPSS Codes are In at Help Desk

We have the new codes for SPSS for the PC and Mac. We do not yet have the new Version of SPSS, SPSS 16, that is reportedly PC Vista and Intel Mac compatible, but we expect to have that in early to mid-October.

Please contact the SJSU help desk and include your tower card number so we can validate your SJSU affiliation. The help desk can be reached by phone at (408) 924-2377 or via Email at helpdesk@sjsu.edu.

Sam Donaldson to Keynote JMC Event

According to the Spartan Daily:

San Jose State University's radio-television journalism department announced Tuesday that Sam Donaldson, former White House correspondent for ABC News, is delivering the key-note speech for the department's 50th year anniversary reunion on Oct. 12.

Jessica Drnek, president of SJSU's radio-television news directors association and organizer of the event, said that Professor Bob Rucker had a lot to do with getting Donaldson to come to campus.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, J-school, Sam Donaldson, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

Smoke Light

The last few days we have had the most amazing light.
The fire east of Morgan Hill has cast a fog of brown over the valley and the effect has been surreal.

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, Campus Life, Lick Fire, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

SJSU not safe for bicycling

There is no denying cycling is dangerous
I have known many of friends who have been hurt very bad while cycling, some have even been killed. I had several bones broken and still have pain daily from an accident three years ago when a car pulled out in front of me while I was riding to work. Yes, cycling is dangerous, so is driving a car. My first wife was killed in a car accident on a lonely country road. Cycling, like driving, requires attention to safety and situational awareness. Bicycles, like cars, are vehicles.

Cars are a real danger to cyclists just as irresponsible cyclists pose a danger to themselves and especially pedestrians. In my opinion most cyclists on the SJSU campus do not take what they are doing seriously, they do not ride safely or responsibly and they are not being encouraged to do so. I think most cyclists on our campus pose a threat to themselves and campus pedestrians and that is why I am solidly against formally allowing them to ride bicycles in the campus core. That is why I have written many times against allowing them to and why I have made this photo archive of campus cycling related photos.

I may sound anti-cycling but I am not. I am a cyclist. I bicycle ride several thousand miles a year. I think the advantages of safe cycling are greater than the dangers. I think cycling promotes good health and fitness. I think bicycles can help solve some of our serious energy and environmental issues. I am a cyclist and I think bicycles belong at SJSU. I just think bicycles do not need to be ridden in the campus interior at SJSU. There is no reason for them to be. Cyclists at SJSU do not need to be able to ride their bikes right up to and inside the buildings they work in. We need to stop what is going on here. I think we also need to promote awareness of bicycle safety at our campus.

[More SJSU bike related pictures on Flickr]

Technorati Tags: San Jose State University, SJSU, Campus Life, bicycling, CSU, California State University, San Jose, ssloansjca

New Apple Store in Los Gatos

Today they opened an Apple Store in Los Gatos
Despite a day today that was over twelve hours, I had to stop there on my way home. It is close to where we live! No, I did not get a T-shirt.

It is hard to resist Apple's products
No matter what your age.

Technorati Tags: Los Gatos, Apple Store, Apple, ssloansjca