Minndemo 23

I went to Minnedemo (#23) downtown on July 14.  It was at the Pantages Theater in downtown Minneapolis.  I wasn't so sure I wanted to go because it was closing in on RAGBRAI, but I finally decided I enjoyed the presentations enough I'd make it work.

Presentations included Toursler, which is a cool use of virtual Google-map style functionality to allow tours of high end houses synced to floor plans.  The dev presenting is obviously into the tech as he was already playing around with VR and demo-ed how they'd used a bit of machine intelligence training to get the computer to identify rooms by aspects of the photos (toilet = bathroom) so they could eliminate a lot of the manual tagging. Gave me some ideas I need to explore.

I found Townsourced less interesting.  The point of a local board, such as you find at your coffee shop, would seem to be that it's local.  By allowing individuals to cross post to multiple community boards, that breaks the metaphor (in my opinion).

Genovest is a stock analysis (but not purchasing) tool.  I think the crux of it is visualization meets investing.  There's a lot of math under it as well, but the output seems to give you visualizations you can use to investigate.  This got me to wondering whether there are investment tools/games for kids.  There does appear to be an official app - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stock-market-game/id702878174?ls=1&mt=8 - although I haven't used it so I don't know whether it does some of the same visualization tech that's part of the newer app experience.

HabitAware is AMAZING.  You can smell the clever idea w/o significant complexity in their application.  They've taught a bracelet to record gestures.  Then, when you repeat that gesture, the bracelet will give you a warning.  Don't like a particular way you gesticulate, you'll get warnings.  More importantly: nail biting, skin picking, hair pulling.  The inventor created it to help his wife who had constantly removed her eyebrows via plucking.  Now she has eyebrows.  

DiviUp - you buy a coupon/deal and you get savings, a charity gets a cut, and the business gets a little more business.  Groupon with a conscience.  It's a good idea, but those sorts of coupon/rebate/deal apps wear me out.

Kinetic Data.  Well...if you understand this diagram you get it.  It simplifies a lot of backend processes with an easy UI.  We considered variations on the same process for some contract handling work I reviewed.  Their reference to Salesforce and LDAP makes this very much a similar architecture.

And the best...Chicken Scoop AI.  These two came out on stage and gave a presentation on training cameras to identify chickens and present charts/data/visualizations on their activity for purposes of tracking the chickens' behavior, eggs, etc.  Very interesting where they pointed to a chicken that was probably dead (yes sad, but interesting from a data tracking perspective).  Here's a slide that gives you a small sense of their humor.

Manchineel Tree

A very cool post from Mental Floss about the poisonous Manchineel Tree.  Even standing under it during a rainstorm is dangerous.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/81958/why-manchineel-most-dangerous-tree-world

National Bike Challenge - LIES!

I have not put as many miles in this summer as I usually do, but I've been trying to mimic my at-least-one-mile-a-day goal that I attempted last summer.  With few exceptions, I do at least two miles, even when it's pouring so hard I'm riding in a few inches of water.

Which is why this calendar irritates me.  I did NOT miss the 29th of May.  Not, not, not.  It's far more likely my odometer glitched.  I love my Garmin, but sometimes (including today) it gets stuck, and unless I'm very careful about making sure it synced, it doesn't catch up and log the ride for the current day.


As you can see, that becomes the ONLY day I've missed.



Most days even have multiple rides.  Although that's more common now that I pedal somewhere, Ingress, and then pedal back or pedal somewhere else.  I've got a few weekends where I pedal to Caponi Art Park, pedal to Schultz beach, and then home.

8 years - World Domination: Total War

According to Facebook, my wife and I have been friends on the app for 8 years.  So that must be about my tenure on the platform.  I think the very first game I played was World Domination: Total War.  Followed closely by Mafia Wars.  Every time Total War reminds me, I buy additional weapons.  8 years in and I still don't have them all, although I have all the countries under my control including China and the US.  If I believed in magical thinking, the day I buy my last battleship is the day I'll cease to use Facebook.

 

Weekend II - Guitar Recital at DEMO

Today Eryn had a guitar recital at DEMO.  Since Aaron moved Root Note, the recitals are much, much smaller and in the waiting room at DEMO.  Very different feel from the big building they used in Burnsville (The Garage, used by the Burnsville Youth Collaborative).  Poppa and Manna joined us for the recital.  They had a full weekend of us!

Here's the playlist.  Khan's piece was beautiful.  Ariana Grande is much better acoustic and without her singing (in my opinion).


Eryn played a few pieces from Undertale.  She was unhappy with her rendition of Battle Against the True Hero, so I'm not posting the video.  It's gone.  She was mostly frustrated that she knew it - she's been playing it for her online friends for months - but still got off beat. If she didn't get visibly frustrated, I don't think anyone would know.  It's not like the adults are Undertale experts.  But she's playing it more for herself, so that's frustrating for her.


At least she smiled at the end of the song.  She's wearing her Undertale shirt for the recital.


This is Megalovania.  They did a great job.  Eryn's really got the head down bass player vibe going.  Sort of amusing.


Here's all of Megalovania.  Afterwards, Drew and Matt did a few other ad hoc tunes including some music from Lord of the Rings and what looked to be a hell of a piece from some Jamaican blues artist that required fingers up and down the whole neck.  Great time.

Weekend I - Friday Night, Under the Gaslight (with Olios)

It was a busy, busy weekend. Even if I don't include starting to pack for RAGBRAI or going to the new Ghost Busters remake.  Which we enjoyed.  I didn't like it as much as the first one, but they did a great job.  The scene where Kate McKinnon (Jillian Holtzmann) fights the ghosts with two pistol proton packs was inspired and her character was excellent.  A lot of the action took place in Times Square and I saw my orange and white company logo, even if the corporate name was nowhere to be seen.

Friday night after dinner with my wife's folks at the Red Cow (so much food - the egg + peanut butter burger was overload) we all went to Under the Gaslight at the University of Minnesota Showboat.  We've been there before and it's wonderful.  They do a melodrama coupled with a lot of little skits.  All performed by U of MN students.  The skits, or olios, are superb.  They reused one about a girl for every month with over the top costumes, but finished it up with a twist that wasn't there the last time we saw it (I won't spoiler it).  And the olio about the bugs with the fireflies and ladybugs and oh-so-put-upon flowers...brilliant.  Supposedly it's their last year after being flooded out last year and that's a real disappointment  One of my favorite performances.

The boat at the riverside in St. Paul.  

And just looking out over the river...the night shot, later, is better.


Pooteewheet right before the performance.


The stage.  The scenery was great - they seem to keep all their sets from previous years and reuse, as well as costumes.  The end olio involved costumes from many different years including sashes with the years Under the Gaslight was performed.


Pooteewheet and Eryn braving the spiders.


After the play we walked back to the car through the park.  Getting off the boat, there were dozens of Pokemon Go players lounging next to the water trying to catch water Pokemon.  Others were scattered through the park at 11:00 p.m.  Quite the craze.  Eryn and Pooteewheet are playing in this picture.


Time to confer on a pidgey or something.


During the intermission I lounged at the front of the boat and enjoyed the Mississippi River.  A much more serene view than two years ago when it was flooding and large trees were bouncing off the side of the boat and being sucked under.

MST3K Reunion

End of June Eryn and I went to the MST3K reunion event at the State Theater downtown.  I sponsored their Kickstarter reboot and they had sent me a notice it was coming, but I hadn't thought about it until I realized Eryn might want to go.  The MST3K t-shirt she owns and frequently wears should have been a sign.  She encouraged me to buy tickets, so we made it a daddy-daughter night.

It was an excellent venue.  We could see (and hear) well, despite how far away they were from our seats.  We didn't sit here.  We sat inside.


Eryn's not always pleased to have her photo taken.  As Mean Mr Mustard said, teenage girls seem to want to be ironic about everything, even if they're having a kickass time.


Inside the theater.  That guy in front of us snuggled with his Tom Servo rather than his girlfriend for the whole show.  Although Tom's head came off at one point, so I wonder if he was full of hard liquor.  The real Tom would probably approve.


The pre-show trivia was excellent.


In the outer area where you could find a snack, there was a costume contest going on. I wasn't sure if this guy was supposed to be Mike or Joel.  Crow wasn't subject to the same confusion, although he didn't talk, so who knows which version he's representing.


Dr. Forrester.  He had the look down, but I didn't get the sense he had the attitude down.


Our closest seat neighbor.  I'm not sure where he had these hidden the first half hour - you couldn't buy them - but at some point he pulled out his plushy Crow and Servo.


Eryn, a little less grumpy at having her photo taken.  Sleepy looking though.  The show consisted of alumni riffing on shorts.  We saw Mike, his wife, Joel, Dr. Forrester, TV's Frank, Pearl...well, all of them, including Jonah Ray who will be the new castaway.  It was a busy show. They covered several shorts, but our favorites where: Industrial Accidents (don't stick your arm in a great big metal moving tube), Is it Corn? (we can't be sure...but it's good for art), the perfect 50s kitchen (housewives manipulating their husband to procure large appliances, starring the dad from A Christmas Story).

Eryn laughed like a maniac.


We parked several blocks away at the hotel I usually park at. It was a good walk and we saw this painting of Como, which I don't think is nearly as good as the photos I framed for Ming.  And we saw a piano on the street which confused us, but apparently it's art: http://www.downtownmpls.com/pianos

Weekend - Cabin

On Saturday we did a quick drive up to the cabin to visit all of the family for the day. It was a beautiful day for taking the convertible for a ride - which was good because 4 hours in the car was probably 1/3 of our time. Eryn, A (my niece), and I took the rentered waterski out for a long ride between the lakes.  We hit a wake at significant speed at one point and Eryn bit the back of A's head.  I know they're older now because they were more amused than shedding tears.

It was good we got our ride in because not longer afterwards the jet ski just sort of quit working.  Andrew went to town on it with a wrench, locating all the weeds.  But while it wasn't running, we tried to get it down to the landing to get it up on the trailer to take back to the dealer.  It would have helped if the boat was running right.  My observation to my sister about visiting the cabin is that I'm always fixing something: water heater, pipes, flooded foundation, myself (when I'm stung by wasps), trees, shingles, myself (when I rip my arm open on the flashing for the roof)...I'm sure I've missed many things.  Fortunately, this time Andrew was taking care of it and I could ignore it beyond fetching knives, tools, and making sure bolts didn't go lost.

Here's a view of my sister-in-law at the cabin.  That's not our cabin on the left - ours is behind me (the picture taker).  Way off in the water, that's the jet ski fixing convoy.

Panoramic View

Here we are zoomed in much closer.  Six people trying to get the jet ski to the landing.  Me taking pictures while moving back and forth between the landing and the cabin fetching things.  And my father at the landing controlling the truck.  Eight people dealing with the jet ski.


The live action version...as exciting as you probably expect.


We had a good time despite all the mechanical issues and had a good dinner at the bar in Garrison.  I snuck out to do a little bit of Ingress-ing as there aren't many Ingress-ers left up there and the portals were unclaimed/gray.  I saw a Pokemon Go article that said there are 5,000,000 portals in existence out of 15,000,000 submitted.  No wonder some are in unfrequented locations.

Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person

Good article CK shared with me.  I "win" on all fronts and I have relatives and friends who are a mix of the other intersections.  And I will attest to the fact that I have benefited from being in the privileged categories (although I'd actual dual classify ability; it's not just physical, it's also intellectual - life is easier if you're smarter.  Doesn't mean you'll be reach or that someone who isn't smart won't be.  But many things will be easier). There are folks in those intersections that exceed me by magnitudes in my opinion - but they absolutely work for it and overcome a lot of crap.

http://occupywallstreet.net/story/explaining-white-privilege-broke-white-person

(Posted not so long after the I-94 protests here in the cities).

My Historical Joke

Inspired after watching Frankenstein's monster point out different kinds of ships on the Thames during the third episode of Penny Dreadful.

Did you hear about the naval battle between the Dutch and the British?
The barque was worse than the fluyt.

Thank you, I'll be here all week.