Technology
The value of unplugging
Ian —Sun, 07/10/2011 - 23:13
I have not posted in a bit, partly because life is keeping me busy, and partly because I was on vacation. The family and I just got back from a 10 day Vacation abroad, and it was simply amazing. As I sit writing this, I am thinking about why the trip was so great, and one of them has to be the fact that for 10 days I was completely "unplugged". I am a pretty heavy tech user, and it is uncommon to find me without my phone, or an internet connection of some kind.
On this Vacation we were out of the country, and often in the middle of the Mediterranean Ocean, and as such I had not Cell Phone service, and no internet Connection (Granted, I could have purchased Internet time, but it was not an inexpensive proposition). Because of that lack of connection, I did not worry about very much other than having fun, and spending time with my Family.
This was the first time in many years (I think like 8 or so) that I have gone longer than 3 days without checking my email, or using my cell phone, and it was a great experience. This will definitely be model for vacation from here forward for me, as it makes the vacation much easier to enjoy. The long and short of it is that spending time with the family is more important than anything else I have going on (and I am just not that important of a guy..).
Watson and Jeopardy
Ian —Thu, 02/17/2011 - 01:00
The last two evenings I have been watching Jeopardy in particular to see IBM's new supercomputer dubbed Watson. The 3 night event pitted 2 of the all time greatest human Jeopardy players against IBM's new supercomputer, Watson. The 3 night event, that honestly looked kind of like a paid advertising event for IBM, was interesting to watch. As you might expect Watson beat both human players with ease. While watching I found it interesting to see which questions Watson answered incorrectly, and which ones he missed altogether.
