Mike Ball

We are all packed (except for necessities) and I’m at loose ends for the next few days, so I’ve been catching up on TedTalks. I’ve mentioned a few of them here before.

Here’s one I especially like: Norman Foster: Building on the green agenda.

I have a few special reasons for liking it. First, it explains how architecture is solving the problems of living, not just making beautiful things. Second, it talks about Buckminster Fuller, who is one of the great minds of the 20th century and a personal hero of mine. Finally it explains just how computers are letting architectures build much more efficient buildings.

The kind of computing he’s talking about is called High Performance Technical Computing (HPC), and although the hardware is getting steadily cheaper, is still very hard to write the programs. When I decided to join MicroSoft in 2006, it was because they told me that we could set up a group to make writing HPC programs much easier. Then MS decided that they weren’t going to do it, because there wasn’t a big enough market. I still think they blew it. Finally, I left.

Enjoy the video. If you really like it, subscribe to the podcast and watch more of them.

A couple of years ago I read a great book by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics. It was a great book, applying economic principals in day-to-day situations. I heartily recommend it. This posting was inspired by a video of a talk by Steven Levitt on a topic from the book. One of them lived with a crack-dealing gang, and even got them to show him their books. The business turned out to be a lot more like MacDonalds than like the media depictions. Except, of course, for the very high mortality…

Oh, the talk contains quotes from the gang members. It’s definitely R-rated

Yreka (Why-ree-ka) is a small town about 25 miles South of the Oregon border. The name is said to come from the local native language and means “great white mountain”. The picture shows why.

We really don’t know much about the town, though we expect to learn more, but just driving by makes it look interesting. As you approach from the south, you encounter a barn advertising the State of Jefferson. Then you come to a statue of a cow (Moo-donna) in the middle of the field. It turns out that it was created by a local artist, Ralph Starritt. We drove by his shop and looked for a moment, but didn’t have time to explore properly.

As you leave town, you encounter a dragon to the right of the road. There’s no easy way to stop and look closely, but it’s an impressive bit of work. I wish we knew who made this one.

As I said in the last post, we’ve just acquired a house in Southern Oregon. At the moment we have a contractor doing some repairs before we move in. We’re planning on moving sometime during the first couple of weeks in June.

We set out to buy a house in Ashland, which is a small university town famous for its Shakespeare Festival. We’ve visited it often, and last summer we decided to retire there. We looked at quite a few houses in Ashland, which is built along the side of a mountain, but all of the nice houses had lots of stairs, which our bodies don’t like much anymore. Also, They all seemed to be really close together compared to what we’ve become used to. We expanded our search, and found a house on two acres in rolling hills that seem to fit well. It’s also only 5 miles from downtown Ashland, and the trip is a fast one.

I think we are going to like it there. The house has great views, but of a different kind than we found in Ashland. The area is a mix of farming, mostly pear orchards, and residents on bits carved out of farms.