Doctor-R

Martin Gardner wrote a monthly column in Scientific American called Mathematical Games. He introduced me and other readers to: Conway's Game of Life, fractals, Penrose Tiles, flexagons, M. C. Escher, Godel, Escher, Bach, polyoninoes and many other logic problems. There was a learning AI algorithm that used small labeled matchboxes and colored buttons.

The column was continued by Douglas Hofstadter.

At Hewlett Packard in the 1970's all employees (except the executive suite) got the same percentage of profit sharing. Twice a year, after announcing earnings, management would announce it as some number of extra days of pay. Usually eight to ten days of extra pay. This was based on corporate profit put into a formula. This was independent of product division, level, location, etc. There was also an employee stock purchase plan, but no options.

Intel had a similar plan with profit sharing based on corporate profits. plus a profit sharing based on product division success.

Today, corporation focus is strictly improving the stock price. Therefore paying more to staff with profit sharing is bad.

Khanacademy.org has free online courses on AP Calculus and AP Statistics, plus other (high school) math courses.

MIT Open Course Ware has a big bunch of free online math courses. ocw.mit.edu

1. Remote work technology, like multiple screens, cameras, mics, speakers, the simulate being at the office. (Not VR goggles).

2. More efficient, cheaper home solar panels, battery wall, EVs, heat pumps, to achieve net zero at home.

3. AR glasses that are not nerdy, and actually useful in the real world.

4. AI technology that fact checks every social media post.

Hot Chips is a technical conference held at Stanford in August. There are presentations on the latest chips, CPU,GPU, TPU, networking. In 2023, it will be both a physical conference at Stanford, and a virtual conference. See: https://hotchips.org/. All conference presentations and videos are released to everyone in December. Last year's (2022) conference is at https://hc34.hotchips.org/

Start with the two keynotes: Semiconductors Run the World Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO and:

Beyond Compute - Enabling AI through System Integration Ganesh Venkataramanan, Tesla Motors

Create a drawing of a full size piano keyboard, with black lines. Mount a camera (or a cell phone w/ camera) above the layout. Write software that recognizes the keys. Extend software to track fingers to convert their pushes into midi events. Connect to midi player.

How to write correct software. With software eating the world, it might be a good idea that the software eats correctly, without bugs.

The Innovators by Walter Issacson

A History of Modern Computing 2ed by Paul Ceruzzi

The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

Connections by James Burke (also a PBS series)

Digital Equipment Corporation, located outside of Boston, was the developer of the PDP family of computers. A key figure in developing many of their computers was C. Gordon Bell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bell. There is a cute meet story with his wife, Gwen. They founded the Computer Museum in Boston, which (long story) became the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA (Silicon Valley). He is/was on the Board of Trustees since founding. There is a four part oral history from 2005 with transcripts in CHM's archives. There are a bunch of videos on youtube. Most of his books are on the web, see: https://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/gbvita.htm