johnkemeny.com

As Lia – playing with sharp objects – and Alan – filling up on Mom’s chocolate pretzels – can attest, pumpkin carving was a sweet success. No one can yet say if the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) will be a success, but for a limited time starting November 12 you can Give One Get One (G1G1) for $399. You can test drive it today using VMware’s free player (registration required) and the latest pre-made images.

Full disclosure: I work for EMC, which owns 86% of VMware – but I got no VMware stock (sad face).

I also have 3-year old twins who would love an XO laptop – but they don’t live in the third world – and their daddy ain’t rich – but their mom is good looking

 Update: Message from laptopgiving.org:

Starting Monday, November 12 at 6:00am EST, you will be able to donate one XO laptop to a child in the developing world and also receive a laptop for the child in your life, by visiting www.laptopgiving.org or calling toll-free 1-877-70-LAPTOP.

“Give One Get One” is the only time we are making the revolutionary XO laptop available to the public. For a donation of just $399 ($200 of which is tax-deductable), you will be giving the gift of education. Additionally, T-Mobile is offering donors one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot locations throughout the United States, which can be used from any Wi-Fi-capable device, including the XO laptop.

 

Cuz’in Peter, who currently works at Yahoo! but is more a zseni Houyhnhnm, pointed me to Websites as Graphs, resulting in the pictures of this blog above.  As time elapses, the picture develops more detail.  There is even a Flickr site (tagged websitesasgraphs) to post your results.  The technology and source used is posted on the site.  Below is a comparison of Yahoo!’s and Google’s homepages (not fair, really, since Yahoo! is a portal and Google a search engine).  My little blog is more complex than either (but if you want to see complexity let it work on CNN for a while).

At first I thought this was a graph of network links.  Wrong!  It maps html syntax.  Below is the key.

 I don’t know if Yahoo! is using this technology, but they do have some cool stuff^® like the recent feature Pipes (a user’s guide).  With it you can easily create mashups, like a combined Yahoo! & Google search, and much much more.

P.S.  A post about about Aharef’s website was made exactly 1 year ago on Pharyngula.

P.P.S.  Note: the applet shows the structure of a web page, not a web site – comments on Edward Tufte’s board.

P.P.P.S.  Some more webpagegraphs:  my employer’s homepage, my homepage, this article’s page.

 

I am very saddened to hear that noted database genius, and friend, Jim Gray appears to be lost at sea.  He was out alone in a sailboat scattering his mother’s ashes.  She died last year at 97.

I knew Jim mostly through my work at the TPC where we convinced each other that his notion of ACID properties defining a database system could be worked into a standard specification (he didn’t think so – I did).  Jim not only laid the foundation for all of today’s database systems, he was exceptionally generous in sharing his research with others.

One very small example of his work is the 5-minute rule, essentially a rule-of-thumb stating when you should trade off disk storage with RAM, viz., if you access the data again in less than 5-minutes.  The derivation has a technological and economic component.

In 2002, when Jim proposed this now-famous rule, the numbers worked out to ~356 seconds, which Jim wisely rounded to 5 minutes.  Today, AcessPerSecondPerDisk has doubled, PricePerDiskDrive has dropped by a factor of 10 (note: it doesn’t matter that disk sizes have increased – a different topic that Jim discusses as the Problem of the TerrorByte!), and PricePerMBof DRAM has dropped by a third.  So the 5-minute rule is today the 53-second rule, or, as Jim would more wisely call it, the 1-minute rule.

Updates:  Microsoft update site, Coast Guard report site, and personal search site.

Update [2/6/2007]: Public website up ( http://www.helpfindjim.com/ ) with MISSING posters and how to help search.  Here is Sunday’s NPR story on Jim.  Istvan Csabai found a green sailor’s dye marker off the coast of Los Angeles.

P.S. A tribute to James (“Jim”) Nicholas Gray (born 1944).

Update [7/24/2007]: Wired magazine publishes an article on Jim and the search titled Inside the High Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend.

Marlow: The name is Reilly. Doghouse Reilly.  I’m a shamus.

Vivian: So you’re a private detective. I didn’t know they existed, except in books. Or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors. My, you’re a mess, aren’t you?

    

Marlowe: I’m not very tall either. Next time, I’ll come on stilts, wear a white tie and carry a tennis racket.

Vivian: You know, I don’t see what there is to be cagey about, Mr. Marlowe. And I don’t like your manners.

    

Marlowe: I’m not crazy about yours. I didn’t ask to see you. I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. I don’t like them myself. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings.

Marlowe: Would you happen to have a Ben-Hur 1860, Third Edition with a duplicated line on page one-sixteen? Or a Chevalier Audubon 1840?

Vivian: Tell me: What do you usually do when you’re not working?  Marlowe: Oh, play the horses, fool around. Vivian: No women?

Marlowe: I’m generally working on something most of the time.  Vivian: Could that be stretched to include me? Marlowe: Well I like you. I’ve told you that before.  Vivian: I like hearing you say it.

Marlowe: What do you want me to do? Count three like they do in the movies? 

[ 7 murders later ]

Marlowe: It won’t take ‘em long.  Vivian: What are you gonna…?

Marlowe: Wait a minute. Let me do the talking, angel. I don’t know yet what I’m gonna tell ‘em, but it will be pretty close to the truth.

Mr. Bogart (Marlowe) was played by Alan Kemeny.

Ms. Bacall (Vivian) was played by Lia Kemeny.

Pretzels were used in place of cigarettes in this production.

 

It has been over 2 months since I wrote an entry.  The reason I haven’t felt like writing is, of course, Rose’s passing.  I thought I’d start writing by re-printing the obituary I wrote to her which appeared in the Westford Eagle.

Rose Kemeny, world famous hair colorist, grandmother of five dies at 94

Rose died peaceably at Westford House 8:30 pm Saturday.  The past 15 years she lived in Westford, four at Westford House, where she made many friends with her charm and intelligence.  Many knew her – her life could fill a book.

Born in the tiny Hungarian town of Abony in 1912, she grew up in Szolnok in an era without radios or cars.  Her best memories of winter were traveling to the farm by horse drawn sled with coals to warm her feet.  At 14 she discovered that the living room painting of her “aunt” was actually her mother who died giving birth to her sister Elizabeth.  She also had 3 younger brothers by a stepmother.  Due to her father’s illness, by 17 she was supporting the family running a beauty salon – something she would continue for the next 75 years!  At the same time she secretly became engaged to and eventually married Sandor (Alexander) Reti, who had the foresight to emigrate from Europe through Italy in 1938.  Rose had trouble getting a visa.  But, upon meeting her, the Italian ambassador to Hungary relented remarking he understood why Sandor wouldn’t leave without her.

She arrived in New York City on Thanksgiving and was doing manicures within 2 weeks.  In short order she established her own salon and was hired by Charles Revson to run Revlon’s prestigious New York Salon.  Her specialty was hair color, and, as a natural blond beauty, she inspired “blonds have more fun” at Revlon.  She had many famous clients including Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, the Gabors of course, and Joan Crawford – she was one of Joan’s closest friends.  In the 1960’s she ran her own salon, Rue de la Pais, which had clients from old European aristocracy and the new American aristocracy including the Firestones and Kennedys.  She successfully ran a salon with 40+ employees, tangling with landlords, unions, anti-feminism, and anti-Semitism.  But her greatest struggles were in getting her family out of Europe after World War II.

In the 1970’s Rose lost Sandor after a long and debilitating illness.  In 1976 she met Leslie Kemeny, a widower who also grew up in Szolnok. After a whirlwind courtship they were married.  Everyone said that when most people were retiring, they were starting a teenage romance.  In 1991 she was sideswiped by a commuter bus, which finally forced her to close the salon.  She moved to Westford to be closer to her son and daughter and her beloved grandchildren.  After losing Leslie, she traveled Europe (London, Paris, Milan, Budapest), Israel, and the US (Portland, Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Denver, Houston, Seattle).  She was most happy to see her adopted country up close – she said the Willamette River in Portland reminded her of the Tisza River in Szolnok.  Rose loved the US for the opportunities it gave her.  But New York always held a special place in her heart.

She is survived by nephews Leslie and Tom Vadas, Stuart Kerty, niece Michelle Kerty, sister-in-law Gabriella Kerty, grandnephews  Gregory, Oren and Daniel Vadas, grandniece Liza Vadas, children by marriage Ilona Stashko, John Kemeny, and grandchildren Eric, Allison and Lena Stashko, and Lia and Alan Kemeny.

There is so much more to say.  I knew Rose for a greater part of my life than I knew my parents.  She was a unique person who had a huge presence, and will be missed by many.

The UK’s Astronomy Blog reports that the final draft proposal for the definition of planet not only doesn’t create the twin planets Pluto and Charon, but actually demotes Pluto to a dwarf planet (= not a planet) because it hasn’t cleared the neighborhood around it’s orbit.  Pluto actually shares part of its orbit with Neptune.  By symmetry doesn’t that disqualify Neptune as a planet? 

{Above} Lia and Alan get the news.  Alan expresses pffffft!  Lia is just stunninged.  They jump in the car heading back to Prague to vote down the draft proposal.  You can watch the vote online starting at 9:00 AM EDT.

As first reported by Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, the IAU will (a week from today) vote on a new definition of planet which will denominate 12 planets in our Solar System instead of 9, with many more – perhaps millions – waiting to be discovered!

Lia and Alan discuss the proposals before the IAU on the swings.  Checking the mail, they happily report that it looks like Pluto and Charon will be designated as the first twin planets! 

Why Pluto-Charon when our own Moon is larger than both Pluto and Charon?  Because the barycenter of the Pluto-Charon system is outside Pluto, while, for the Earth-Moon system it is 1700 km below the surface of the Earth.  Phil points out that, with the Moon receding from Earth at 4 cm per year, in about 40 million years [correction: make that about 3 billion years] the Earth-Moon barycenter will be outside the Earth and the Moon will then be designated a planet (that is, if the IAU doesn’t redefine planet before then). 

    

Below are the 3 new planets, and some planet candidates.

    

Later Lia and Alan prepare for travel to Prague for the conclusion of this planet-shattering IAU meeting.

Gens reports that only 25 of the 50 states have any Kemenys in them.  Iowa has the fewest with 1.  But Kemenys appear to be missing entirely from Maine to Vermont, from Washington to Hawaii.  We couldn’t locate any in D.C. either.