johnkemeny.com

 

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.

First name Mister middle name Period last name T

I try not to mix work-related stuff into my blog, but when Mr. T derides my product – well it is just too funny.  Without further ado here is the yahoo video from our competitor, Hitachi Data Systems, featuring Mr. T.

If you want an alternate, more serious, view, here is an article published in Computer Technology Review by EMC Vice President Doc D’Errico. 

If you are looking for the best posts for a particular topic, try a blog carnival.  Here is a list of science-related carnivals.  See if you can match the carnival below to their logo in the picture above.

Update [2/6/2007]: And now finally a Carnival of Mathematics!

Update [2/28/2007]: A Carnival of women in STEM (cience, echnology, ngineering, and athematics).

 

Bora Zivkovic from A Blog Around the Clock has created a book on Lulu containing the 50 best science blog articles (culled by committee from over 200) in 2006.  The first article is a short essay to Science Fair entrants, by Phil Plait, that everyone should read.  If you live in the Northeast you might want to read the article Ticks and Time, by Diane A Kelly, with surprising new results about the etiology of Lyme disease.  And there are a lot more gems in this great anthology.

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.

 

The origin of black diamonds, aka carbonado, has been a mystery.  While conventional diamonds are mined in volcanic formations known as kimberlites, carbonado diamonds have never been found there.  Monday NSF researchers announced black diamonds are probably extraterrestial in origin.

At last month’s Emirates Millionaire Show 59,000 lucky UAE millionaires could buy a $620,000 Ud aka Oud aka Arab lute containing a 103.59 carrot black diamond, one of the largest in the world.  The stone is embedded in the Ud’s main rosette, pictured.  Uncut carbonado looks more like a charcoal brickette, as pictured in researcher Steve Haggerty’s photo. 

    

 

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 US Census Bureau has a Special Edition comparing data from 1915, 1967, and 2006 – when the US population was about 100, 200, and 300 million, respectively.  Aside from Wilson being president and John and Mary being the most popular names in 1915, what does it mean?

The table below shows how 8 factors compare relatively, using constant dollars and 1967 as a base.  Some are a surprise to me, e.g., we have a smaller percentage of the population being foreign-born today than in 1915.  The chart below illustrates how these 8 concerns weigh in relative to each other. 

 

In 1915 tuberculosis trumped everything.  The data suggests today our concerns (aside from war!) ought  to be milk prices over gas prices; aliens, legal and illegal but not extraterrestrial (too few or too many?); and not enough farms. 

Mohammad Yunus (autobiography) just won the Nobel Peace Prize - for developing micro-loans and starting the Grameen Bank helping Third-Worlders lift themselves by the boostraps – 12 years to the day of accepting the World Food Prize, created by another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Norman Borlaug (just published biography)- who founded the Green Revolution and probably saved the world from a Malthusian destiny.  In his 90s and still going strong, you can read and hear some of Dr. Borlaug’s views at an Ohio State University lecture.