Boston in the Springtime
Please come to Boston in the springtime
I’m stayin’ here with some friends and they’ve got lotsa room
You can sell your paintings on the sidewalk
By a café where I hope to be workin’ soon
- Joan Baez
I was on a business trip to Boston last week. It’s where I lived on arriving in the USA 34 years ago to study at Tufts. I used to walk through Harvard Square on my way from Somerville to catch the bus to Medford.
Harvard Yard in Springtime
Harvard is beautiful at this time of year.
Everyone hears about New England foliage in the Fall. But the Spring time is wonderful. The trees in Harvard yard were full of blossom.
There were no students in sight. Studying for Final Exams must keep them all inside.
Channeling Paul Allen and Bill Gates
Stepping outside the walls of Harvard Yard and into the Square I suddenly recalled my “there but for the Grace of God go I…” moment. It was January 1975. Paul Allen was visiting his friend Bill Gates who was an undergrad at Harvard. Allen is browsing at the news stand in the center of the Square. He spots a copy of Popular Electronics with the Altair 8800 computer on the cover. He buys a copy and rushes over to Gates’s dorm saying “It’s happening, the home computer is here!”. Gates drops out of Harvard to write the BASIC compiler for Altair and MicroSoft is born.
Now, for all I know, I was browsing at the same news stand that very afternoon. I used to stop there most days to check out the UK newspapers. I could’ve chatted with Allen, offered to help out with his new idea. See what happened. Of course, I didn’t. Nor could I have. I was a sociology grad student who loathed the DEC mini-computer I had to use for my Statistics course. And it was probably too cold for any small talk.
But in honor of the missed opportunity I decided to buy a copy of Popular Mechanics (since Popular Electronics merged with another magazine and is no longer available) from the same news stand. Call me superstitious, but you never know…
And in one of the most weird and geeky things I’ve ever done in my blog, here’s my proof of purchase!
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Weird and geeky and hilarious, Ian! Maybe you’ll be at the forefront of the next mechanical movement.
By Lisa Braithwaite on 05.12.08 8:50 am
Hi Ian,
I also read a PopMechs issue for the first time in yoiks, recently.
To my surprise, the mag had a rare interview with one of Goog’s tops in search, and they asked 20 very pertinent questions.
You may care to read the piece, noted following.
Regards,
Michael Zerman
Adelaide AUSTRALIA
20 (Rare) Questions for Google Search Guru Udi Manber
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4259137.html
April 16, 2008
Since there has been such a thing as Web search, Udi Manber has been working on Web search. Previously a computer science professor at the University of Arizona, then a senior vice president at Amazon and Yahoo’s chief scientist, Manber is now vice president in charge of search quality for Google, where he makes sure results are engineered to the utmost (near) perfection. In one of the only public interviews he’s ever sat down for, Manber gives PM a glimpse into how Google’s dominant engine helps you find what you want, how you can help it find you and how search is constantly evolving with the pace of technology. —Glenn Derene
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By Michael Zerman on 05.12.08 4:31 pm
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