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I hope you were there.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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I wouldn't have missed it for anything. As I recall, the q&a after the lecture was extremely interesting.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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When I was a graduate student, my advisor was taught by an everything but Nobel Laureate, F. Albert Cotton[^]. Cotton is student of/co-author with Geoffrey Wilkinson[^] who is a Nobel Laureate.
Also, the prof I did post-doc work with is first generation from a Nobel Laureate, Henry Taube[^].
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Some people are lucky. Sounds like a top notch institution.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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The first of the two was Northwestern University (Evanston, IL).
The second of the two was the State University of New York at Stonybrook.
The latter is now called Stony Brook University - and the various departments were allowed to deteriorate from first-in-the-state (they wanted to make it Berkeley of the East in my day). My opinion is that (1) they wanted to make SUNY Albany (state capital) more like top of the heap, and worse, they completed building the medical school - which then got all the resources that should have gone to the real learning center. So, it's much more so-so than it used to be. Stony Brook University ranking - Google Search[^] Also, when I was there, there were no athletic teams to speak of (except student intramural teams, i.e, fun). No resources wasted on that. In those days, people went their because it offered a good education and a bargain price.
Anecdote: whilst I was doing chemical kinetics research, there was one main-frame in the chemistry department. There were various connections for real-time data acquisition. My guy had priority zero - as they were very quick experiments and they could not wait. Meanwhile, Paul Lauterber[^] also had a connection, he and his students were working on taking NMR images in two dimensions and then deconvoluting the data into an image. When I pushed the "collect" button - their work was halted until my data was collected. It may have only been for a few minutes, total, in CPU time, but I actually interfered with the development of MRI (for which he got a Nobel Prize).
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
modified 26-Sep-16 7:28am.
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W∴ Balboos wrote: The latter is now called Stony Brook University - and the various departments were allowed to deteriorate from first-in-the-state (they wanted to make it Berkeley of the East in my day). My opinion is that (1) they wanted to make SUNY Albany (state capital) more like top of the heap, and worse, they completed building the medical school - which then got all the resources that should have gone to the real learning center. So, it's much more so-so than it used to be. Stony Brook University ranking - Google Search[^] Also, when I was there, there were no athletic teams to speak of (except student intramural teams, i.e, fun). No resources wasted on that. In those days, people went their because it offered a good education and a bargain price.
You went to SunySB too? When I was there, right around the millenium, the CEO of Computer Associates had just overfunded the CompSci department, so they had doubled the number of students without increasing the housing/services capacity... So many problems... On top of that, they jumped on the Java bandwagon in my third year, so were teaching baby-level intro courses to juniors... It was quite sad.
Only two of my CS courses were actually interesting and/or useful... A computer graphics course in C++ (We basically rewrote OpenGL... VERY hard, but awesome), and the requisite algorithms / data structures course.
But yeah... It was still known for CS in those days, but it's no Berkeley.
Actually drove through there a few months ago... Man, that place has changed... Barely recognize it.
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You missed the best of it - "The Bridge to Nowhere", for a start
The newly built Grad Chemistry Building.
Did you ever find the underground tunnel system? Probably blocked off by your time.
Interesting note: the original plan, after building the various buildings, was to only pave the vary largest main pathways. Then, student foot-traffic, as shown by the wearing of the grass, was to be used to determine where to pave next. And parking/parking stickers were free. The bullet-proof (actually, frustrated angry student proof) glass had not yet been put in the bursar's office lobby.
They never got around to the paving part - so one year a mass of students brought cups of mud to the bursar's office and put them, en masse, on the steps leading up to the University President's (Toll, at that time) office . . . to share the student experience.
And the year before I started I saw the Grateful Dead concert, last show, 4th row center . . . and . . . and . . . and . . . I'd love to be back there and do it all again.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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The bridge was still unfinished while I was there. Now it's done.
I don't remember which one was chem... Never took any courses there...
Don't remember any tunnels. But do you remember the bamboo forest? Gone now, but was there when I went.
They actually redid the entire academic mall while I was there... Added lots of grass and foot paths (Before it was all paved) and a fountain they turned on once or twice a year. I think they may have followed that advice with the rest of it, though... I lived in Roth quad, and the path from there to the CS buildings went through the woods and was basically just mud after any serious rain/snow.
As for concerts... Yeah, I've heard all the stories about how it was great back in the day, but for us, the Staller Center was just a movie theater, and the steps outside were just... steps.
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Ian Shlasko wrote: the Staller Center was just a movie theater,
Theater? Concerts were on folding chairs in the gym!
The "Bridge to Nowhere" - The bridge was built to go to from the Studen Union building to the old library, but it was the wrong height and they decided to wait because they built the new library. Unfortunately Fortunately, the height mismatch was still horrific. The bridge to nowhere just went out from the SU building, over the road, and then, after a while, just stopped with a wall. There were even tee-shirts: "Stonybrook - The Bridge to Nowhere". What you probably saw was the connection to the fine-arts center and stuff - all of which appeared well after I was gone. Dorms: Tabler->Tabler->Roth->Kelly. What you call Roosevelt Quad was simply called Stage 12, as it had no name; Mendelsohn Quad was simply called "G" Quad.. Many dorms had alternate names - for example, in Roth they had Hendrix named after Jim Hendrex; in Kelly, they had Marx, named after Harpo Marx; &etc.; They were the only names most of us ever knew.
There was no meal plan when I was a Freshman - they were thrown off campus and not replaced. We all cooked for ourselves - and fought tooth and nail to keep it that way when they brought new profiteers back on campus.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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No, we're thinking of the same bridge. They later finished it by having the bridge actually do a zig-zag to go around the left side of the library and meet the walkway there.
We had G and H quad (I guess H was after your time)... Roosevelt was there, and they had just built the first set of graduate apartments. Now there are a bunch more (Like I said, barely recognizable)
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G & H quads were where they had most of the Freshman. I ended up in Tabler because I was supposed to be part of the "Hand Project" - where your dorm life (with other freshman) was a bit like an encounter group - and there were thus easy intros/interactions with the nubile females in the program. Alas, it was cancelled starting that year. I decided to stay, a suite was a better location than a dorm.
Too much nostalgia - and the other thread - making me crave pizza - It's all too much for me.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Quote: people went their there because it offered a good education
...but not spelling, obviously! 
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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pwasser wrote: contact with a Nobel Laureate
I saw an episode of Star Trek:TNG that had Hawking, Einstein and Newton featured. Does that count? 
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I attended several talks and asked questions of Gene Amdahl[^] who didn't receive a Nobel, but should have.
Does that count?
I'm retired. There's a nap for that...
- Harvey
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Movie Quote Of The Day
Quote: Does Krull the Warrior King want to come out and play?
which movie?
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Conan The Kindergarten
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: Conan The KinderBiergarten
Hmmm, That gives me an idea. I might go to the Oktoberfest today. Not any cheap imitation. The original.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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BÁSTÁRD!
veni bibi saltavi
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How to loose CP in a day
In Word you can only store 2 bytes. That is why I use Writer.
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It clearly can't be "Krull". That would be far too obvious... Hmmm... I'll have to think some more on this.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Just had the latest Windows 10 update installed and after about 15 minutes my system restarted and everything is working. I can't understand it.
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Try doing something very important.
"It is easy to decipher extraterrestrial signals after deciphering Javascript and VB6 themselves.", ISanti[ ^]
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At my age, getting out of bed in the morning is important. 
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