New York
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Matthew
Stibbe's Homepage
New York
New York |
Summary:
I went on tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company to New York.
Washington - the FAA on the left and the Capitol in the distance.
I flew to Washington on Wednesday 19th for a morning press conference at the US Navy, in the historical Navy Yard about their new aircraft carrier, the CVN-21. I am writing an article for Popular Science about it. I wanted to write in my article: "enemies and taxpayers beware." I had lunch with one editor and afternoon coffee with another. It's always good to put a face to the emails. The high points of the visit were a flying visit to the Air and Space museum and a shoe shine at the airport. It wasn't the shine itself, although it was very good, but the shoe-shiner. She was staggeringly beautiful - like getting your shoes shined by Miss Mexico. Her catchphrase was "happy shoes" but the long line of waiting (male) customers suggested that the shoes weren't the main attraction.
CVN-21
Two days later I went to Boston for lunch with another editor and a meeting with Walter Bender, Executive Director of MIT Media Lab. This is a place of myth and legend for geeks like me. A recent article in Wired suggested that it was struggling to raise money and suffering from a certain lack of purpose. My visit was fitted in between a series of corporate 'dog and pony shows' and this gives a certain credence to the article. Bender, though an accomplished researcher and ML veteran, talked more like a civil servant than a prophet. I am not discouraged. The promise of the place is in the chaotic fusion of disciplines, the playfulness of the research and the proximity (but not intrusion) of corporations. The work is what matters. Market sentiment, which is really what the Wired article is all about, changes. Talent, hard work, imagination don't and this is a place where these things find a home.
MIT Media Lab
While I was in Boston I bought a harmonica and a bottle of special shampoo for a friend (an unlikely dandy so I daren't name him).