Memory and Attention Workshop

At the start of the year, courtesy of Thad and Rich DeVaul, Jay was invited to attend a Media Lab workshop. This workshop was inspired by discussions at this years ISWC, focusing on Rich's paper on subliminal memory cueing in a wearable environment. The workshop was very beneficial, as it accomplished its goals of introducing the wearable research community to the memory research community and it provided an opportunity for both groups to view each others research.

The Workshop's keynote speaker, Daniel L. Schacter, is the author of the excellent book: The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers (designed for lay readers). His keynote talk has been archived at the Media Lab and the MIT allows public viewing of the archived piece. It's highly entertaining and informative a so if you're interested Download/view the Real Media stream of the presentation, if you have any interest in psychology or cognitive science. The talk is about 30 minutes and the associated slides are also available for download.

The pictures linked to in the above photo album are extremely low-resolution. They were grabbed with the camera attachment to our Sidekick (cell phone). The Sidekick camera, which is compact (we use it as a key chain), doesn't grab photos above 2K in size. So, if you'd like to see random low res shots of Jay's walk around Cambridge the day before the conference please click into the above album.

Interlude

Now you might wonder why you're seeing a a scan of a check. Note the company name Mystery Bay LLC. Mystery Bay LLC was the name of the company Jay worked for that was run by FBI's Most Wanted #14. The bankruptcy and civil proceedings finally completed and we were fairly surprised when one day this check and a letter arrived from the lawyer handling the bankruptcy. If you missed reading the whole story on Jay's employment story it's located here.

Pesach

What does this plant have to do with Pesach? Well, we could bring up various references to Spring, growing things, rebirth etc. Actually what this plant has to with Pesach, is it's the first thing you'd see approaching our house for the Seder. This plant is Audrey, the Artichoke growing in our garden. In the above shot you can see the budding Audrey₁ if you look carefully.

The Passover Seder has become the traditional big event that we hold each year. We invite friends, family and anyone else who is interested to attend our Seder. The days leading up start with a trip to the Jewish Albertsons - Albertsons in it's top 20 markets has established large Jewish stores featuring a large Kosher section, a Kosher Deli, a Kosher Butcher, a Kosher Baker, a Kosher Kitchen preparing Kosher "ready to go" foods". Oddly the one in Seattle isn't in an especially Jewish neighborhood, they located it on a Island that is geographically centered between the Puget Sound region's Jewish communities.

This Albertsons in the days before Passover is a sight to behold. It's filled with VERY Jewish looking women shopping, talking, interacting. That and it's a chance to see all the latest in Passover "tech food" and to see what we're going to experiment with. Notable this year were Kosher for Passover frozen pizzas. We decided not to attempt this "tech".

This year one of our traditions was sadly stymied. The West Coast Bottling companies for both Coke & Pepsi decided not to produce Kosher for Passover colas. So the traditional mass purchase of real sugar colas didn't happen :-(. Shari volunteered to prepare a couple of the new tech Kosher for Passover cake mixes. Seen above are the Matzoh Balls that Demaris was prepping for the Seder.

Seder table with our open source Haggadahs. Jay also did his annual updating of the Powerpoint Haggadah.

S
Shot from around the table. Left to Right. Gerald, Powerpoint Haggadah, Jay (with beard), Judy, Gerald's father. Not seen are Demaris, Shari, Sameer and Duncan.

Here are a couple of the desserts that came from the Kosher for Passover cake mixes. Both were acceptable although a little dry (big surprise), the cake on the right (the apple one) tasted strangely of kugel.

Click the above image if you wish to view the complete photo album from our Seder.