Relevant History

Piccadilly Circus and Burlington Arcade

Monday, we got up early to take the kids to the airport. The bus ride from Cambridge to Heathrow is over two hours, so naturally my son fell back asleep during the ride. Which was fine.

on the way to heathrow, via flickr

After we got them checked in and through security, Heather and I went into London. Not that I haven't been able to keep busy in Cambridge, of course, but we were in the area.

At Heather's suggestion we went to Covent Garden, where I'd never been before, and we wandered around the flea markets for a bit.

covent garden, via flickr

I picked up an old hip flask-- I've always wanted one-- but mainly just took in the scene.

type cases in covent garden, via flickr

After that, we made our way to Piccadilly Square and then Burlington Arcade. For me, Piccadilly is a kind of default stop: it's the very first place I went when I first came to London in 1989. I got off the plane and got through customs, got on the Tube, got off at Piccadilly, and went straight to the Royal Astronomical Society. So the area still has a kind of nostalgic pull for me.

We took a quick stroll through Burlington House, but then took a stroll down Burlington Arcade, which I just love.

burlington arcade, via flickr

I've never bought anything there-- everything is absurdly expensive, and the stores that have that prohibitive, formidable exclusiveness that keeps the likes of me on the outside looking in-- but it's a great place to walk around and look.

store window, via flickr

After that, it was a quick dinner, and off to see The Rivals, which was fun. Then it was back to Cambridge, and back to work.

Friday night

I've been working this week on the first of the long contemplative computing essays, and so far I think it's gone pretty well. The kids left on Monday, so I really got into it starting on Tuesday; fortunately, having written pretty regularly on the blog, I had a lot of raw material to start with-- about 15,000 words, much of it extracts from other people's work, of course, but still better than starting from zero.

This week my wife and I decided to try working more like locals. Thursday night we went to our local pub, the Issac Newton, had dinner, then another drink while we kept working.

the isaac newton, via flickr

I generally don't drink much, and usually the relationship between alcohol and inspiration is not a very stable one for me-- I get sleepy rather than creative-- but this time it worked.

Friday we were going to go to evensong at King's, but it was cancelled, so we went to the Eagle instead.

drinks at the eagle, via flickr

Despite it being a brilliantly cerebral place during the day, Friday night is not exactly the right time to pull out the laptops and write over a couple pints, so we repaired to Yo! Sushi for dinner.

sushi travelator! food of the future! via flickr

After that, it was over to Clowns of Cambridge for coffee.

double double lattes, via flickr

Altogether, it was quite productive for me. I'm still working on the piece, but it feels like it's coming together well.

I know at the end of this I'm going to think to myself, why couldn't I have written this thing in half the time? I always think that with a piece I'm happy with: if the flow is logical, the argument makes sense, I wonder why I couldn't just write that at the beginning, and forget about all those dead ends and intermediate drafts and Baroque phraseologies that I created and then discarded on my way to something simple and direct.

revisions of the article, via flickr

Of course, I've been doing this long enough to know I can't really get to the simple, direct statement without going through all the complicated stuff. Maybe other people can, but that's not how I work, or how my writing brain works. For me, writing is an exercise in obliquity, a roundabout process to generate something simple.

Koan of the day

Users are to the computer industry as women in Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own are to men. Discuss.

The Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator: example of mind wandering, or distraction?

The distinction is one I've been thinking about today. How does it appy to the Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator?

(thanks, Heather!)

British Museum and three others, plus a toy store

Today we took the kids to the British Museum, so they could see the Rosetta Stone and other Egyptian and Greek art (thank you, Rick Riordan!).

via flickr

They liked it, though the day was quite full, and they went straight to bed after they got home.

via flickr

I have to admit: after a month away from them, I'd forgotten how exhausting children are. I've had a month without kids for the first time in twelve years, and it's incredible how much I've been able to think and read. I need to learn to protect my time and attention more in my normal California life.

After the British Museum, we went to the V&A, Science Museum, and Natural History Museum (all of which are close together, so it wasn't that insane), and Hamleys, the huge toy store. Regent Street was beautiful this evening, though it usually is.

via flickr

When we got home, my son said, "It's good to be back in Cambridge." Brilliant.

Not sure what this tower is, but it's awesome

Stumbled on this tonight, and it's a great piece of architecture.

I don't know what it is, though.

However, in its small way it's as cool as the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

Pac Man

The subway stop near our hotel is decorated with images from old video games, including Pac Man.

You've gotta love a public transportation this whimsical. It's also really, really efficient.

Evening in

It started snowing this morning, and hasn't stopped. I didn't expect to see several inches by this evening, but that's what we've got.

I went to the conference for a morning session on innovation systems; it was interesting to compare attempts to build systems here to ones I've seen or been involved with in Silicon Valley, thought reading John Kay's Obliquity has made me skeptical of all attempts to reduce things as complex as innovation and entrepreneurship to a set of business processes. However, that doesn't mean that people shouldn't keep trying to work on these issues, just that we need to recognize that our best efforts are likely to move the needle just a little.

I confess I didn't know much about the Mobile Life Centre, but was quite favorably impressed with it. There's a neat group of students, and several really great senior researchers, including a couple who've had close ties to Microsoft Research.

After that I met Heather and had lunch in a pizza and kebab place in Gamla Stan.

It was unexpectedly huge, so instead of eating out, after going to the Royal Palace and the medieval museum, we had coffee at Coffeehouse by George, bought some bread and cheese at NK, and had dinner in our room. Between Heather having a bit of a cold and it being freezing cold outside, a quiet evening inside seemed like the thing.

Our hotel room, by the way, has been quite nice: it's essentially a studio apartment, with a little kitchen, and one of those slightly mysterious European bathrooms (what do people have against showers that don't spill water everywhere)?

We leave Stockholm tomorrow morning, and head back to England. Then we have Saturday to ourselves, and Sunday the kids arrive for a week.

Just another quick note

After the conference, Heather and I went to the Vasa Museum, which is pretty incredible.

The Vasa was an 17th-century warship that sank within minutes of setting sail off the waters of Stockholm. (The amazing thing is, everyone involved knew that the design had been screwed up, and nobody was willing to tell the king.)

In the 1950s, an explorer found it; for the next several years the Swedish Navy worked to salvage it, the scientists spent more years preserving and reconstructing it. Finally, they built a museum around it, rather than try to move it again.

The museum itself is quite amazing, and the Vasa is spectacular. Of course, had it been a successful warship it would have been worked to death; the fact that it sank immediately, and therefore is available to us today, is a great example of how surviving historical artifacts and documents can be the unusual and anomalous things, not the everyday and truly representative ones.

If you can't tell from the pictures, the Vasa itself is huge, and the space around it is fantastic. Very worthwhile. As Heather notes, so much of what you can see in an interesting city is actually stuff you can see, with some variation, in many great cities-- the Asian art museum here may be as good as the one in Paris or San Francisco, but they're all Asian art museums-- but this is one of a kind.

Lots more pictures here.

Wacka wacka wacka

At one of the Metro stations here in Stockholm.

This place is very cool.

In Stockholm

We're in Stockholm, Sweden for the next couple days. I'm at a conference at the Mobile Life Center, in Kista, which is the high-tech neighborhood of Stockholm. Lots of interesting-sounding stuff the next couple days, but we got here in time to see a little of the city.

After flying from Heathrow via Amsterdam, and taking a taxi from Arland airport to the city (hint: take the train, there's nothing to see driving), we got to our hotel, then immediately set out for Gamla Stan, the old town (actually its old island).

More about it later; I've got a bunch of pictures up on Flickr. It's a really cool place.

Grantchester and The Orchard

Today we bicycled to Grantchester, for tea at The Orchard.

The Orchard, via flickr

It's a pleasant bike ride, generally along (or within sight of) the Cam. I passed by the place on a ride a couple weeks ago, but decided not to go in: it was getting dark, and I figured it would be more pleasant to go in when I wasn't alone, so today we decided to brave the winds (which have really been whipping around these last few days) and go.

On our way to Grantchester, via flickr

For those who aren't familiar with it, The Orchard is tea garden (or tea house, or something) that's been popular with Cambridge students and residents since the late nineteenth century. The poet Rupert Brooke lived on the property, and there are mentions of it in correspondence and memoirs of Virginia Woolf, James Watson, Bertrand Russell, etc., etc.. (The Orchard's own Web site is pretty aggressive about promoting its history.)

via flickr

It's easy to see why the place was so popular, and why it continues to be: the ride from Cambridge south to Grantchester is very pleasant, and takes you through several fields or pastures that offer very nice views of the Cam, or look back to Cambridge.

via flickr

It was quite popular today, with lots of walkers and bicyclists out.

via flickr

Once you get to Grantchester, it's down a narrow footpath that takes you past a couple other inns, some cottages with absurdly cute names ("Snug Cottage" was my favorite), then opens onto High Street, which is basically a winding road.

via flickr

There's a church across the street. If you stay to the left, and walk a few yard, you come to the rear entrance to The Orchard.

The Orchard, via flickr

During the spring and summer it must be pretty glorious; this time of year it's nice, but nicer to be indoors.

The Orchard, via flickr

Even if you don't know much about the history of the place-- that is, if you manage to overlook all the copies of the "History of the Orchard" pamphlets, the postcards of Brooke and Wittgenstein for sale (the same ones you see on the Web site), the photos on the wall, the Rupert Brooke Museum, and just for good measure, the Brooke Room (popular with children)-- you'll still enjoy the scones, which were damn good.

Really good scones, via flickr

The idea that Rupert Brooke would "escape" here strikes me as vaguely absurd. It's a pleasant half-hour walk from Cambridge, totally accessible, and a popular destination for Brooke's friends. Then again, Thoreau managed to get away from it all by building a cabin a mile from town, so such distances are quite relative.

We spent quite a while there, enjoying the tea and the view, and learning about Brooke. When we started back, we ran across some cows.

Cows on the way back, via flickr

There are times when I'm out biking around Cambridge, and I'm struck by how absurdly beautiful it is here-- it's almost like a parody of the quintessential English landscape, except of course it's real. Seeing the cows graze, and King's College Chapel off in the distance (where we heard a great service last week), was one of those times.

Cows and King's College Chapel, via flickr

We then came back to Cambridge, spent some time in town, got some food at Sainsbury's, and came home. I have to admit, on the weekends I feel a bit superior to all the tourists: I'm on a bike, which means I actually am based here, which means I'm not really merely a visitor. Not a tourist, anyway.

[To the tune of Alfred Brendel, "Beethoven: Piano Sonata #28 In A, Op. 101 - 3. Adagio, Ma Non Troppo, Con Affetto," from the album Beethoven: Piano Sonatas [Disc 2] (a 3-star song, imo).]

Dinner

Since I spent a lot of yesterday (and the day before, until about 1:30 am) working on a proposal, I suggested to Heather that we have dinner at the Eagle.

The Eagle bar, via flickr

Fashion observations around Cambridge

The reflective yellow coat is the new blue collar. They seem ubiquitous with drivers, delivery people, construction workers, etc.

Metropolitan police, by chrisjohnbeckett, via flickr

And it's amazing that Cambridge isn't filled with broken high heels and students on crutches, given how many of the sidewalks are stone and brick. How can you walk in fashionable shoes on cobblestone?

Couple utterly gratuitous pictures of/around London

Just because I had the new camera with me:

Westminster, via flickr

Trafalgar Square, via flickr

British Museum

Sunday Heather and I went to London. Destination: the British Museum (lots more pictures here).

British Museum, via flickr

Working from home

Not quite all day, but as I have some proposals and other things to finish up today, I'm largely out of the lab. I'll put in some extra time this week and balance it all out.

Back room, via flickr

[To the tune of Joshua Bell; Michael Tilson Thomas: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, "Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto In D, Op. 35 - 2. Canzonetta: Andante," from the album Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto (a 4-star song, imo).]