….than the male.
A Princeton University researcher captured, on video, a Panamanian bird rolling another mother bird’s egg out of the communal nest. As the saying goes, “It’s not enough to succeed, to be truly ‘happy,’ your friends have to fail.”
Category Archives: Technology & Innovation
Where does Einstein Alley meet the White House?
Anybody for a “watch party” on August 4, the White House demo day? Instead of entrepreneurs pitching to funders, innovators will join President Obama “to demo their individual success stories and show why we need to give every American the opportunity to pursue their bold, game-changing ideas.” If this is Einstein Alley, surely somebody here can host a watch party?
Also check out other Obama initiatives: Startup in a Day (image shown above) which aims “to simplify the process of getting a new venture off the ground, developing online tools that help entrepreneurs discover and apply — in less than a day — for local, state, and Federal permissions needed to start a business”
Or TechHire, “engaging with local governments and the private sector to help Americans get the skills they need for a technology-driven workplace.”
Or I Corps program, “university researchers and students learning to commercialize their breakthrough inventions.”
Or Startup America, a “$1 billion impact investment initiative that connected clean energy startups with experienced mentors, supported legislation that is making it easier for startups to raise capital, and much, much more.”
Sooooooo – invite me to your watch party, or if we can’t get together for a watch party, we can follow along from the comfort of our own cubicles. Or on the twitter feed at WH.gov/demo-day. Maybe… possibly . . . . we’ll see an Einstein Alley-based business at Demo Day.
The Subtext of Textiles
For my quilting friends — and my techie friends — this post on Medium from my daughter.
This is another one of those “uh DUH” moments for parents who know, instinctively, that it’s important to respond to their baby’s very whim.
Lauren Emberson, who joins the Princeton University faculty this fall, is proving that learning-induced expectations will change the brains of infants just five months old.
But will all that attention from sleep weary moms and dads — will it produce optimists?
Smart Driving Cars: Kornhauser’s the One
If you ever need the best expert on the future of transportation, let’s say, re smart driving cars — Princeton has him. Alain Kornhauser, head of the transportation department at Princeton University and founder of a company, ALK. Here he holds forth on how John and Alicia Nash could have been saved, not by seatbelts, but technology.
The fundamental problem was that the taxi was not equipped with available automated stability control, lane keeping and collision avoidance systems. This was not an accident, it was a failed public safety policy that refuses to move beyond crash mitigation and its challenged “V2x” initiatives to embrace forthright automated crash avoidance.
Moreover, there is a failed Taxi regulatory structure that doesn’t even hint that taxis should have electronic stability control, automated lane keeping and collision avoidance. What is the purpose of taxi regulation, to keep “Ubers” out of business?
The Daily Princetonian headline on his profile reads “Like a V8 engine on a roller skate.”
Environmental David vs Real Estate Goliath?
Do I have this straight? After decades of trying to develop the former Western Electric site on Carter Road, environmentalists and preservationists in Hopewell (known for their combativeness when it comes to defending rural turf) managed to fend off Berwind Property Group from building high-density housing.
The property, as described by MercerMe.com, is
“the first corporate park ever created in the United States. Built during the Cold War by Western Electric, the 360-acre site included an underground nuclear bunker for the use of the President of the United States and a runway for the President’s plane in the event of a nuclear attack.” Part of this campus has already been developed as Technology Center of Princeton, with Sensors Unlimited its most recent occupant of the largest building, with Worldwater and Lexicon also on the campus.
Jim Waltman, executive director of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, had a hand in the deal, which went down in April. Waltman speaks at the Princeton Regional Chamber breakfast on Wednesday, June 17, at 8 am (networking at 7:30) and that’s TOMORROW if you are reading this Tuesday night. Yes, I know, late notice. But you don’t pay extra to be a walk-in — $25 for chamber members and it’s a good breakfast. .
Waltman will surely introduce the new Platinum-Leed-certified environmental center, shown above and designed by Farewell Architects (though not so credited on the Stony Brook website.) But also ask Waltman about how they managed to “do the Carter Road deal.” His more well-known battle was with Westerly Road Church (now Stone Hill Church) on its development of the Princeton Ridge. I’m guessing he’d answer questions about that too.
Listen, Then Prescribe.
Dr. David Barile’s aim is sky high — to effect a culture change in medical decision making. He speaks on Wednesday, April 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Nassau Club, for the Princeton Regional Chamber. Barile, a foremost expert in palliative care, has a mobile platform, Goals of Care, to help align what patients need with what doctors prescribe. The platform is powered by a Princeton start-up, V Read about it here. Sign up for the breakfast here — or just come. Networking at 7:30, breakfast at 8.
Former PhD student at Princeton, 88-year old Kenneth W. Ford, ran afoul of the feds when he wrote about his work with the hydrogen bomb. The New York Times story here. He worked at Los Alamos and in Princeton from 1950-1952. It seems he explains hard-to-understand concepts too clearly. But Building the H Bomb, a Personal History, comes out in May, no matter what.
Somebody’s Cat? An Einstein Connection….
An emailed cartoon from the New Yorker enlightened me on an area of quantum physics I knew nothing about. I still know nothing about quantum physics, but now I know that theories about somebody’s cat had something to do with it.
Here is the link to the New Yorker cartoon. You might have to page through till you get to the one in the vet’s office, where the female vet tells a bespectacled man, “About your cat, I have good news and bad news.” The cat’s owner’s name, in the cartoon, is Mr. Schrodinger (with an umlaut, spelled Schroedinger in English).
I could see nothing funny about the drawing or the comment. Finally I realized that the name was unusual, maybe it meant something. I googled it, and found pages and pages about a quantum physicist named Schroedinger who theorized that a cat could be both dead and alive at the same time. (Now I know why I don’t want to study quantum physics, but here is a link to where someone tries to explain it).
Turns out everyone else knew about this man’s cat. It was referenced in TV shows like the Big Bang and Doctor Who, and lionized in a 
Google doodle. He even has his own Facebook page. This cat may even be featured on the Top 20 list of Science Facts that English Majors Should Know.
Why do I bring it up on a blog that focuses on Princeton? The Einstein connection, a connection so important that it’s the subject of Einstein’s Dice and Schroedinger’s Cat, a forthcoming book by Paul Halpern, due out on April 15.
it’s all theoretical of course, or the SPCA would object.
In 1989 Bill Gates was the speaker at the Trenton Computer Festival, the oldest such festival in the world. Now the festival turns 40. Read about it here.
Princeton Comment 