Brilliant work: Pedocomputing : A Generalized Framework for Polynomial-Time Solution of NP Problems

For years, researchers have been trying to reproduce the mental capacity of a Five-year-old in a computer and have failed miserably. However, pedocomputing with five million five year-olds has roughly the mental capacity of five million five-year-olds.

Out of the mountains of Colorado, into Utah, a sliver of Arizona, and onto Nevada. Tara and I escaped the snow covered ground for the debauchery of Vegas. We hit the road before sunrise because our room in the Ramada Inn stunk of stale cigarette smoke. I woke up in the morning and coughed out something I hadn’t seen since I quit smoking three years earlier. We would have changed rooms, but Ashby was so tapped out, as were we, we didn’t bother. Also, we figured the next non-smoking room was likely going to be as smokey.

We watched the sun break the over the Rockies as we neared Grand Junction. The scenery was stunning. An hour or so into Utah we came across some of the most amazing mountains you’ll ever see, they looked as if the wind had blown them on their side. We stopped at a viewing area to take some photos. Turns out at this viewing area I was standing atop rocks from the Permian extinction that have been thrust upward and exposed. I was standing on rocks were from about 250 Million years ago when the greatest global extinction known to man occurred. It’s beleived that volcanic eruptions in Siberia 251 million years ago began a series of of events that lead to high hydrogen sulfide levels in the oceans and atmosphere and precipitating the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history. During this extinction 95 percent of all species on Earth became extinct, compared to only 75 percent of all species in the next major extinction, which is theorized to be when a large asteroid caused the dinosaurs to disappear. When you read up on the Permian extinction it’s a little terrifying. It all with a little global warming. It was all downhill after that. Sound familiar?

After Utah on highway 15 we passed through a small piece of Arizona, about 20 to 30 miles. This was some of the most spectacular scenery of the entire trip. White River Canyon in Colorado was amazing, but this too was brilliant. The section is the Virgin River Gorge. I found this page that describes the highway segment by segment in great detail, very cool. After the gorge you roll out into the desert of Nevada. We were in Las Vegas before 5 PM.

After initially booking a place at the MGM Grand I realized there was no way I could easily slip the cats past the door men. None of the hotels on the strip take cats so we ended up at a La Quinta about a half mile off the strip. After getting the car unloaded for the night we headed for the nearest buffet. Unfortunately it happened to be Excalibur, which sucked. While Tara was with Ashby I played the 3 dollars I promised our renter in a slot machine. He lost. Then I dropped 20 bucks into another machine on my way to catch up with Tara and Ashby. About three minutes later I walked away with $47.75. I broke Las Vegas!! WoooOOOOooo!

• Photo set

With Nebraska behind us we lunched in Sterling, Colorado and spent the night in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Sterling is a town of 1,500, which according to the waitress has "boomed" in the last several years since the state penitentiary opened. It’s in the high desert plains about an hour or more out of Denver. We ate at the closest restaurant to the highway, which happened to be a Country Kitchen. The service was good as the waitresses, like so many people, were enamored with Ashby. The food was what you would expect from a Country Kitchen, which is to say: poopy.

Tara and I sped through Denver and headed into the mountains. This was why I chose this route rather than heading south and cutting across on 40. The route is spectacularly picturesque. We got into Glenwood Springs a little after 6 PM MST and stayed at the Ramada Inn, which was probably pretty nice twenty years ago. We dined at Tequilas, which makes a mean margarita and had some pretty good mexican food. Tara and I have finally learned that kids meals are easily the size of a reasonable adult portion.

I really wanted to stick around for another day in Glenwood Springs and check out the hot springs, but duty called and I needed to be in San Diego by Wednesday so I could make the Content Week conference on Thursday. It’s small and probably a waste of my time, but it’s local and we should be there representing.

• Photo set

On the road to California the food is bad, the cold is worse, and Ashby is cool as ever. Tara, Ashby, and I got on the road late this morning. The temperature, with wind chill, was well below zero. Re-packing the car was a chore in the bitter cold. I don’t know how I could have ever fit everything were it not for the Yakima Skybox. That thing rules! Here’s a shot of our vehicle that was taken later in the day in Iowa.

Notice the "Baby on Board" sign and UNC ram that was supplied by Roy. Tara got the "Baby on Board" sign to deter people from road raging around her. I’m not sure the sign effective is with road ragers. However, It’s been my experience that there are a couple signs you can place on your vehicle that will deter police from ticketing you, no not the UNC ram, but:: 1). "I love Jesus" 2). "Baby on Board". Don’t ask me why, but both have worked for me.

We got on the road at 10:34 AM CST. We made it to Iowa about an hour and a half later. Tara and I stopped for lunch about an hour out of Des Moines at a fancy roadside diner and gas station. It was so bloody cold I had to pry the car’s gas tank flap open with my knife. Although we didn’t eat the buffet, I did shoot a photo of it. Fabulous. The highlight of our meal was when Tara asked the waitress (photo below) if she enjoyed the salads the diner served. Something tells me this server mostly enjoyed the buffet.

Kansas may be flatter than a pancake, but Nebraska, I suspect, is at least as flat as one.

I’m currently writing this from a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska. I’ve driven by Lincoln several times before, but I’ve never actually been in the town, until now. It’s clean. And what little I’ve seen of the city it seems strangely new. Lincoln is the capital of Nebraska and has a population of 250,000, the main industry is insurance. Odd, insurance. We’ll hit the road very early in the morning and will make Denver, Colorado tomorrow.

Everything is packed. The house is cleaned and ready for our renter. I made the mistake of touching up some paint, which resulted in me having to paint a couple very large walls, one of which was 15 feet high. That sucked. I also had to repaint part of the kitchen because a handyman I hired to help get some things done around the house to get it ready for us to leave the state had used the wrong paint, cream not white. That sucked too. Home Depot is like a black hole. Why is it that if I have to make one trip to Home Depot I end up making at least three? I hate that! I can never seem to get what I need in a single trip. I suppose it’s best that the house have fresh coats paint now. It will surely save us money later. It still sucked.

In preparation for the trip I’ve got my podcasts stacked up on my iPod and some new audio books to tide me over during the 30 hour, 2000 mile drive. I have the route planned. If you like, you can review it. If I had more time I would take a route through Wyoming our mover was telling me about that’s mostly 2 lane highways and not much longer. However, I have to be in San Diego Wednesday for a conference on Thursday and with Ashby an all…we’re going to get the drive done quickly. We’ll be sleeping in or near Omaha, Nebraska tomorrow night. I’ve taken this route before. Tara hasn’t. Hell I think I’ve taken darn near every reasonable route one can take from MN to CA. I considered going south to Oklahama City and cutting across to avoid any potentially bad weather. I took this route last time though to California and stopped off to visit Paul Yellowhorse (an old buddy I’ve known since I was about eight) and I’ve trafficked that souther route from east to west most often recently; so, this time I figured I would take the route through Colorado, which I haven’t done for many years nor has Tara ever seen.

I can’t wait to get on the road. It definitely feels like I’m going home. I’ve also been freezing my ass off today. It’s bitterly cold here in Minnesota. Bitterly cold. I mean really freaking cold. Also, my gloves were packed. I think I lost two fingers today.

I just finished reading Cobra II. Well, I say reading, but I use this loosely. I actually listened to the audio book over the last few days as I packed and cleaned the house. Wow, what a book! I suspected Rumsfeld was an incompent and stubborn Secretary, turns out I was right. Great book. Must read.

We’re mostly packed now. The movers load the majority of the Minnesota office tomorrow beginning at around 8 AM CST. After that they’ll load the house. Our route to San Diego is completely planned, but I know we’ll be going through Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada before we reach California. The car is loaded. I would have never had enough room if it weren’t for the new (used) 21″ Yakima Skybox I bought off Craigslist for a less than half price. I’ll try to post as we travel. My BlackBerry acts as a modem to my laptop so connectivity won’t be much of a problem. I’ll be glad when we’re on the road this Sunday.

Search by colors. Cool. Although, I’m not sure how useful.

I thought I should point out that migrating Wiki.com to Wik.is, which has been a monumental undertaking given the number of users and very short notice, isn’t the only thing MindTouch has been up to recently. Take a look at the new web site. And dig the launch of a new product, MindTouch Deki. It’s just coming out of closed beta. It’s very slick and free for the first 5 users. It installs on Windows or Linux in minutes. And as one enthusiastic beta user who leaked a few days ago pointed out: you can carry it with you on a USB memory key if you like. It’s so easy my mom could deploy it. 🙂 Pretty damn cool if I don’t say so myself.

Yes, I feel like I’ve mentioned I’m leaving MN here a dozen times. It’s probably getting tiresome me always talking about this. But this post is necessary because I’ve got to supply a post regarding my going home (un)celebration that we had at the Loring Pasta Bar last Friday. I noticed my depature was mentioned here. I wish I had had a chance to meet or get to know this Garrick guy. I remember seeing him once and thinking: "he looks cool, where did he get that name?" I mean come on, he sounds like a medieval baron or something: Garrick Van Buren. I know he’s into podcasting. That’s cool. Anyway, like I talk about in response to PeteE’s comments I feel like I’m leaving the cities with things not quite finished. I’m not going to mull over that again though. Instead I’ll just share photos of the event and a review of the restaurant.

• Photo set

Learn about microformats, which is what I used to write the above review.

Did you follow events of the National Conference for Media Reform Conference that was recently held in Memphis, TN? If not, your media is crap. It has been well covered by a couple media streams I consume. Namely the wonderful Democracy Now! and On the Media had coverage. It seems the conference is organized by Free Press, which oddly just recently came to my attention as well. I had no idea this conference was taking place. Had I known, I would have really liked to have been there. This was an important event. A very important event. Do you remember that PBS dude? Bill…uhhh…Moyers or something? 😉 Well, holy crap did he give a speech! I’ve been planning on posting about the keynote address he gave at the event. He makes so many points that I feel very strongly about that I had intended on doing a point by point write up. However, his speech was so damn good I would only be doing it an injustice. This was one of the most powerful and important speeches I’ve heard…in my life to date really; at least, due to it’s relevance today. If you have not heard this, you’re doing yourself a disservice. You can hear the condensed version at Democracy Now! and read the transcript or listen to the MP3, which in some ways is more impactful than the video provided below via YouTube (in case you’re a ‘tard, and I know there are a few of you here, you can just click the play arrow below to view the video) Part One:

Part Two:

Finally, watch Amy Goodman’s address. It’s powerful and equally important. It also includes a peculiar fact regarding Rumsfeld.