No sense of decency

It has been seventy two years since the Army-McCarthy hearings. History has not been kind to that political witch hunt.

And today we saw a continuation of that monstrous perversion of government. The fact that the target was Dr. Anthony Fauci — an actual American hero who was instrumental in saving millions of lives — made it all the worse.

As a patriotic American, I am proud of Dr. Fauci for standing firm against these shameless bullies. Just to score cheap political points with their base, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley and Rick Scott are disgracing the U.S. Congress, just as Joseph McCarthy had done in his own time.

The question I have for these men is the same question asked of McCarthy by Joseph Welch on June 9, 1954: “Have you no sense of decency?”

In demos begin responsibilities

There is a Delmore Schwartz short story with the title “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities”. The story itself is deep and profound, and I encourage you to read it.

But I have always found the title alone to be deeply moving. As each of us begins to understand and develop our own unique power to contribute to the world, we have a responsibility to use that power well.

In a sense, we are each in a deal with God (or whatever you want to call it). We’ve been given a gift, we repay that gift by using it.

For some of us, this begins with a demo. We show the world that something is possible, and by doing so we are floating something new out into that world.

That act of creation is not free. It also creates an obligation on our part.

We also need to help usher that little idea out of the nest, until it can find its own wings and fly. In demos begin responsibilities.

The Odyssey

I finally saw The Odyssey. It is indeed every bit as good as the hype.

I can understand why it is breaking box office records. It is extraordinary even by Christopher Nolan’s high standards.

This is one of those movies that people will still be watching many years from now.

Productive illusions

It turns out that taking one day off is not enough, after an event as crazy and exhausting as the SIGGRAPH conference.

So I am taking a second day off to fully recharge my batteries.

I tell myself this will make me incredibly productive in the days and weeks that follow.

This may just be just an illusion. But then again, isn’t all of computer graphics an illusion?

Crosstown elephants go West

Many years ago I happened to be coming home from a long evening of computer graphics production work. I was crossing Park Ave near 34th St at around 3am when I saw, to my surprise, that people had picnic tables set up, as though they were waiting for a show to start.

So I stuck around to see what would happen. After about ten minutes there came a parade of elephants, slowly making their way across town.

I realized that the circus must be in town, and that the elephants, who had probably come off a boat at the East River, were heading to Madison Square Garden. That is not a sight you would ever see today.

They were traveling in size order, from largest to smallest, each elephant’s trunk holding onto the tail of the elephant in front of them. At the very end of the procession was the cutest little baby elephant.

After about ten minutes the entire herd had crossed Park Avenue, and the show was over. Everyone started to pack up and fold their picnic tables, and we all headed home.

The parade was now a memory.

Fate

I ran into a person I had been hoping for months to meet, but didn’t think I would be able to.

It was as though fate at decided to step in and say “Okay, he’s waited long enough, give him a break.”

I am not exactly sure how all of that works. But thanks fate! 🙂

When things go unexpectedly right

Usually when I give a talk, something goes wrong. The nature of what goes wrong can very widely.

Sometimes I forget to include something. Other times I try to do live coding and I just screw it up.

Then there are the times when I realize, only after I am in front of a live audience, that there is something wrong in the content of my talk itself. Of course by then it is too late to do anything about it.

The good thing about something going wrong during a talk is that it gives me work to do. As soon as the talk ends, I realize that there is something I need to fix, and I get right down to work proceeding to fix it.

Today I gave a talk at the ACM/SIGGRAPH conference, and nothing went wrong. It all went just great, in every way, from start to finish.

So now I have no idea what I’m supposed to work on next.