Our friends at
Kadon Enterprises
make a fine collection of beautiful games and puzzles. They are a wonderful source of
gifts for friends and family. No batteries are required, although curiosity
and thought are!
For golf instruction in
the Monterey area, you can't do better than
Ben Alexander. In the San
Francisco Bay Area, the place to visit is
The Golf Lab (Leith
Anderson), now co-resident with Balbi
Golf (David Balbi). And for solving those putting woes, you should have
a look at AimPoint (Mark Sweeney).
Got balls? Here is a
description of our latest project, the construction of a backyard
Bocce Court.
Interested in the original "Barbecue
Joe?" Hint: Dixieland Music
is involved!
No tool kit would be complete without
the French Army Knife. And if you think Hummers are
for wimps, I may have a mailbox for you.
Here's an interesting
video clip featuring my
namesake. We're the one in the yellow silks.
Richard Feynman and my dad overlapped at
my alma mater, Far Rockaway High School. Visit this
link to see some photos we took
on a sentimental journey in 2001.
COMAP's educational philosophy is centered around mathematical modeling:
using mathematical tools to explore real-world problems. Have a look at
their stuff.
World going to hell in a hand basket?
Can't do anything about it? Wrong! Make a difference in one child's life:
learn about CASA and
CASA in Monterey County.
Do you have problems solving problems?
Would you like a more systematic approach? Have a look at my
problem-solving clock.
Is "growth" good or bad? Does
growth inevitably lead to decline? Healthy organizations tend to grow, but can their very growth
threaten their success and even their continued existence? Investigate this
further.
For a complete list of my publications,
click here.
Thinking about writing a book? You might
want to read this
interview first.
Do you believe in the "80/20 Rule"?
Sometimes it doesn't work.
My Erdös
Number is five. On the other hand, my "Bacon Number" is infinite. What
conclusions can we draw about entertainers and mathematicians by looking at
the distribution of these numbers? Have a look. The interesting stuff is at
the end of the Erdös
Number page.
Been draggin' lately? Have a
dragon look you
over. With thanks to
John Walker.
Here's a neat new way to compute pi.
There's an additional side benefit if you hover the cursor over it.
If you are a member of the IEEE and are interested in why software
tools have a tough time getting adopted in the business world, check out
this article by my friend
Eugene Farmer from the November/December 2006 issue of
IEEE
Software. (The article is a paid link for non-members; the IEEE has to recover its
costs.)
Ravenflow was the 2006
winner of the Silicon Valley Business Journal's Emerging Technology Award in
the Collaboration category. Here's the
announcement.
Are you interested in the "Agile Method" for doing software development?
Here is something you might find thought provoking.
Ravenflow received the prestigious 2007 SD Times 100
award in the Modeling category.
Barbecue Joe retired from Ravenflow
in February 2008. In March 2011 the company was
acquired by Versata.
For those of you who don't enjoy arguing about how to split
up a pile of stuff with someone else, or who don't view complex negotiations
as a good way to pass the time, we have a solution for you. The Brams Taylor
Method is great for adjudicating two-party disputes without the need for a
third party. Click on the picture to learn more.
Archimedes was without a doubt the greatest Sicilian who ever
lived. Yes, he is thought of as Greek, but he was born and lived almost all his life in
Syracuse, on the island of Sicily. He was the best mathematician of
antiquity, and invented a form of integral calculus over eighteen hundred
years before Newton and Leibniz. He also pioneered the science we know today
as physics. One can only speculate how much further along we would be today
if his works had not been lost for hundreds of years during the Dark Ages.
We now also believe that he was the
first mathematician to broach the subject of combinatorics,
one of the bedrocks of computer science. And how do we know this? Because of
a puzzle he took an interest in over
two hundred years before the birth of Christ.
Click on the picture of The Stomachion to learn more.
And celebrate "Worldwide Archimedes' Day" on
June 5th!
Diagram courtesy Chris Rorres, University of
Pennsylvania
Barbecue Joe competes annually in the Memphis in
May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. Click on the
picture to the left to learn more about these adventures.
