I'd like to introduce you to a few of my closest friends

Slide 1

Slide 1 text

I’d like to introduce you to a few of my closest friends Michael R. Bernstein CUSEC, Montreal, QC, 15 Jan 2016

Slide 2

Slide 2 text

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens

Slide 3

Slide 3 text

I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.

Slide 4

Slide 4 text

IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one. V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inﬂections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.

Slide 5

Slide 5 text

VI Icicles ﬁlled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause. VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?

Slide 6

Slide 6 text

VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know. IX When the blackbird ﬂew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles.

Slide 7

Slide 7 text

X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply. XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds.

Slide 8

Slide 8 text

XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be ﬂying. XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.

Slide 9

Slide 9 text

Dedicated to Wallace Stevens, and all XIII Blackbirds

Slide 10

Slide 10 text

I’m obsessed

Slide 11

Slide 11 text

I’m doing just ﬁne, thanks

Slide 12

Slide 12 text

Thelonious Monk Improvise

Slide 13

Slide 13 text

No content

Slide 14

Slide 14 text

No content

Slide 15

Slide 15 text

No content

Slide 16

Slide 16 text

Gilles Deleuze Question Everything

Slide 17

Slide 17 text

No content

Slide 18

Slide 18 text

Charles Baudelaire Redeﬁne beauty

Slide 19

Slide 19 text

No content

Slide 20

Slide 20 text

“What does it matter what reality is outside myself, so long as it has helped me to live, to feel that I am, and what I am?"

Slide 21

Slide 21 text

“It's Ennui!—his eye brimming with spontaneous tear He dreams of the gallows in the haze of his hookah. You know him, reader, this delicate monster, Hypocritical reader, my likeness, my brother!”

Slide 22

Slide 22 text

Brian Eno Hone Your Aesthetics

Slide 23

Slide 23 text

No content

Slide 24

Slide 24 text

Virginia Woolf Use your real voice

Slide 25

Slide 25 text

No content

Slide 26

Slide 26 text

“What is the meaning of life? That was all— a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.”

Slide 27

Slide 27 text

Harry Smith Obsess

Slide 28

Slide 28 text

"In 1950 Smith received a Guggenheim grant to complete an abstract ﬁlm, which enabled him ﬁrst to visit and later move to New York City.[10] He arranged for his collections, including his records, to be shipped to the East Coast. He said that "one reason he moved to New York was to study the Cabala. And, 'I wanted to hear Thelonious Monk play'."[11]"

Slide 29

Slide 29 text

No content

Slide 30

Slide 30 text

No content

Slide 31

Slide 31 text

Grant Achatz Persevere

Slide 32

Slide 32 text

No content

Slide 33

Slide 33 text

No content

Slide 34

Slide 34 text

Nancy Lynch Formalize

Slide 35

Slide 35 text

No content

Slide 36

Slide 36 text

No content

Slide 37

Slide 37 text

"I’ve tried in this talk to give you a good picture of the history, status and ﬂavor of research in impossibility proofs for distributed computing. I hope you’re convinced that it is an interesting and fruitful area for research. Now with some luck, skill and inspiration, we can continue to make great strides, proving more and more things to be impossible!"

Slide 38

Slide 38 text

bell hooks Empathize

Slide 39

Slide 39 text

No content

Slide 40

Slide 40 text

Michele Alexander See through the system

Slide 41

Slide 41 text

No content

Slide 42

Slide 42 text

* Improvise * Question everything * Redeﬁne beauty * Hone your aesthetics * Use your real voice * Obsess * Persevere * Formalize * Empathize * See through the system

Slide 43

Slide 43 text

The best thing you can do to be an amazing software engineer is spend some time doing something besides software engineering.

Slide 44

Slide 44 text

The opportunity is yours to help people live the lives that they deserve to live.

Slide 45

Slide 45 text

Thanks! @mrb_bk http://michaelrbernstein.in michaelrbernstein@gmail.com