links (or chains of memory, or namedropping)

On the drive home I remembered why I had looked up 'eccentric'.  I was reading an article about

wearable computing and this led to reading a prof's bio (Thad Starner); I knew him as a fellow

student at MIT.  He mentioned that he had an Erdos number of 4.  I realized my number is 3,

through a prof I worked with as an undergrad.

Erdos was an eccentric.

FWIW at UCI I've shaken Carver Mead's hand and met Federico Faggin who was one of the 808x

originals.. once I got into Minsky's office when he was out and took copies of all his papers..
and his wife sat on my coat once.  She was
demonstrating a force-sensitive touch screen.
It was a CRT on springs with sensors.

Not an ivory tower groupie, but amusing to a yokel from upstate.