Geek Dinner at Davos

On the last day of the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, all participants put on their gowns and go to a multi-cultural gala event. In years past, the techie geeks and press covering them were excluded from the event, so a few decades back they started a seperate dinner called the Geek's Dinner. the place is a small restaurant, which will remain un-named, as in recent years the place is packed on that invitation only evening. The event is a real geek fest (and it takes one to appreciate a good geek fest). You cna find yourself sitting next to Sir Branson (Mr Virgin himself), Peter Gabriel or my friends Geoff Moore (who got me in) and Chris Anderson (who we missed this year).

Every evening (hosted by uber-geek Joe Schoendorf of Accel Partners and a board member of the Forum) evolved diferently, but this year we somehow got into engineering challenges, and I brought out my best party trick. It just so happens that this trick can get you a lot of free drinks in any bar, with the exception of a bar where the drinks are free already...and everyone is well into 170+ IQ score.   every evening (hosted by uber-geek Joe Schoendorf of Accel Partners and a board member of the Forum).
Since we all sat next to Tony "AlwaysOn" Perkins the cameras started rolling. Sergey disqualified himself by showing how he can solve the puzzle in less than 1 second (he must have parallel processed it...or simply embedded google into his brain), but the rest of the fire power on our table solved in sub-minute.

Enjoy the movie

Comments

[Oren Tirosh]

I guess geek fests are basically all the same - even when the combined net worth of the individuals at the table exceeds the GDP of some major nations. With the exception of the fancier tableware this scene could have taken place at the Kinnernet dining room or any other geek gathering.

[Kfir Pravda]

Shai, welcome to the blogsphere (on your own, not via SAP).
geeks are geeks - that's the fun in the whole thing isn't it?

[Lior Haner]

You just perfectly reconstructed a family dinner we had a few months ago. My Father played the part of the riddler.

[Not Important]

Your ideas on selling cars separate from the battery are excellent. Folks have been fiddling with Flow style batteries(for example) for years just for this reason. Fundamentally its a good idea; the same one that underlies fuel cells. Switching physical batteries however is simply a pain, but your on the right track. I'll offer you a slightly different variation that I think you'll find (because I seen it work with my own eyes) works much better and is easier to deal with the "usability issues" while still resulting in dense storage. Have your engineers cook up a battery extrusion process. Batteries are fundamentally made in a very inefficient manner. The are not constucted in a continuous flow manufacturing process and therein is your problem Years ago (about 30) I had the opportunity to work on a project for a company who shall remain nameless to imporve the manufacuring process of batteries. What was created way back when, was a machine that would extrude batteries into what for all practical purposes was a "battery cord"; yes an extrusion. Fill up your car with "cord" and remove the old cord, and charge per foot; on board is just a continous real of "battery cord". The trick to extract energy from the cord looks like a erector set gear with the gears spaced an appropriate distance along the cord with puncture the outer seal of the cord, to complete several circuits. Its simple, it works, and its cheap.... unfortunately such packaging couldn't easily be converted to devices of the time so it was shelfed like many good ideas.... I wish you good luck in your endevors. I think you find that this trivial idea will help you. Best Regards.