Shakespeare at CMU
Obviously, I am riffing on:
Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 romantic comedy period film directed by John Madden, and written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, Ben Affleck, and Judi Dench. The film received acclaim from critics, grossed $289 million against a $25 million budget. It won a leading seven Oscars out of thirteen nominations at the 71st Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress for Paltrow, Best Supporting Actress for Dench, Best Screenplay, Best Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design.
Why?
As you know from my previous post, Simon Armitage visited CMU and the International Poetry Forum this past week. What I did not know is that CMU has the First Four Folios of Shakespeare!
And, I thoroughly savored Simon’s delightful reading at CMU that was based on the Birds of Shakespeare. And, thanks to Jake Grefenstette, I now have a personalized autographed copy of Simon’s Gilgamesh, that I was enjoying alongside Amrut (Single Malt) Whiskey, when the announcement of 2026 CMU University Professors was made public.
Tepper’s Eleven
Of course, I am riffing:
Ocean’s Eleven is a 2001 American heist comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh from a screenplay by Ted Griffin. The first installment in the Ocean’s film trilogy, it is a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack film. The film features an ensemble cast including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy García, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Casey Affleck, Don Cheadle, Scott Caan, Elliott Gould, Bernie Mac and Carl Reiner. The film received positive reviews from critics and was a major box-office hit, grossing $450.7 million worldwide (on a budget of $85 million).
Why?
CMU Honors 6 Faculty as University Professors
The University Professor (UP) designation is the highest distinction a faculty member can receive at Carnegie Mellon, awarded to individuals whose research, teaching and leadership transcend traditional academic boundaries.
I joined CMU in 1991. At that time, we were called GSIA – Graduate School of Industrial Administration, and there were four University Professors at GSIA, alphabetically, by last name, Egon Balas, Yuji Ijiri, Lester Lave, Allan Meltzer and Herb Simon. Then, Gerard, Dennis and Finn (upon winning his Nobel) were elected. Then, yes, it was me who was elected. Then, John. And, this year, Linda and Kannan. Congratulations! Here are 11 UPs (not including me).
Quantum Readiness Ladder
Can I talk really about Poetry without also talking about Quantum?
I was interviewed last week (again!), this time by Network World, about yet another breathless press release about an advance in quantum:
QuEra claims quantum error correction breakthrough with 2-to-1 qubit ratio
According to Sridhar Tayur, professor of operations management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, there are four levels of quantum computing breakthroughs.
“There’s something on paper, then there’s something in a lab, like a proof of concept,” he says. “Then there’s a prototype at scale, and then there’s production scale.”
The QuEra announcement is just at the research paper level, he says. Many people see these theoretical results, and their minds immediately jump to commercial products, he says. “But it’s not like they even have a physical demonstration of this,” Tayur says. The QuEra announcement is just at the research paper level, he says.
You may recall my Quantum Serenity spoof on Quantum Supremacy from a few years back, my prayer against Quantum Rubbish.
I decided now to create a Quantum Readiness Ladder (QRL) framework (that I will be presenting later this week at the NAE event in DC on Quantum):
The majority of announcements that you see are in levels 1 and 2, and, if you are concerned about about what is going to matter right now (Level 4), then, stay calm and carry on!
I am looking forward to the NAE event on Quantum Manufacturing – my Keynote is titled The Physics-Economics-Politics (PEP) Framework for the Second Quantum Revolution – on Thursday (recall my PEP thinking about Supply Chains during Covid), and, even more, the graduation dinner celebrating Honorary Doctorates, on Saturday, with, yes, Jensen Huang (co-founder and CEO, NVIDIA), Sam Hazo (founder of International Poetry Forum), Jamie deRoy (15 Tony Awards, plus four more nominations this year!), and, yup, so boring, yet another Nobel Laureate (we have 10) in Economics, Thomas Sargent (nice guy actually, not his fault that his is a Knock-off Nobel (as against, say, Physics or Physiology/Medicine), met him during the GSIA/Tepper 75th anniversary event last year, recall The Tepper Network).
