I haven’t been watering the garden

Yesterday was the all-day corporate site visit from the Verizon folks,
9am-5pm. Very early for me; P helped a lot with getting me there on time
and whisking me home when everything was done. The whole thing was
glorious— exciting presentations, great questions from the Verizon folks,
some excellent live demos (including one that successfully searched a video
of the breakfast from that very morning using semantic concept indexing,
quite impressive). The reception at the end was great fun too, and I wound
up in a big conversation about the future of AI surveillance and
automation, and the ethical and sociological implications thereof. A really
energizing day, in spite of the exhaustion of concentrated social
interaction and restricted snack schedule. Low-grade panic attack after
lunch; a surprisingly tame price to pay for so intense a violation of
routine.

After dinner we did the crossword, which had a neat trick that might have
been nasty if it hadn’t been so well-hinted. Afterwards I put in some more
petals on Gerty’s embroidery project.