Autosave

When I fall asleep at the keyboard, (and I admit that happens pretty often), I thank goodness for autosave. Just occurred to me that Autosave would be a handy feature for an on-line fundamentalist church. Just enter your Visa card number and wait a few minutes for Autosave to occur. Takes the guesswork out of salvation. You could also build up heavenly reward points, and redeem them for halo, wings and harp, (but only after kicking the bucket.) Actually, I can't see myself lugging around a harp - those things are heavy, and bulky and probably really give your wings a workout. Wait, I feel a sacrilegious op/ed piece in the works. Maybe I'll get inspired. Or go to hell.

Enough NFL

I really don't care if these overpaid primadonna football stars and fat cat owners play another down ever.

I think it would be only justice to see the NFL fritter away its anti-trust exemption through greed, call a lock-out, then get their Armani pants sued off. When the lock-out ends by court order, the players strike. In a desperate bid to pay the escalating mortgage on his new stadium, Jerry Jones starts a new league merging football with professional wrestling. Sidelines are replaced by ring ropes and helmets are eliminated as a concession to the WWF crowd, who want to see their heroes emote and bleed. Game scores exceed first basketball, then cricket tallies. Games are so obviously scripted that only trash sports cable TV carries the games. Even the bookies abandon the new sport, and attendance sags except for the mullet crowd. Jerry Jones is bankrupt and in prison within two years, and turns his attention toward getting a TV contract for a prison league. His memorial stadium becomes permanent host to the Fort Worth Farmers Market. Meanwhile with the elimination of the offsides penalty and full contact and tackling allowed, soccer finally starts to catch on as the national sport.

At the request of friends and neighbors, I am reluctantly placing my name on the ballot for Township Supervisor. I think the Township Board of Supervisors needs some help.

As a reluctant candidate, I hope and expect somebody better will win, and I will help them win, and congratulate them on their victory, and thank providence they won. I am probably just Plan B for the Democrats. If the preferred candidate wins the lottery or wimps out on us, I'll step into the hole. In our Township, the odds are really against any Democrat, since voter registration runs almost 2-1 Republican; but there may be barely enough independents and potential cross-over votes to at least make it possible to eke out a win, depending on how many Republicans actually vote. If they turn out in force, we will probably see only Republicans elected. Whatever happens, the show will go on.

Plastic or Paper or None of the Above ?

Now here's a good idea.

Telluride Daily Planet > Archives > News > Bag ban goes into effect Tuesday

Plastic bags are made from polyethylene, which is derived mostly from oil and natural gas, and although some bags are recycled, most of them end up in landfills. In our household, we tend to accumulate these plastic grocery bags, and sometimes recycle them by taking them back to the grocery store. We sometimes use them as trash bags (to the landfill), and sometimes just throw them away (landfill again) . It would be useful if our local trash pickup allowed us to recycle plastic bags. Even though we have enough reusable cloth bags, we seem to frequently forget them. If plastic was not an option, or if we had to pay extra for plastic bags, then we would have more incentive to break this convenient habit.

Like Cats ?

Darpa’s Cheetah-Bot Designed to Chase Human Prey | Danger Room | Wired.com

Regardless of my last post, it looks as if, even near term, DARPA may unleash feline and canine terminators. Hope they are targeted precisely on terrorists and lobbyists, and not visiting Senators. The Big Dog robot in action looks really creepy indeed. The videos are worth a look despite the propaganda.

Welcome our new overlords ? Not yet

Watson's convincing victory on Jeopardy last week resurrected the public debate about the danger of Arnold coming back from the future and messing with us. In fact there is some small concern that computers which control so many transactions now, will eventually control most human activity, and even surpass human intellectual capacity. That scenario could happen, but there are a number of very large technical hurdles barring that outcome. So what is required of technology for computers like HAL 9000 to take over ? Firstly, computers would need much better sensory capability, especially vision. Except in controlled lab environments, and the movies, HAL currently cannot accurately interpret what it is able to see via video cam or any other device. There are recent advances in interpreting visual information, like results of the autonomous vehicle competition sponsored by DARPA, where unmanned vehicles were required to navigate a closed obstacle course, however, these incremental advances do not represent any real technological breakthrough, but merely refining and applying existing technology. We are probably at least a generation away from safe, affordable, autonomous vehicles. One of the major hurdles for HALs emergence remains the development of effective artificial intelligence. AI includes learning ability, reasoning ability to apply logic, deduction, induction, and original thought. AI, once thought to be a near reality, has remained an elusive and receding goal. It seems that we just did not know how much we did not know in the area of AI requirements. We have succeeded in building expert systems, which mainly organize and repeat information previously loaded, along with some rudimentary learning capability. Development of computer sensory perception, visual processing, language skills, and learning ability will advance in the foreseeable future, but these technologies all require unpredictable hardware and software major innovation to make AI practical. . The key ingredient that will probably not be seen for hundreds of years is computer capacity for original thought. When that occurs, if we allow it, Arnold may indeed be back.

PBS - Mark Twain: Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses

A Classic 15 minute read

PBS - Mark Twain: Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses

Whenever I start to believe I am a good writer, a dose of Mark Twain restores my literary humility.