Thanks to Laughing Squid for bearing the hard news that famed mathematician and all-around smart guy Benoit Mandelbrot has passed away, and double thanks for the pair of videos posted on that page, which I have re-embedded here, along with a bunch of other fractal videos (for the benefit of everyone out there who’s not on drugs).
The TED talk Mandelbrot gave earlier this year is a little over 17 minutes long, and worth every second of it, so if you’ve got the time, do yourself the favor. (Keep reading…)
I read a New York Times Opinion article recently about our human tendency to anthropomorphize machines and assign the badge “Artificial Intelligence” to robots that simply aren’t intelligent. (I suspect he’s referring to articles like this one.) The opinion article is a great read, but it’s kinda long and it seems to conclude in a different place than it starts out, so if I were a high school English teacher, I’d give the essay a B.
At its core, this piece is a warning to us humans not to infuse our technological advancements with religious or philosophical ideologies. And I must say, I completely agree with that statement. My favorite point the author makes is this:
In fact, the nuts and bolts of A.I. research can often be more usefully interpreted without the concept of A.I. at all. For example, I.B.M. scientists recently unveiled a “question answering” machine that is designed to play the TV quiz show “Jeopardy.” Suppose I.B.M. had dispensed with the theatrics, declared it had done Google one better and come up with a new phrase-based search engine. This framing of exactly the same technology would have gained I.B.M.’s team as much (deserved) recognition as the claim of an artificial intelligence, but would also have educated the public about how such a technology might actually be used most effectively.
It punctuates exactly what he’s trying to state before going on to make grander observations about religious wars and the concept of personhood.
However, it did get me thinking – not so much about personhood or religion, but about the meaning of intelligence. (Keep reading…)
(Quick summation: physicists are getting to a point where they are trying to explain things that cannot be observed.)
This article poses an interesting question, one that deserves to be asked: is the idea of alternate realities and multiple universes a moot point? Do we need to be concerned with other universes at this point in our history, when we haven’t even placed our own feet further away from the Earth than the moon?
The answer, of course, is no. We do not need to study these things. Should we study them? That’s a completely different question. (Keep reading…)
Check out this performance from Tom Jones doing “It’s Not Unusual” from 1965. Dig his awesome hybrid cardigan sweater/leisure suit outfit. Stand in awe of his sweet dance moves. Try to keep up as he deftly switches back and forth between snapping his fingers and clapping his hands.
Here’s a story for you. Immediately following this performance, Tom Jones walked off the sound stage and punched a hole in the wall. Inside the hole in the wall was a small ruby and a map of clues leading to more precious jewels. Tom Jones took the map to his twin brother, Gallagher Jones, and offered him a choice: take over for Tom Jones as the crooning singer destined for fame and glory, or hunt down the jewels by following the clues. One road was a non-stop hunt for buried treasure, undoubtedly beset on all sides with danger and heartache. The other meant that he got to be Tom Jones for the rest of his life. (Keep reading…)
This week I received quite possibly the best e-mail from the corporate people at work:
Just when I think my job is too boring to go on working there, something like this pops up and keeps me going for a few more weeks. Or less than that. Time is irrelevant there. (Keep reading…)
By day I work for a company that has just reached its tenth year of existence. Everybody knows the traditional first-year anniversary gift is paper, the third-year anniversary gift is bananas, and the fiftieth-year anniversary is gold. But I was until recently unaware that the tenth-year anniversary is tin or aluminum. As a ten-year aluminum gift, my company has given me an aluminum water bottle. This is awesome, because I’ve been wanting one for kind of a while now, but the only ones I could find are like twenty or thirty dollars. Well, now I don’t have to look and I don’t have to spend any money.
I tried it out this last weekend by taking it to rehearsal. Ohmygod it’s the best. Seriously. The feeling of environmental friendliness is so inviting, and the health benefits make me even more powerful and ninja-like than ever before. (Keep reading…)
I’ve discovered a fantastic blog called Lucid Movement (http://www.lucidmovement.com). It’s basically an archive of clips of things breaking, bouncing, exploding, wafting, etc. filmed with high-speed cameras. It’s excellent. Here is a taste of what you’ll get over there:
For the second time in my life, my Massachusetts driver’s license was questioned by an overly-cautious clerk. This one has a happy ending, though, and I got what I was after. The shades of green and blue wavy lines on my driver’s license are for security, and are of course mathematically complex. But they make my ID look like a passport to Dreamland.
And I think it’s pretty cool. It’s one reason I’ve been such a slacker about getting myself an Illinois license. Illinois still has the boring white background. Also, I paid $90 for my Mass ID and I’m not so quick to dump it just because I don’t live there anymore. But mostly I just like the colorful wavy lines.
Perhaps not everybody would find this worth the effort, but hey – if “Marie Osmond’s Merry Christmas” is available on Blu-Ray, then clearly we are not using our most advanced technology for purposes of good.
I’m actually quite intrigued by Antarctica. There’s something about a place so cold and blustery that it can’t sustain life AND YET IT DOES that just…I don’t know…reminds me of home. (My home at the south pole, that is.) Or maybe it just reminds me of Super Mario Brothers 3. Whatever.
There’s adventure there. You know there is. Come with me! Let’s go fight snow monsters and save the Ice Princess!
There are few times when I curse living in a big city. I’ll admit, I am not 100% city slicker. I do love me some outdoorsiness. I particularly enjoy seeing stars at night, which, in Chicago proper, is pretty much out of the question. Most of the time there is a glow that radiates up from beyond the buildings around me, and makes the sky itself impossible to see. All I see is the glow. Most of the time I tell myself it’s okay, it’s the price I pay for living in a place where at least some of the fine establishments stay open till the wee small hours. I mean, it’s not okay, but there are bigger problems to face right now.
But every now and again I see an article like this one from the 16th of November, describing the awesome comet and/or meteor shower that I WAS NOT ABLE TO SEE because I live under a giant cloud of smog and second-hand smoke. (Keep reading…)
Filed by Bil at 4:23 pm under Pop Culture, The Arts, The Science
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