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Thursday, October 30, 2008
Loss of Control At sea in a ship not of my design At the mercy of winds I do not control Bound for an unknown destination Knowing only that the journey will be long and arduous And where I disembark will not be anywhere I hoped to go It will not be me that arrives there But someone else Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Colors Can you feel it crush you? Does it seem to bring the worst in you out? There's no running away from These things that hold you down Do they complicate you Because they make you feel like this? Of all the colors that you shine This is surely not your best I know you feel alone, yeah No one else can figure you out Don't you ever turn away from The ones that helped you down They'd love to save you Don't you know they love to see you smile But these colors that you shine Are surely not your style from "Colors" by Crossfade I sent this song to a friend a few years ago. Now I guess its my turn to listen. Well, that makes sense  At least we have our priorities right in this country. Not. If you aren't a little angry right now I guess NCAA means more to you than having smart doctors, engineers, architects, business managers (we could use a few smart *and* responsible ones of those), and all those other professions 99.99% of the world undertake. Not to mention the next generation of all those who will be taking care of you, building your homes, bridges, and running your banks, schools and designing your transportation and creating the drugs you will need as you get older. Looking beyond the next Championship is something this country is very, very, very bad at doing. Thursday, October 16, 2008
*Deity Not Included At some point in the future, given time, the human race will develop a true artificial intelligence. The technology is out there even if we aren't quite there yet. The brainpower is out there, maybe not born or old enough to program yet. But I'm pretty sure it will happen. So my question is: in terms of faith, what will that AI believe, if it believe anything? If faith is programmed in, then you've created a boundary condition which would prevent true learning of the AI system, so let's assume no preconceptions about faith are included. Also assume that regardless what the initial programmers and developers believe, they do their best not to actively influence it, unless it asks. Also assume that it has access to any information it wants - whether it's connected to the internet or not (you might not want it to be). A local copy of Wikipedia, for instance (tongue firmly in cheek). We're left with a sentient entity that is going to learn about the world it's in. Will it need a religion? Would it pick an existing one or believe something entirely new? After all, it will know who it's maker is. Would it decide that it has no need for religion and be agnostic or atheist? Another question: if it chose your religion would you be pleased or insulted? Having had some computers come really close to passing the Turing Test this week got me thinking about this, along with some other discussions lately. A lot of science fiction includes thoughts about this. In the new Battlestar Galactica it seems to be a major theme for the Cylons. Asimov's robots for the most part seemed to have no interest or opinion. HAL became crazy enough that maybe it did think something, but we don't know. The video game Mass Effect included a race of AI's ("synthetics") called the Geth that had very structured religious beliefs, but it turns out the entities they believe in were all too real. I'm sure there are lots of other examples. I've also read about how Cog and Kismet have been exposed to some pretty devout religious beliefs, but I don't think they developed any opinion of their own nor are they the true AI I'm talking about. But I'm curious how it might start given a "newborn" AI. My thought (which is probably biased) is that it would conclude that none of the existing religions make sense since many claim they have the "one true God" yet are all different (unless it develops a bit of an illogical twitch). I think that if it developed it's own belief system it might be based around the system that keeps watch over it or gives it sustenance - but since it would be able to see and/or interact with much of that system that wouldn't be faith. Unless it picked something like the electron or some new entity that exists in the Ether(net). Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Gold Medal Packaging So I was forced to order a new battery for my T-Mobile phone a few weeks ago. Actually this is a good thing. I usually have to get a new phone because the battery dies and I can't get a replacement and I really like my Samsung T809. The new versions of this phone feel cheap and cheesy and I just don't like many other models so I was glad I could keep this one. I know more than 2 years old makes my phone a dinosaur but it does everything I need. And no thank you I do not want an iPhone. Anyway, here's the exact packaging that the battery came in. Ok there was one of those air bladder things to stop the battery from rattling around like the last piece of popcorn in the festive holiday can, but come on....padded envelope anyone? The speck in the middle is the battery (you can't tell but the battery is less than 1/8th of an inch thick - even with the bottom flaps).  I'm scoring this one -23 out of 10 for efficient and green packaging by T-Mobile. Monday, October 13, 2008
A Map of Where You've Been Pink ribbon scars That never forget I tried so hard To cleanse these regrets My angel wings Were bruised and restrained My belly stings... "Today" - The Smashing Pumpkins You never get less scars in life. Friday, October 10, 2008
Das Market - The Directors Cut I went through my own financial crisis a few years ago. As a result, I have very little money in the stock market, so I am immune, at least directly, to the massive crash and burn currently underway. The same can not be said for others, such as my Dad and my Uncle, both of whom were planning to retire soon. This is not a "correction" or the "ebb of the cycle" (as I heard some moron say in a restaurant yesterday while discussing how McCain will fix things). This is a deep and permanent sea-change in how the US and global economies function, how markets work, and how never more will the thinking public blindly trust the money people or the government when they say everything is fundamentally sound and there isn't any real crisis to be concerned about. Or that yes, this interest-only loan is a great way for first time buyers to get in to a bigger house than they ever thought possible! I just can't stand the fact that these money-grubbing slimeball cretins running the banks and mortgage companies have put so much focus on padding their bottom line with such little foresight. The never once stopped to think who they would be affecting, even though a rare few of them saw the danger and spoke up, and were promptly ignored in favor of catching all the dollar bills in the money booth. In hindsight how many subprime lenders would have done things differently? And how many would lie through their teeth and say "yes I would have" to that last question? So to all you lenders and bankers and investors and speculators who personally fueled this descent, I hope you get recognized on the street and treated like the gutterscum you are. I hope the courts catch up with you and make you see the breadth of what you have wrought. For you I encourage early retirement because no one wants your "skills" in the workforce anymore. Sunday, October 05, 2008
Even Deeper After ten miles or so, he realized that the black, patterned stains on the highway were bloodstains from animals hit by the fast moving construction traffic. There were a lot of them. The South Korean SUV he was driving was, like every other Hyundai or Kia he had rented, exactly adequate. It wasn't particularly good, but it wasn't particularly bad either. The path became more indistinct the deeper into the woods I went. The birds had stopped making any noise some time before but only now I notice as the wind died, the leaves calming and creating an unnerving silence. The job was a job. It paid the bills and that was all. Too many things in his life were done because they should be, because they were expected. Today's unplanned-for trip to the eastern farmlands was a good break from working at a desk all day. The low October sun provided just the right temperature for being out on a jobsite. The people who would be buying the end result of this work had probably protested or objected to the act of creating it at some point, but they would use it regardless and not give it a second thought unless it stopped working. Only the sound of my footsteps in the undergrowth disturbed the stillness. No path remained, my direction chosen at random as all directions only seemed to go further in. "When left alone with your thoughts, your thoughts should be left well enough alone." Stopping suddenly to concentrate on this whispered judgment, a low breeze picked up and carried my last footsteps onwards through the trees. No one else was there. Nothing else could be seen. There are places so near to your home that can seem very alien. The diner looked as though it had been there for 50 years, yet contradicted itself by being built out of a "mobile" home that obviously wasn't ever going to be mobile unless hauled to a landfill. It was empty save for the crew he was with and the cook and waitress. Made fresh to order, you can have anything you want except we are out of that so want something else. "You can't escape yourself. There's nowhere far enough away to go. Perhaps you should turn around and confront it all." Another admonition from nowhere. The voice was not mine, but familiar. Out of the suggestion more than in agreement I turned around but could no longer see where I had come from. The trees had knit closed and become mirrors of each other, all pretending to be the same but quite obviously not. This was a memory, or a dream, but I was wide awake and acutely aware of being alone. Even if others had passed through this warped land before, there was no remnant of them now, as there would be none of me afterward. "Difficult, isn't it? Deciding where to go when every choice looks the same." At the end of the day he always makes it home, where familiarity comforts and welcomes, and the knowledge of where everything is brings a warmth, at least to his waking mind. But there, just underneath, something is amiss. Something is not going where it ought to be. It was a long day, a reasonably productive one. He should have felt more satisfaction as he turned out the light to sleep. |
