The Singularity

ReasonTV did an interview with Vernor Vinge, the San Diego State University math professor and sci-fi novelist who came up with the idea of singularity in his 1993 essay “The Coming Technological Singularity,” in which he wrote “Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”

Mostly I am posting this because Estes is freaked out by the singularity, even though it’s kind of silly.

This is a pretty awesome rumination on the concept, how it has affected the newer, more diverse generation of sci-fi writers, and how their ideas of identity and gender make it almost obsolete.

Latest sign the robots are taking over

They’re making art now (description from Vimeo page):

This machine uses artificial intelligence to paint its own body of work and to make its own decisions. While doing so, it listens to its environment and considers what it hears as input into the painting process. In the absence of someone or something else making sound in its presence, the machine, like many artists, listens to itself.

How Hubble makes its pictures

From the YouTube description:

Hubble images are made, not born. Images must be woven together from the incoming data from the cameras, cleaned up and given colors that bring out features that eyes would otherwise miss. In this video from HubbleSite.org, online home of the Hubble Space Telescope, a Hubble-imaged galaxy comes together on the screen at super-fast speed.

It’s utterly fascinating, and I had no idea. The process seems not that dissimilar to how photographers do HDR images.

Nextelling your Alltel Boost

Send texts from you email.

* AT&T – cellnumber@txt.att.net
* Verizon – cellnumber@vtext.com
* T-Mobile – cellnumber@tmomail.net
* Sprint PCS – cellnumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
* Virgin Mobile – cellnumber@vmobl.com
* US Cellular – cellnumber@email.uscc.net
* Nextel – cellnumber@messaging.nextel.com
* Boost – cellnumber@myboostmobile.com

* Alltel – cellnumber@message.alltel.com

Helpful for sending out a text to a lot of people, or for those who may not like texting with a phone.

Stupid kids don’t know who Osama was, also apparently use Yahoo!

At the Yahoo! company blog, a post* notes how many kids asked the search engine (now powered by Bing, right? — I haven’t been there since 1997) who Osama bin Laden was:

According to Yahoo!, The Top Searched Questions on Osama bin Laden are (based on Sunday, 5/1):

1. Is Osama bin Laden dead?
2. How did Osama bin Laden die?
3. Who killed Osama bin Laden?
4. How old is Osama bin Laden
5. Who is Osama bin Laden
6. Where was Osama bin Laden killed?
7. Is Osama bin Laden dead or alive?
8. How tall is Osama bin Laden?

Younger Generation. News of Osama bin Laden’s death seemed to have struck a chord with younger folks who grew up during the war on terrorism.

-          On Yahoo!, 1 in 3 searches for “how did osama bin laden die” on Sunday were from teens ages 13-17.

-          According to Yahoo!, 40% of searches on Sunday for “who killed osama bin laden” were from people ages 13-20.

-          However, it seems teens ages 13-17 were seeking more information as they made up 66% of searches for “who is osama bin laden?”

* An annoyingly super-awkwardly formatted post, that is.

National Poetry Month, in 140 characters or less

NPR’s Tell Me More show is celebrating National Poetry Month by encouraging listeners to write “twitter poems” and posting them on Twitter with the hashtag #TMMPoetry.  If your tweet-poem stands out, you might be contacted to record your poem for the show.

So, if you’ve been meaning to do some creative writing but haven’t found the time, here’s your chance.  Everyone has time to dash off 140 poetic characters, right?  Plus, there’s the potential for minor fame and glory.  Do it!  And then post your poem in the comments, too.  Here are some examples to get you started:

melissarholm The last time he held me he said “You feel good.” Thinking this was a question, I answered “No.”

IamtheStrider #tmmpoetry..when i set foot outside my personal world i strive to remember my life jacket to keep from being drowned in the now

InVinceWil you are / a journey and / a destination. I have / maps, a legend and a canteen / of rum #cinquain #tmmpoetry

We promise this is only a coincidence; any sense of the contrary is mistaken

The map above, from the (interesting and interactive) National Broadband Map, from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the FCC, shows where broadband Internet is available around the U.S. Paul Waldman from the American Prospect points out an interesting contradiction/coincidence:

Further proof the machines are out to get us

First, they kind-of dominate Jeopardy (still might!). Then, they make Britons stab each other. Is this the most British crime story you’ve ever encountered?

Neil Brook, a 33-year-old currently on trial for murder in Manchester, England, says that he was forced to stab his neighbor Josef Witkowski to death over a misspelled text message. Yes, I know! Here is Brook’s version of events:

• 1. Brook sends Witkowski an SMS containing the word “mutter.” The phone’s predictive text software changes it to “nutter.”
• 2. Enraged by the text, Witkowski sends “a series of increasingly abusive messages” to Brook.
• 3. Witkowski comes to Brook’s home wielding a knife.
• 4. But! Brook had, “in advance of [Witkowski's] visit… taped two large knives around his flat—on the door and near his bathroom.”
• 5. Brook stabs Witkowski to death.

Beating Technology

You want victory?  You want to beat technology?  Of course, who doesn’t like to outsmart the system?  Well, I have a small victory for you today – assuming you hate automatic flushers.

There are a couple of things that get us through the day such as the bathroom break and the opportunity to choose our own lunch.  But just like watching the price on a cafeteria grilled cheese go up every three months, sitting down on the John can be irritating at times.  Automatic flushers and I do not get along, it causes all kinds of problems. As soon as you get up to wipe it flushes, I scurry to wipe fast enough just in time to throw a dirty piece of toilet paper in a toilet already filling up with water.  It forces another flush.  Some times the same toilet will flush three or four times as your trying to finishing up.  Nobody wants to hang out close to flushing toilets, especially those that spit – you know what I’m talking about.  And how about those toilets that just flush when you didn’t even get up – not cool

I don’t like it, not only is it uncomfortable to hang out in close quarters with an unstoppable sputtering toilet but it’s a water use issue.  Public toilets can use two to four times more water per flush than a residential toilet.   In addition the automatic flushes aren’t achieving the desired results.  I believe the goal is to make sure the toilet is empty and presentable for the next patron, however all to often we find toilets with dirty rolls of toilet paper floating around.  Clearly the toilet was prematurely flushing itself before the last person was done wiping.

Well, today I wanted to share my secret.  Click ahead to find out. Continue reading »

All Apologies

Dear 4G people,

I just cannot text like you do.   My messages are not going to become more comprehensible, I’ve got 13 months until an upgrade and you have to accept me for my phone or stop being my friend.

Do you even remember what T-9word is? No of course you don’t, but you speak about damnyouautocorrect like I’m not cool enough to sit at your lunch table.  It was only two years ago you also struggled to text “Im at McGillicuddy’s,” or any other location referenced by a proper noun for that matter.  It is not only that I have to click twice as many buttons, but I have to wait for my cursor to pause in between the consecutive letters…(5 jkl)(5 jkl)(5 jkl) wait, wait, wait, (5 jkl)(5 jkl)(5 jkl) spells “ll”, seriously.

If my iPhone screen broke I’d probably pay to get it fixed, but you wouldn’t pay to replace the antenna on a CDM-180 anymore than you would pay for a matching door on a 1995 Civic with 230,000 miles.

Despite having two screens on the flip phone I still cannot accept more than 153 characters in a text.  (If “flip-phone” doesn’t ring a bell maybe you remember the Razor, it’s what you probably had ).  The large screen isn’t two inches so even at 153 characters the text will auto-scroll through itself.  Yup, the default is auto-scroll; you can’t control the scroll speed, and just as the last sentence comes into focus the automatic screen saver triggers on with a fuzzy picture of a snowboarder.  I’m sure snowboarders were cool in 2002.

Recognizing how terrible the text features are the programmers included 12 quick button messages including “Wacha doing?” and “Would you like to join me for a date tonight?”.   So when you asked me for the address of the bar last weekend and I responded by asking you out you now understand I just wanted to know what it felt like to respond carelessly and as quickly as yo do.  It was just easier than combining numbers and letters into the same text, back and forth with the T-9word, it’s 3 clicks just to toggle between the two.

So please understand, the next time you text me I’m not going to respond.  You shouldn’t take it personal, it’s just my phone.

Video: New York City as the bird flies

The story from Ars Technica:

The video is absolutely stunning: a remote-controlled plane flies over and around the Brooklyn Bridge, buzzes the Statue of Liberty, and explores New York from a point of view even “real” airplanes rarely see. While the police were curious about what was happening, no arrests were made, and the creators of the video praise the police and the TSA for their professionalism.

The video was shot with a remote-controlled aircraft that has one video camera feeding images back to the operator, along with a second, passive camera taking the video that was edited together for the official release. The video was shot between 7 and 8am, those being the only hours they could safely avoid air traffic. If you’d like more information about the aircraft or the build itself, there is a thread on RCGroups with a wealth of information.

WikiLeaks drops a new mixtape on totally suspecting public

WikiLeaks dropped a new mixtape today, this time a massive dump of secret diplomatic cables.

New York Times notes: a potentially disastrous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel, American discussions with South Korea over a possible collapse of North Korea, bargains to close Guantanamo Bay, corruption in the Afghan government, a Chinese effort to hack Google, an intriguing alliance between Russian PM Putin and Italian PM Berlusconi.

The Guardian notes: Arab leaders pushing for an attack on Iran, spying on UN leadership, links between the Russian government and organized crime, “devastating criticism” of the UK’s military operations by US military leadership, inappropriate comments made by a member of the British royal family about a UK law enforcement agency.

Duck of Minerva is not terribly surprised. Andrew’s, for the most part, reassured. Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy wonders if Wikileaks has gone too far this time.

Taking the Stigma Away From Abortion…Through Tweeting?

This week in Twitter news:

Gloria Steinem

Women en masse started using the hashtag #ihadanabortion, proclaiming that they have had an abortion or that they support those who have.  This sparked some blogosphere debate about whether such a statement is bold; another example of internet oversharing; or just disrespectful of life (thanks, anti-choicers– really adding to the discussion with that one.  Given that you think *everything* pro-choice folks do is disrespectful life, I can’t see how the Tweeting aspect makes things any worse).

The tricky thing for the pro-choice movement is that our commitment to abortion rights is premised largely out of respect for women’s privacy, which makes it hard to come down hard in favor of women “outing” themselves about having had abortions.  But that said, the more women there are who choose to speak openly and honestly about their abortions, the more people will have to come to terms with the fact that women they know have had abortions.

That doesn’t make abortion a good thing for every women, obviously, nor will more openness about abortion change everyone’s mind.  But it is harder to decry abortion as an absolute evil if you know that someone you love has had one.   It is harder to ignore the real facts, harder to pretend that women who have abortions are sluts who deserve to go to hell, if those women are your sisters, friends, aunts, mothers, co-workers, daughters.

I haven’t had an abortion.  If I did have one, I assume I wouldn’t feel eager to tell everyone I knew.  But I wouldn’t want to hide it, either.  And I deeply admire the bravery and honesty of any woman who chooses, via Twitter or otherwise, to share her abortion story.  This is the age we live in; this is how we communicate.  Tweeting about abortion doesn’t minimize the experience or make it less serious, it just brings it into the open.

Tracy Clark-Flory addressed the Twitter issue at Salon this week, and I like her conclusion:

There is part of me that bristles at the idea of abortion or rape being reduced to an edgy t-shirt slogan or a trending Twitter hashtag — because the complexity of women’s varying experiences is lost. But, you know what? Political slogans are not about nuance, and after Tuesday’s election we’re especially in need of some bold rhetoric.

Google and Monopolies

From Scores.org, a really interesting infographic, Is Google a Monopoly? by Jess Bachman:

Google has a dominate market share of a very important gateway; internet search. Can they stay impartial when they have their own products to pitch? Whether or not they are a monopoly is up to the government and the best way to predict the future is to look to the past. Examining these four historical monopolies, and their outcomes, should give us a better sense of Google’s fate.

No more printed Oxford English Dictionary?

CC photo by Flickr user thrig

Sad news for bibliophiles: The Oxford English Dictionary as we know it may never be printed (in full) again. Nigel Portwood, the CEO of the Oxford University Press, told the Sunday Times (behind a pay-wall, damn you Murdoch), via the Telegraph:

“The print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by tens of per cent a year,” Nigel Portwood, the chief executive of OUP, told the Sunday Times. Asked if he thought the third edition would be printed, he said: “I don’t think so.”

The current printed dictionary, the second edition, which was released in 1989, comes in at 20 volumes: over 21,000 pages of definitions, usages, spellings, pronunciations and histories. Electronically, though, the whole thing comes in at a scant 540 megabytes, which would fit easily on just one CD-ROM (roughly five-and-a-half of them would fit on one of the new Kindles).

The third edition will likely find its way to some kind of internet subscription service. After 21 years of work, the 80 lexicographers working on the revision have completed only entries “A” through “Rococoesque,” (What do you mean, “rococoesque” isn’t in your dictionary, Firefox?) a rate of 0.83 letters per year. So, who knows if it’s even relevant news now. Indeed, the Oxford University Press quickly released a response to outcries that some folks’ favorite tome would be discontinued:

No decision has yet been made on the format of the third edition. It is likely to be more than a decade before the full edition is published, and a decision on format will be taken at that point.