I just got back from the ballooning around a part of the wordpress.com blogosphere, tagged Critical Thinking, where I tracked onto the very interesting Space City Skeptics site (“The Official Blog of the Houston Skeptic Society”).

From there I blog-rolled onto a post by Jeffrey Ellis, of The Thinker, titled A Thought Experiment on Evolution vs. Creationism.   This is a rather interesting read.

He begins by pointing out the truth behind many apparent conundrums - how the truth is easily obfuscated anytime an argument is couched in a false dichotomy.

Personally, I like using the brick layer’s conundrum to illustrate the point:  Is the mortar there to hold the bricks together, or to hold them apart?

Given  his observations on the nature of time, and our perception(s) of it, it would at least make it apparent to most critical thinkers that one cannot entirely dismiss, out of hand, the postulate of a god (or gods) ‘hiding in plain sight,’ so to speak (which is the ultimate conclusion he appears to reach).

However, what really interested me in making this post, was his device of introducing artificial intelligence into the allegory he has constructed.

Because I was at once reminded of a thought I’ve been nursing for a number of years (and that I may have heard somewhere else).   That, if A.I. ever does, indeed, rise to the level of creating sentient beings with human-like intelligence (and I’m increasingly having trouble seeing why not), we probably shouldn’t be surprised at all, to see “them” dive headlong into the search for an answer to what continues to be a major preoccupation of mankind’s own – namely, a search for the source of their own divinity (the operative term in the afore-mentioned condition being ‘human intelligence’).

But as a postulate, and a place to suppose from, how might they then come to see us?  As their own god-like creators, or merely the human apes in one of the evolutionary steps along the way to their own creation?

After all, how do we view the lesser creatures in our own evolutionary linage?  It says a mouthful about our own sense of self-importance.

These, and many other considerations, would probably completely obviate our even touching on any of our normally more pragmatic concerns – like their possible willingness to do windows.

It at least goes to show, and I think he illustrates (possibly unintentionally) here, that given this a-priori exercise of the imagination, consideration must indeed be given to the role that point of view would inevitably play.

- Rushhumble

Click on image to buy the DVD

A most beautiful, enchanting film drawing on fairy tale (Pinocchio) partly set against a sci-fi Bladerunner type background with hints and elements of the Wizard of Oz (and in an eerie way; The Planet of the Apes). A film that explores the essential core nature of humanity and our setting in and within time – of unfathomable infinity and our place in it. It is a film of love and courage and perhaps the foolhardiness of humans who think they can be as God and create as God. It is a film of the stuff that dreams are made of – a place where dreams are and where they are chased down…a film where a robot dreams of being a real boy and his adventure as he searches for the Blue Fairy.
I will not give the ending or the plot away but I shall urge all of you either to watch this film for the first time or to re-watch it. I was spellbound, sitting viewing with my son (about the age of the “child” in this film at the time) and mesmerised as the final scene ebbed away and the credits rolled into a beautiful, haunting sound-track. And then…
And then BBC Three (yes, that’s it, shout it out – it’s a bloody number!) had the continuity “announcer” crash in – her voice as ugly and as insensitive as the film was beautiful and poignant. Harping on about Two Pints…(God knows) and then – as her brash, fish-wife tones bludgeoned my son and my quiet reflection (yes, he was seemingly deeply moved too) the credits became squashed into the corner of the screen – I had chance to read it was a Steven Speilberg film and that it derived (I think) from a novel (or earlier screen play) by Ian Watson and was originally a short-story by Brian Aldiss and then – whoosh – gone – just the harsh tones and an ugly picture drawn over the screen advertising some “comic” tat. Yes, I’m angry. But, you know – I’m glad I’m angry because that – this – emotion has connected me back to the film again. I’m not sure if my son will be able to do the same. He was asking questions – truly thoughtful questions – before the fishwife’s vomit; questions that were endearing and meaningful. He had witnessed a film (yes sentimental) that asked questions of US and got right to the core – the scary core of being a human – what happens to us collectively and individually: life, death, immortality, disintegration, annihilation. What (who?) will remember us when we (humankind) are all long gone. What will discover us when we have either destroyed ourselves or the sun has done that work for us.
The film uses reflections and mirrors of its own narrative or those of say Pinocchio (Pleasure Island becomes Coney Island) and The Wizard of Oz (the Wizard becomes Doctor No). But what it explores is – how far can we take technology to re-create ourselves. Can we make a robot that loves and that has its own volition? Would we turn against our own creation – are we to be a God that makes Adam and Eve and expect love back. Can we love our own creation if it is not as us? Robots that are “Too smart. Too quick. Too many.”
The film also explores (as far as I am concerned) the very notion of death verses immortality. A robot child is created for a couple whose own son seems fatally ill. The robot child is made to love his “mummy” and this love will endure – Forever. It is a love story between a child and his mother and I didn’t have a dry eye at the end (until the credits!). But – without giving too much away – we humans are mortal and must face either the possibility of personal annihilation or with a leap of faith the idea that we will “live for ever” in another dimension/state as an act of religious or philosophical belief. Will love endure eternity? Can love endure eternity? Can anything of the self endure eternity?
The robot child – superbly acted – is the divide, the interface between the orga (organic human) world and the mecha (mechanical world) and challenges us to acknowledge that we might now be creating beings (clones) and soon robots that could in effect “be alive and conscious” and that by creating such things we have become as gods – but by God we need to think seriously about where our creations are taking us. We are on the brink of a terrible new world that may indeed be brave and may indeed be quasi-heavenly (we must – we really must be optimistic for being optimistic will give us the will to be sincere and moral) – and even now we have created animals that are seemingly part-machine/super-natural. Artificial Intelligence may gradually generate “true” intelligence or “true” emotion – we may be faced with machines that are indistinguishable from ourselves – when we have done this we will look at both our own nature (and wonder) and our own mortality against a “being” that is as infinite as God. The ultimate mirror that fiction has long put before us and that might become some hideously distorted reality.
Don’t let all this put you off! AI is intelligent (no pun intended) and charmingly evoked through the surreal, fairy-tale, dream-like qualities of its narrative – there are some mildly scary scenes and the Flesh Fair is unpleasant (unwanted/rogue/escaped robots killed for entertainment) – but the pace is usually gentle and unnervingly serene. I say the latter because the ideas got right into my soul (if soul I have).
As I write this review there has been talk of axing BBC THREE or FOUR – I prefer the latter (not to be axed!) but either is preferable to some of the inane rubbish on offer on a plethora of channels at the moment – what a shame that those whose job it is to act as announcers and continuity conduits haven’t (always?) got the sensitivity to relate to that which has gone before as well as that which is to come. Sounds like a lot of human beings we might know doesn’t it? Maybe sounds like humanity itself!
Tim Bragg

Pranav Mistry and SixthSense technology – Part 1 of 2

Pranav Mistry and SixthSense technology – Part 2 of 2

I’m in Madison aka Madtown.  Drove early this morning.  It’s only a 2 hour drive and since I wake up at ridiculous times I figure it’s best just to head out cuz there’s no traffic and it’s just me, dnb on my stereo and pitch blackness.  Love it.

I’ve resorted to my high school self today and have loafed around, eaten all the food in my mum’s fridge and watched tv.

Tunes:
Alix Perez & Zero T – Suffer In Silence (track is in the Zero T player)

Artificial Intelligence – Blind Eye
I love this track.  I’ve been looking for a sample for a hot minute.  I just got turned on to it cuz Random Movement played it last month on his podcast.  I guess it’s pretty old but just hasn’t been released.  Nonetheless it’s new to me and it’s awesome.

Today’s Oldie:
Shy FX – This Style – SOUR 1995
Man Shy really has some great old skool jungle tracks.  I am immediately taken back to my rave days.  Dope.

Big Bud – Soundtrax 4 Life @ Bassdrive 11/12/09

Tracklist

01. Paul B – First Picture [Dub]
02. Mikal – Mission [Soundtrax Dub]
03. Mikal – Destination [Dub]
04. Big Bud – Soul On Fire [Soundtrax Dub]
05. Derrick & Tonika – Humana [Soundtrax Dub]
06. Mikal – You Are The One [Pristine]
07. ?
08. Big Bud – Feeling Inside [Soundtrax Dub]
09. Flaco – Set You Off [Creative Source Dub]
10. Electrosoul System – Asteroids [Soundtrax Dub]
11. Eveson – ? [Dub]
12. Big Bud – Want You So Bad [Soundtrax]
13. Big Bud & Soul Connection – Dream Love [Soundtrax Dub]

All eight of the original releases from Warp’s groundbreaking Artificial Intelligence series are now available:

1) Artificial Intelligence
2) Polygon Windows – Surfing On Sine Wave
3) Black Dog Productions – Bytes
4) B12 – Soma
5) FUSE – Dimension Intrusion
6) Speedy J – Ginger
7) Autechre – Incunabula
Artificial Intelligence II

Info

Number seven in Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series. Where it all began for glitch pioneers Autechre.

Part1//Part2

Info

Number six in Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series.

Part1//Part2

Info

Number five in Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series, this one from Detroit techno shadow, Richie Hawtin. This one was licensed to Warp.

Part1//Part2

Info

The fourth volume of Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series.

Enjoy

Info

Second volume of the Artificial Intelligence series, this by Richard James (aka Aphex Twin) under his Polygon Windows moniker. Has now passed on to legend status.

This is the 2001 re-issue with bonus tracks.

Part1//Part2

Info

Update on the Village project follows…

I’ve got all the implementation for the various objects done for the basic functionality, but I think I covered that already.

Behaviours for my Actors are toggled on and off with a set of flags. Behaviours I currently have in place are: Reposition, Move, Arbiter, Inventory, and Jobsworth. Reposition is a quick check to see whether the object has moved, typically in response to being carried somewhere. Non-reposition actors are entirely static and cannot be moved. Move obviously governs moving under it’s own power, which currently just makes an actor float towards it’s target. Arbiters will do jobs. Inventory actors can hold things, and naturally, non-inventory actors can’t. Arbiters can ‘giveto’ other actors, so a non-inventory actor will have to ‘drop’ whatever they’re made to ‘hold’. Jobsworths… well, they don’t do what they’re supposed to. At the moment, they assign actors to jobs, but I realised that should happen as an arbiter sets out on such a job. Eventually, I think they’ll manage creation of new jobs, and deletion of old or incompletable jobs.

Among all this, I have a Logger class now, which tracks what’s going on in the game, and outputs it to console. This helps with debugging, and can be turned off with a flick of a boolean. I also have a Loader, which will handle loading from external files. I’ve set up what you might call a scripting language, or maybe a pseudo-scripting language (I’ve heard that scripting languages are hard to set up, and aren’t much more intuitive than coding. Neither of these distinctions apply to whatever I’ve cooked up, so I don’t know), with which a set of ProtoJobs and ProtoActors can be defined in a .txt file.

What I don’t have is actors who will do a job they can manage. But that’s the next task.

So long, farewell…

Adam

These and other questions about gambling are explored in The Monkeybars of Life.

In chapter-1, Ernest DuPree tells a group of speculators:  “The Daily Racing Form is all that’s needed to review each horse’s past performances and then to reduce the Value-Field to no more than three contenders. Once these contenders are identified, you only need to wait for the odds to be in your favor and then you bet all contenders. The spread guarantees a return on your money most of the time.”

Moving around the table, Ernest continued, “Now, don’t be mistaken – handicapping horse races is like gambling. You are guaranteed to lose some time. Most people lose most of the time. Some fools lose all the time. A few people win most of the time. Nobody wins all the time. But a black man who knows what he’s doing, can make just as much money as anybody on any day or night at the track.”

Back at the head of the table, Ernest flipped the chart page and drew a huge dollar sign and a percentage sign. “Right here, tonight, I’m going to show you how you can minimize your losses and maximize your wins. You can start taking notes if you want.””

In chapter-7 Douglas begs Nate to write a computer program for the illegal lottery.
“What about a TRS-80 Model-II?” Douglas asked.
“What about it?”
“Could you do the numbers program on it?”
Nate rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Doug, any computer can crunch numbers. But, it would take a very long time for some of them to run a program like the one you want.”
Douglas poured more coffee. “Think about what it would mean. We’d have enough money to do whatever we want.”
Douglas spoke softly, “You could finish your Gamma engine.”
“Douglas. Douglas!” Nate grabbed his brother’s arm, “You have got to get it through your head that, even if we find patterns in the past, it won’t mean they will be the same in the future.”
Douglas looked his brother in the eyes, “And you’ve got to get it through your head that I KNOW patterns repeat every year. I’ve seen it too many times.”

When Douglas showed up with an old Radio Shack computer, Nate got started programming the numbers project. The work went fast since he had already thought the project through. He created an input screen for the user to specify what dates to be analyzed. The program, then, sorted all the numbers that came out during the time period and displayed the frequency of their occurrence.

For weeks, two of Douglas’ girlfriends had been recording lotto numbers onto diskettes. So, Nate and Douglas tested the program with the data they had. The results convinced Douglas that the program could not make predictions; his disappointment was obvious.

“Nate, what would it take for a program to make predictions? And don’t say it’s impossible; they do it with the weather every day.”
Nate laughed, “Okay, there are neural-network programs that can find patterns and make predictions. But their results are only a probability – not a certainty.”
Douglas’s eyes bulged behind his glasses. “How much is the cheapest one of those programs?”
“There’s one called BrainMaker that sells for $200”, Nate said “But it might take weeks to run it on that old Radio Shack computer.”
Douglas put his hand on Nate’s shoulder, “You just tell me what you need and I’ll find a way to get it.”
Nate wrote the name of the software company, and then said, “And the fastest PC you can get.”

If you have your doubts about the exponential growth of technology continuing indefinitely, there’s a guy you should talk to: Ray Kurzweil. The author of the Singularity is Near, subject of the film Transcendent Man, and inventor of reading machines and the digital synthesizer, Kurzweil is one of the key figures at the center of the debate on how technology will grow in this century and beyond. His key argument, that information technology (and intelligence) obeys a law of accelerating returns, has helped him predict major paradigms in IT in the last 25 years.

Kurzweil is one of the founders of Singularity University and was an obvious choice to give the keynote address at the opening of SU’s nine day executive program.

Kurtzeil believes we will have human-level artificial intelligence by 2029. The interesting thing to me is that Kurzweil never mentions the economic implications of machine intelligence and seems completely unconcerned that it might result in significant unemployment.

I have been arguing here that we are likely to have significant structural unemployment long before technology reaches the level that Kurzweil envisions (true AI) because even less sophisticated machines will be able to do the routine jobs that make up the bulk of job market.

I don’t know what Kurzweil thinks about the economics of his projections, but if I had to guess, I’d say he probably more or less agrees with the ideas of libertarian economist Robin Hanson. My thoughts on the implications of truly intelligent machines are here.

* Ireland wants a rematch against France, but FIFA says it won’t happen. More here.

* Kurt Vonnegut’s letter home as a POW, 1944.

* The headline reads, “IBM makes supercomputer significantly smarter than cat.”

* Eric Barker calls this New York Times article on DNA testing and parental rights “thought-provoking”, and I suppose it is—but mostly I was completely aghast at the idea that a father would desert his child after a decade just because the child turned out to be “not really his,” “someone else’s kid.” Speaking off the cuff, it seems to me the best solution here would probably just be to change the law to allow children to have more than two legal parents—but regardless of the legal question there’s a clear ethical imperative to remain a parent the child you have raised and claim to love, whatever the mother might have done or said in the past. In some sense this actually seems to me to be beyond ethics, or rather before; it seems to me you’d want to stay the child’s father, that you’d be desperate to, in whatever way you could.

* Autocomplete Me is a blog devoted to revealing the weirdest gems in Google’s autocomplete feature. (Hat tip: Neil.)

* The Board of Regents for the University of California system has voted to raise tuition 32% over 2008. How the University Works declares California is burning.

* Troubled times in Casino City. Via Atrios.

* Stopping ACTA. Via Boing Boing.

* Dump Geithner: A growing consensus?

* Good and bad polling news: Even Fox News viewers overwhelmingly think the bow was appropriate (good news), but 52% of Republicans think ACORN stole 9.5 million votes in the 2008 election to put Obama in the White House (bad news). Naturally, ACORN stole NY-23 as well.

* Meanwhile, 52% of Americans are shockingly misinformed about whether an army of gorillas could beat an army of bears.

* And the news story that launched a thousand 2010 puns: there could be fishlike life on Europa. All these puns are yours, except Europa. Attempt no punning there.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) adalah sebuah kecerdasan buatan yang ditanamkan ke dalam sebuah mesin berupa baris program sehingga mesin seolah-olah dapat berpikir menggunakan kecerdasan yang ditanamkan tersebut seperti dan sebaik model yang ditiru kecerdasannya.

AI dimunculkan oleh seorang professor dari Massachusetts Institute of Technology yang bernama John McCarthy pada tahun 1956 pada Dartmouth Conference yang dihadiri oleh para peneliti AI.

Perbedaan AI dengan kecerdasan manusia

Artificial Intelligence

• Bersifat permanen
• Dapat ditransfer/dipindah
• Murah
• Konsisten
• Terdokumentasi dengan baik
• Cepat
• Tidak memiliki kreatifitas
• Tidak belajar dari pengalaman
• Berdasarkan kasus yang dihadapi

Kecerdasan Manusia

• Tidak permanen
• Tidak dapat ditransfer / dipindah / diberikan
• Mahal
• Tidak konsisten
• Tidak dapat didokumentasikan
• Lambat
• Kreatif
• Belajar dari pengalaman
• Tidak berdasarkan kasus yang dihadapi

Beberapa persoalan yang dapat ditangani oleh AI adalah:

• Persepsi (pandangan dan percakapan)
• Bahasa alamiah (pemahaman, penurunan, penerjemahan)
• Kontrol robot
• Permainan
• Persoalan matematis (geometri, logic, kalkulus, integral)
• Permesinan (desain, penemuan kesalahan, perencanaan pabrik)
• Analisa ilmiah
• Diagnosa bidang kedokteran
• Analisa keuangan

Pemanfaatan penerapan AI adalah dapat memudahkan pekerjaan manusia, baik dalam kerja kasar sampai pengambilan keputusan. AI yang sangat baik bahkan mampu menggantikan peran manusia dalam menyelesaikan pekerjaannya.

Contoh penerapan AI yang terkenal adalah pada robot cerdas bernama “ASIMO”. Robot ini dibuat oleh perusahan ternama di dunia yaitu Honda. ASIMO telah mampu berjalan menggunakan kedua kakinya dan telah mampu mengenali benda bergerak, lingkungan, membedakan suara, pengenalan wajah, dll.

Gambar di bawah ini menunjukkan ASIMO sedang beraksi.

Berikut ini adalah video ASIMO.

Its opening weekend, the movie 2012 topped the box office charts by pulling in $65 million. In the film, Jackson Curtis and his family attempt to survive the catastrophic events taking place all around the world–from earthquakes in California, to erupting volcanoes in Yellowstone, to overwhelming tsunamis in Washington, D.C., the world falls apart around the ears of the Curtis family, and in front of our eyes.

But the movie 2012 is only one prediction in a slew of other prophecies regarding the events of December 21, 2012–the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar and the date of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Author Jim DeKorne of The Cracking Tower: A Strategy for Transcending 2012, explains:

Within the past twenty years a growing body of literature has emerged to advise us of a major cosmic alignment focused around the date of December 21, 2012. Many of these prophecies are deduced from the Mayan calendar, others from shamanic vision quests using psychedelic drugs. Some groups imply this date will mark the end of the world [Filmmakers of 2012: Raise your hands]; a few declare that humanity will ascend (apparently en masse) to a higher level of awareness; still another asserts that we’ll either be absorbed or destroyed by a computerized ‘Artificial Intelligence.’

So what’s the answer? Jim DeKorne has a piece of advice: whatever happens on in 2012, “it is totally irrelevant to your private welfare.” The world’s future is not in your hands, but your own future is. The major refrain of the book–”Do the Work in the space in which you find yourself”–is one of the many times when DeKorne begins with a overwhelming topic–The End of the World–and zooms in to the reader. And even though The Cracking Tower delves into a discussion about the end of the world later on, it first sets up a framework for us to evaluate its meaning.

Applying the principles of Perennial Philosophy—concepts that appear in every world religion and correspond to the paradigm of human awareness—Jim DeKorne urges us to “Wake up, Turn inward, Meet Essence, Do the Work in the space in which you find yourself.” He explains:

‘Wake up’ means to extract your focus from the prevailing consensus trance. ‘Turn inward’ means to become acquainted with your personal sector of hyperspace…’Meet Essence should be self-explanatory. ‘Do the Work in the space in which you find yourself’ is the mantra my own Essence gave me many years ago. For me, it means to work from the center f the Cube of Space…It’s where the ego and the Self meet….The first phase of the Work is to determine your dharma (duty). After that, you can just do it to the best of your ability. It’s really all you came to do here anyway.

The world may very well end on December 21, 2012, but those who have read The Cracking Tower know that the world within is more valuable, more precious, and more rewarding than the world outside.

What is your Work? How are you accomplishing it in the space in which you are finding yourself?

Wednesday night in Waltham was the November monthly Boston Postmortem networking event, held at the Skellig Pub on Waltham’s Moody Street, next to the Charles River.

As regular readers of The Hub Tech Insider will doubtless already know, I attend this event regularly and blog about it on these pages. It is a super event I highly recommend. In addition, Boston Postmortem is one of my favorite Boston tech networking groups because the crowd is unpretentious, the topics are interesting and the presenters and presentations are well prepared and excellent, and you can sit at the bar in the huge back room where the event is held at the Skellig Pub on Moody Street in Waltham, and order bangers and mash or fish and chips or a bacon cheeseburger while you drink beers and schmooze.

The Boston Postmortem Networking Group is for Video Game Developers, Animators, Designers, Digital Artists of all kinds, and people interested in Video Games and Video Game Development. Admission is Free.

The talk on Wednesday was about Artificial intelligence (AI) programming in video games.

There was an august panel of subject matter experts who fielded questions from the audience:

Christian Baekkelund (moderator)
Christian Baekkelund has worked games-related jobs in the areas of design, programming, and QA, at Electronic Arts, for the British school system, briefly at Harmonix, and most recently at 38 Studios. Between various jobs, he attended MIT, studying computer science and Comparative Media Studies, focusing on games and AI. Christian has also spoken at the Game Developers Conference and written in the AI Programming Wisdom series of books about AI, learning methods, and game design.

John Abercrombie (panelist)
John Abercrombie was the AI Lead on BIOSHOCK and SWAT 4 and is now the Lead Programmer on 2K Boston’s unannounced title. He graduated from Brandeis University with a degree in Computer Science in 2000, and has worked at Irrational Games / 2K Boston ever since.

Damián Isla (panelist)
Damián Isla has been working on and writing about game technology for almost a decade. Recently, he helped found Moonshot Games, a studio dedicated to the creation of downloadable games with triple-A production values and technology. Before Moonshot, Damián was AI and Gameplay engineering lead at Bungie Studios, where he was responsible for the AI for the mega-hit first-person shooters Halo 2 and Halo 3.

An expert in the field of Artificial Intelligence for Games, Damián has spoken on games, AI and character technology at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), at the AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference (AIIDE), and at Siggraph, and is a frequent speaker at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

Before joining the industry, Damián earned a Masters Degree at the M.I.T. Media Lab, where he did research on learning and behavior for synthetic characters. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science, also from M.I.T.

Jeff Orkin (panelist)
Jeff Orkin is a PhD candidate in the Cognitive Machines Group at the MIT Media Lab. Jeff’s research focuses on Artificial Intelligence for characters that learn to communicate and collaborate by observing humans playing online multiplayer games.

Prior to enrolling at the Media Lab, Jeff developed several generations of AI systems in the game industry. As a Senior Engineer at Monolith Productions, Jeff focused on goal-oriented autonomous character behavior and planning, while developing AI systems for the award winning titles No One Lives Forever 2 and F.E.A.R.

Jeff is a Contributing Author and Section Editor of the AI Game Programming Wisdom book series, has presented at the Game Developer’s Conference, the AI and Interactive Digital Entertainment conference (AIIDE), and the Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Sytems (AAMAS) conference, and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington and Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Tufts University with a minor in Studio Art.

I’m often asked why I wrote The Monkeybars of Life and why it has so many pages.  I felt it was time to tell the story of some of the extraordinary people I’ve known and some of the unbelievable situations we’ve encountered. There are three themes explored in the book (1) innate creativity, (2) creativity in the workplace, and (3) estranged fatherhood. 

In chapter-3  Nate LaChae says:   “Some friends came over and they brought an African student with them. I asked him whether he felt there would ever be an African space program. When he said he didn’t think so, I asked why not. then I went OFF when he said he felt the White Man had something special in his head that allowed him to invent things and go to the moon.

The reason I was so upset is that I believe the greatness of our race will not be in the USA. It will be in Africa one day. And to hear that African student say what he said just set me off. I got up and said “Anybody that fills a thirty-five story rocket with liquid oxygen and hydrogen can go to the moon.” I told him the laws of physics work the same for everybody. Then I told him not to ever think or say what he said again. Even I was surprised at how I went off. But we’ll never even try things with the kind of thinking he had. I just want to show that God doesn’t play favorites.”

At another point, in chapter-3, Nate relates a High School  experience: “I remember how I made my first science fair rocket by soldering tin cans together. And I’ll never forget there was a kid named Rob Strom who exhibited right next to me at the fair. He had gotten permission to run his experiment at a real nuclear reactor lab. I won a third prize that year and he won a first prize. I never got over the fact that he had access to such equipment to compete with.”

In chapter-4 Nate struggles with being separated from his family and attempts to have an alternate family. “Maybe this is the way life really is, Nate thought as he sipped his wine. I had a stepfather and my mother and father didn’t know their real Dads either. I guess, we’re suppose to take care of the kids under our roof – wherever we are. I hope my kids’ stepfather is doing his job like I am.”

In chapter-5   Nate takes on more mundane projects at work and still encounters  resistance and disbelief. He is told by the IT department manager: ”Who the hell do you think you’re fooling with all this talk about AI? Even at Carnige-Mellon, it took us two years to get our Expert System running and we had the resources. You can’t possibly accomplish even half the goals in that contract using HP-Basic. That’s why I’m not wasting my time with your silly project.”

I’m most anxious to hear from others who have had  similar experiences regarding their creativity and/or fatherhood.

Via KurzweilAI.net — This sure sounds a lot like artificial intelligence to me.

Innovation: The dizzying ambition of Wolfram Alpha

New Scientist Tech, Nov. 17, 2009 Stephen Wolfram wants Wolfram Alpha to generate knowledge of its own. Alpha has been exposed to more utterances than a typical child would hear in learning a new language, allowing it to get smarter at understanding how people phrase their requests, he says. “You’ll be able to ask it a question, and instead of it using knowledge that came out of a method invented 50 years ago it will invent a new method on the fly to answer it.”   Read Original Article>>

I take a little time out from my household projects to note this remarkable convergence of two of my passions — cats and computers.

IBM Builds Biggest Cat Brain Ever

I especially like the line about “progenitor of a race of robo-cats”. If they’re going to the trouble of denying it, you know some evil genius must have suggested it.

This would be a good occasion to develop a new programming language just for this simulation. “LOLcat” could notify us of syntax errors by saying “Ur doin’ it wrong”. It could literally jump to a subroutine, sometimes with comical results. “Dumping core” could be described as “coughing up a hairball”.