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Weblog: December 2000

Friday, December 29 2000

Artificial Intelligence

Two interesting links off the bottom of Wired News' front page.

1. piece at the New York Times that surveys the current state of Artificial Intelligence, and notes that the things which computers are doing today (albeit poorly in some cases) - voice recognition, grammar correction, playing chess - were viewed as AI when they couldn't be done. Now that they can be done, they're not considered "real" AI. Which on the face of it sounds like people keep changing their minds to deny the success of AI, but the truth is, being able to do these things was never (seriously) considered proof that a machine is intelligent; they were things that a "real" AI would be able to do, though. Properties of an AI, but not the definition of one.
   
2. piece at Feed about programs that create music good enough to seem almost human. Two fields of music are covered: classical, in which programs have been somewhat successful at creating music that seems to have been created by a particular composer (Bach, Brahms, etc.); and jazz, in which programs are not (yet) successful at the "improvisation" that is supposed to be a hallmark of jazz music.
   

Thursday, December 28 2000

Dorothy vs. Aslan

There's an interesting article at Salon about the differences tween Baum's Oz books and Lewis' Narnia books. Narnia wins.

I never read the Oz books; I expect I'll read the first one at some point. I did read all the Narnia books, and was impressed enough with them that they convinced me to move on to other fantasy and science fiction series, like Joan Aiken's young-adult stuff. And then over to the science fiction in the adult section at the Chevy Chase library...

Tuesday, December 26 2000

Santa Claus denied VC Funding

Swypitt, Hypit, Flippett & Runn have decided not to fund sClausEnterprises.com.

Reparations for Slavery

In the Washington Post's article on reparations to African-Americans for slavery, they decided for some reason to dedicate the first few paragraphs to a shyster who travels the country getting blacks to pay him $50 each, in the hopes that he'll process their claims for reparations. So if you're reading the print edition and don't flip the page, you don't find out that serious people (Charles Ogletree Jr., Randall Robinson, others) are looking into suing the U.S. government over slavery; several companies have already issued apologies for the fact that their businesses benefitted from slavery (newspapers for printing ads for slave auctions and lists of runaway slaves; insurance companies for selling slave-owners policies reimbursing them for slaves who died); black slaves helped build the U.S. Capitol, National Mall, and White House (and they, and their descendants, were not compensated for the labor, of course); etc.

I doubt reparations will be paid; but at a minimum, I'd hope that the role that African-Americans, as slaves, played in building the U.S. were acknowledged. Given that textbook publishers are reticent to include "controversial" topics in their texts, though, and "controversial" textbooks tend not to be bought, I doubt such things will be taught in history classes anytime soon.

See also the site dedicated to Randall Robinson's book, THE DEBT: What America Owes Blacks.

Sunday, December 24 2000

Bob Park on Cell Phone Radiation

Bob Park, writer of What's New (where he tends to debunk bad science and technology, and related bureaucracy) makes light of concerns over radiation emitted from cell phones.

From Wired News' article on the 2 recent studies showing no link between short-term cell phone use and brain cancer:

"The scientists who conducted the studies called for more research on the effects of long-term cell phone usage."

"...A case record of malignant pleural mesothelioma
discussed in 1947 led neither to the recognition of the diagnosis nor to the suspicion of asbestos as a causative factor, even though the introductory sentence included the term asbestos worker, and later the patient’s work was described as "cutting asbestos insulating board" (48). This controversy lasted until 1960, when the major etiologic factor (i.e., asbestos) was established in a seminal report by J. C. Wagner and colleagues in 32 of 33 cases of mesothelioma, largely by environmental exposure in the "Asbestos Hills" of Cape Province in South Africa (295)."

Thursday, December 21 2000

Fixing the Election Process

CNN article says MIT and Caltech are examining voting technology, and working on a way to make it more reliable.

Douglas Engelbart video

Douglas Engelbart is credited with having pioneered a lot of things we take for granted in computing - say, the mouse and menus, for example. Video of a demo of the mouse, a graphical interface, and hyperlinks he gave in 1968 is available. I haven't seen the video yet; my home connection is too slow.

This also has bearing on British Telecom's attempt to sue ISPs for infringing on its hyperlinking patent.

Wednesday, December 20 2000

Physics is Phun

The University of Maryland Department of Physics has a Physics Question of the Week page. Layman-friendly, even.

Illusions

After following a link from Slashdot to an interview with Jaron Lanier about "Why Software Still Sucks," I saw a repurposed optical illusion at the front page of Edge.org, the big-thinker site. About a week later, my brother emails me a set of images which incorporate optical illusions (or are they just optical misdirection?) - some Escher-esque, some not - all of which can be found at multiple places on the web, the least annoying of which (in terms of ads, pop-up windows, gratuitous soundtrack) looks to be here.

A better Internet would make it just as easy for (non-web-design) people to post images to a site as to email them out. On a better Internet, each of the sites with the images would link to where they got them from...

Monday, December 18 2000

Yummy Claire and Brad the Cad

Thanks for Last Night. Washington Post runs an article about a couple in London who had a sexual liason, after which the woman emailed the man to compliment his performance; man forwards the compliment to friends; they forward it to others; and so on; and so on; until British newspapers have published the pair's pictures, letters, and particulars.

Email boaster gets his comeuppance. The Guardian Unlimited (UK paper) relates the story as well; notes that, according to The Register and the gentleman (???) allegedly involved, the email was a hoax. And that the gentleman and several coworkers may be fired for inappropriate use of email.

Is this the greatest ever email hoax? The Register on why they think it's all a hoax.

Yummy Claire gets in touch with The Reg. 2 different Claires, using 2 different anonymous accounts, email The Register to tell them that the story is true.

"To you Girls: You've all swallowed at one time or another, so don't judge me!


"To the Guys: All you're going to get is a fantasy, so go do what you're good at... tossers!"

Thursday, December 14 2000

What is a ghost's favorite kind of pie?

Whatever kind of pie he liked best when he was a person, before he died. (Tom the Dancing Bug)

Wednesday, December 13 2000

U.S. Supreme Court Decides for Bush

Just a few minutes ago, Phil Agre sent out a message via Red Rock Eater News regarding the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in regards to the manual recounts in Florida: they've ordered them stopped. CNN has a PDF of the court decision. The grounds on which a majority of the Court has decided to stop the manual recounts is that different standards were being used in different parts of Florida to determine the "intent of the voter," which violates Florida citizens' rights to equal protection. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court erred in giving the vague order for election officials to gauge the intent of the voter; but, of course, that's exactly the standard set forth in Florida law for counting votes - the intent of the voter is what counts in counting votes. The U.S. Court also notes that any state-wide system devised for recounting would be bogged down in details and controversy; thus, it would be impossible to recount all the state votes in a reasonable amount of time; and that it would be improper to recount just some votes; and thus, none should be recounted.

They are saying that not all votes can be recounted properly; thus, none should be recounted. It seems like this logic would also dictate that no Florida citizen's votes should be counted. (Of course, that would then leave the decision up to the Florida legislature, which would choose Bush.)

Worth reading on page 12:

"Seven Justices of the Court agree that there are constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court that demand a remedy... The only disagreement is as to the remedy. Because the Florida Supreme Court has said that the Florida Legislature intended to obtain the safe-harbor benefits of 3 U.S.C. [section] 5, JUSTICE BREYER's proposed remedy - remanding to the Florida Supreme Court for its ordering of a constitutionally proper contest until December 18 - contemplates action in violation of the Florida election code, and hence could not be part of an 'appropriate' order authorized by Fla. Stat. [section]102.168(8) (2000)."

Twins

multiplebirth.com is a pretty poor site in terms of navigation (and actually has very few articles) and they seem to put most of their articles in PDF format (which is a bad thing), but they have a few interesting things available. Including a CDC report (PDF) discussing the huge upward swing in twin (and triplet/+) births from the 1970s to today. The report attributes about 1/3 of the increase to the greater numbers of older women having children (older women tending to be more likely to have a multiple birth); and 2/3 to the increased use of "fertility enhancing therapies" (fertility drugs, in vitro fertilization, etc.).

Florida's Voter Purge

At CommonDreams: an article on the company which sold inaccurate lists of ex-felons to Florida, and Florida's inappropriate removal of people convicted as felons in other states from their voter lists.

"One elections supervisor, Linda Howell of Madison County, was so upset by the errors that she refused to use the Harris/ChoicePoint list. How could she be so sure the new list identified innocent people as felons? Because her own name was on it, 'and I assure you, I am not a felon'."

Friday, December 8 2000

Blogstuff

The front page at Blogger offers two cool links: (1) 0SIL8 recently put out a phone-based blog entry using TellMe and Blogger; (2) Halcyon "Cocky Bastard" Styn is living in The Real House, a heavily-webcammed, heavily-weblogged San Diego house with 6 "creative, accepting, sexy people who do exciting things and live with passion." (Read: soft-core hijinks.) (Video requires paid membership.)

Wednesday, December 6 2000

The sound of home

Finally, WPFW, DC's Pacifica/jazz radio station, has their streaming audio working again. Just the thing to remind me of home. I suppose now I have no excuse not to pledge money this year.

Since I got to San Francisco, I've had to make do with realaudio from KZSU (my alma mater's radio station; eclectic rotating format) and KPFA (the nation's first community-supported/non-commercial radio station). Which aren't all that bad.

(One of FAIR's current crusades is to try to stop the watering-down of Pacifica radio stations. Pacifica has a response to accustations that they're trying to emasculate Democracy Now.) (dv)

Monday, December 4 2000

Self-Employment: Common Knowledge Is Wrong Again

A new survey (I hate that phrase) indicates that self-employment is declining; despite all the rhetoric of this being an entrepreneurial economy, more people are leaving self-employment to work for big companies than the other way around. Partly because the big companies are offering self-employment-style benefits (casual dress, telecommute, flexible time); no doubt, these offerings are due to the mistaken perception that everyone is moving towards self-employment...

Supreme Court Web Stuff

New York Times article talks about how the U.S. Supreme Court is posting information about the Florida election case it's considering to its web site; typically, the Court only publishes limited documents to its websites, sometimes weeks after a case is brought before it. This time, it's posting things quickly, and being fairly comprehensize about it. (Perhaps to compensate for not allowing TV cameras into the courtroom for this case.)

Transparency in government is a good thing. (Usually.)

Sports Star Power

Tiger Woods, Venus Williams, and Serena Williams want more money from the PGA, WTA, and WTA (respectively); a portion of the orgs' earnings from TV broadcasts. Because golf, tennis, and tennis viewership (respectively) are way up because of them, they figure they should get bigger pieces of the pie. Which makes some sense.

I am not, am, and am (respectively) more likely to watch sports when these folks are on.

Thursday, November 30 2000

Whacked Out!

Over at Funny SF, Sandy has put up scans of Whacked Out Magazine, "the magazine of really, really literate sf." Funny stuff.

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...