Posted in Digital Culture, Evolution, Extended, Science
September 7, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I’ve been excited and worried about the new game Spore for at least a year now. When I first heard about it, I was immediately concerned that a game was trying to mimic evolution by including the guiding hand of design. I haven’t played it yet (and doubt I’ll get to play it for quite awhile) but Carl Zimmer’s discussion of it in the NY Times this week eases my mind a bit. Maybe I’m getting worked up over nothing. I still worry that the game takes for granted the fact that the layperson will know the difference between the game’s mechanisms and the mechanisms of evolution.
Even as scientists praise Spore, they voice concerns about how the game does not match evolution. In the real world, new traits evolve as mutations arise and spread gradually through entire populations. Winning Spore’s DNA points does not work even as a remote metaphor.
“I do hope that it doesn’t confuse people as to what evolution is all about,” said Charles Ofria, a computer scientist at Michigan State University and a creator of Avida.
Spore may also mislead players with the way it is set up as a one-dimensional march of progress from single-cell life to intelligence. Evolution is more like a tree than a line, with species branching in millions of directions. Sometimes species become more complex, and sometimes they become less so. And sometimes they do not change at all. “There’s no progressive arrow that dominates nature,” Dr. Prum said.
I bet it’s still damn fun though.
Link to article in the NY Times.
Posted in Extended, Site Admin, Violin, mastheads
September 1, 2008 at 7:13 pm
This month’s masthead is a throwback to April’s, since I’m still planning a site redesign whenever I manage to find 10 spare minutes in a day. You’ve seen it before!
Posted in Academic Life, Artificial Intelligence, Extended, Philosophy, Science, Technology
August 27, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Compiling this syllabus (.pdf) and spending half my life photocopying the readings from books almost entirely in my collection has been consuming me for the last 2 weeks. Maybe more. It’s hard to say - I’ve lost all concept of time. The only concept I have of time right now is a vague recognition that I’ve been sitting on dissertation chapters for no reason other than the fact that I haven’t had the chance to even open the files and read them, let alone mail them out to my advisor. They’re just sitting there. And every day that passes is another day I freak out a little because it seems like such a simple thing that I just haven’t had time to do. It sucks!
Posted in Digital Culture, Extended, literature
August 16, 2008 at 6:47 pm
In case anyone I know is as big a Terry Pratchett fan as I am, I just wanted to point you to this: The Pratchgan 2008. Knitted by the Ankh-Morpork Knitters Guild in Ravelry, 99 people from damn near as many countries each knitted a square. Created for Pratchett upon the tragic news of his early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. It’s quite swank, and he appears to have loved it. (My square is boring, but I was glad to be a part of it).
I’m a dork, but a dork with a soft spot. Or two.
Posted in Academic Life, Artificial Intelligence, Comics, Extended, Feminism, Philosophy, Technology
August 14, 2008 at 5:36 pm
I’m currently finalizing a syllabus for a new course I’m teaching - Artificial Intelligence In Fact and Fiction.
As I sit here, compiling science fiction (from 1814 through today), and trying to fit in some non-standard media (Futurama! Star Trek: The Next Generation! X-Men comics! Avengers comics!), as well as including all of the relevant readings in the “Fact” side of things - from philosophy of mind to computer science to robotics, etc., I’ve realized something a bit dreadful: I have exactly TWO female authors in the entire bunch. And they aren’t very long readings, and they certainly aren’t the fun fiction pieces that the students are most likely to remember.
It’s a bit depressing. But there simply don’t exist any writings in the classics of science fiction OR actual AI by female authors. (Rather, no science fiction of the short variety specifically dealing with the relevant issues in AI exist by female authors.) At least none that I know about.
That said, I want to be sure I haven’t forgotten any important pieces in the science fiction half of this class (since really, science fiction is a hobby and passion, but AI is what I actually do). So, female author or not, if there were 1 short story and even 1 novel in the science fiction genre that you think demonstrate issues related to AI, what would they be? What is the obvious issue raised? (These can be very short answers - I just want to be sure I’ve not overlooked anything I’ll feel silly over).
Comic arcs that are 2 issues or less that have AI-related characters or characters that raise issues about AI would be useful, too.
So, what say you?
Posted in Extended, Site Admin
August 14, 2008 at 11:13 am
So, I made a post 3 days ago and it blew up my database. In the words of the very-technical husband, my database was “hosed.”
So, I’ve been afraid to post since we got the site back, and I can’t actually remember what I had posted the other day anyway, so this is just me dipping my toe in the water to see if my database explodes again. Fingers crossed.
Posted in Academic Life, Digital Culture, Extended, Site Admin
August 9, 2008 at 12:55 pm
As promised previously, site redesign coming pretty soon. (It’s on my list).
Whooping Cough set me back 6 weeks. I managed to move to Wisconsin, buy a ginormous house, and am working on unpacking and furnishing that house right now. However, I had to push my dissertation defense back, which is frustrating, and a lot of course prep has to be done in the next week.
That said, I’m looking forward to re-starting this site as a place for conversation, since the current design was intended to minimize my opinionated input and really just provide interesting things for you all to think about or chat about. My Opinions Are Returning.
Also, I’m going to be setting up a blog for my AI course - I may keep it locked behind school barriers, or I may make it public at blogger or something. I might leave this choice up to the students. I will try to point you toward it if it is to be public. (They will be blogging on course materials, I will not be authoring posts there!)
Also? Got to watch the whole series run of Freaks and Geeks while I was sick. Utterly brilliant.
Posted in Extended, Site Admin
July 24, 2008 at 3:56 pm
There’s no way people actually still get whooping cough in this day and age, is there???
Posted in Academic Life, Atheism, Critical Thinking?, Democracy, Digital Culture, Evolution, Extended, ethics
July 17, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Briefly:
PZ has been getting death threats. By the buttload. (I actually sent a letter of support to him and his university President, from my deathbed, so it’s obviously an issue that matters to people.) He posted 2 of them (with full IP headers) on his blog one day. One was authenticated as coming from an employee of 1800Flowers.com who was subsequently fired. Then, her husband confessed to having sent the email. And seems to feel no remorse for having gotten his wife fired. Read more here at Pharyngula, here via Greg Laden, or even here, at Network World.
Posted in Extended, Site Admin
July 11, 2008 at 1:01 am
I’m pretty much flattened by some sort of killer plague. Been flat on my back 2 weeks and counting. 4 doctors, 4 different diagnoses. First 2 said I was fighting pneumonia, last 2 said lungs were clear. Felt good about the last 2 doctors, thought I was making progress, new suite of symptoms developed later that night. At a loss.
Had to push back my dissertation defense. In the middle of buying a house and I’ve slept through 99% of it. Thank goodness for Joshua dealing with it all. Sapped most of my energy going over the first draft of the housing contract. Had 5 pages of clarifications needed on vague legalese. (Joshua had 1 question.) I’m either insane, or my brain misses thinking. Maybe both.
I’m missing deadlines like nobody’s business and I can’t do much about it. Only getting short bursts of time to sit up during the day, spent mostly trying to keep up on email explaining why all my work is so late. I have my laptop on most of the day and the extent of my blogging is generally via twitter, where I whine about my illness and watch the world scroll by.
I know I generally keep this space academic (in every sense of the word) and I’ll continue to throw links up (bad use of words there) whenever I can. But once I’m done being so sick, and at least vaguely caught up on my work, I’ll be returning this space to its previous glory where commentary dominates mere link mining. The switch to the latter was intentional and necessary at the time, but I’ll be redesigning and actually, you know, blogging again as soon as possible. In the meantime, if any of you know magic or have an in with any alleged dieties, please put in a good word for me. I’m really just so tired of being sick and not working. Pity not needed, but I feel some personal obligations to keep this space active and felt an explanation was warranted. Hopefully I’ll be back to my usual snarky self soon enough.
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When Valerie and Ted Rock came across a kitten with four-ears, they couldn’t believe their eyes. But the endearing feline was so adorable they decided he was destined to be a part of their family. Link to Daily Mail article. (H/T to Rstevens via Twitter).
Posted in Blurb, Evolution, Science, ethics on/at 08/19/2008 at 9:54 am
“Back in the day – you know, when presidential candidates were respectably white – news organizations called potential First Ladies “wives.” But now that black folks are running, we can get all funky fresh with the lingo, yo. So it’s basically fine for Fox News to use “Baby Mama” for Michelle Obama, slang that implies a married 44-year-old Princeton-educated lawyer is, to use an Urban Dictionary definition of the term, “some chick you knocked up on accident during a fling who you can’t stand but you have to tolerate cuz she got your baby now.” Because the Obamas are black! And the blacks, they’re all relaxed about that shit, yo. Word up.” … John Scalzi on Fox News and racism.
Posted in Blurb, Democracy on/at 06/12/2008 at 5:47 pm
The “Invisible Woman Syndrome” also looks like this: Women without children make 90 cents to a man’s dollar, mothers make 73 cents to the dollar, and single mothers make only about 60 cents to a man’s dollar. Further, mothers are 79% less likely to be hired than non-mothers with equal resumes and job experiences… Kristin Rowe Finkbeiner at the Huffington Post.
Posted in Blurb, Democracy, Feminism, ethics on/at 05/11/2008 at 3:13 pm
“Bruce Sexton, president of the California Association of Blind Students, found that he was finding it difficult to shop at Target.com’s website because alt text was missing (meaning that even with a screen reader, he had no way of understanding what product images were supposed to represent), because headings that could be used for easier navigation were missing, and because it is was not possible to complete purchases without using the mouse (obviously difficult for someone who is blind and can’t see where the pointer is, who would be able to use the keyboard instead).” Fantastic blog post on accessibility issues.
Posted in Blurb, Democracy, Digital Culture, Technology, ethics on/at 05/07/2008 at 2:45 am
The monthly discomfort many women see as a curse could pay off someday as Japanese researchers say menstrual blood can be used to repair heart damage… Link to article at Yahoo News
Posted in Blurb, Democracy, Feminism, Science, Technology on/at 04/27/2008 at 2:12 pm
Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10. On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The message only had one word. “Arrested.” Link to article on CNN
Posted in Blurb, Democracy, Digital Culture, Technology on/at 04/25/2008 at 10:51 am
Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age… Link to CNN.com article
Posted in Blurb, Evolution on/at 04/24/2008 at 10:08 am
Lawmakers have agreed to make it illegal for employers and insurance companies to deny applicants jobs and health care coverage because DNA tests show they are genetically disposed to a disease… Link to article at CNN.com
Posted in Blurb, Democracy, Evolution, Technology, ethics on/at 04/23/2008 at 4:02 pm
A wall-mounted gadget designed to drive away loiterers with a shrill, piercing noise audible only to teens and young adults is infuriating civil liberties groups and tormenting young people after being introduced into the United States… Link to CNN.com article
Posted in Blurb, Democracy, Technology on/at 04/23/2008 at 2:27 pm
In the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, narrator Ben Stein poses as a “rebel” willing to stand up to the scientific establishment in defense of freedom and honest, open discussion of controversial ideas like intelligent design (ID). But Expelled has some problems of its own with honest, open presentations of the facts about evolution, ID—and with its own agenda…. Link to SciAm article.
Posted in Atheism, Blurb, Critical Thinking?, Evolution on/at 04/23/2008 at 1:10 pm
John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, and his sons are suing the filmmakers of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” for using the song “Imagine” in the documentary without permission.…. Link to Reuters article.
Posted in Academic Life, Atheism, Blurb, Democracy, Evolution on/at 04/23/2008 at 1:08 pm
The world risks losing new medical treatments for osteoporosis, cancer and other human ailments if it does not act quickly to conserve the planet’s biodiversity, a senior United Nations environmental official said Wednesday…. Link to AP article appealing to people’s selfishness since they don’t have any sense of ethics
Posted in Blurb, Critical Thinking?, Democracy, Evolution, Science, ethics on/at 04/23/2008 at 9:44 am
A mini season showcasing the work of comic fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett, who celebrates his 60th birthday on Monday the 28th of April… Hear David Tennant in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Sunday 27th April at 10am and 8pm. Link to BBC article
Posted in Blurb, literature on/at 04/21/2008 at 2:53 pm
“The world’s oldest known living tree, a conifer that first took root at the end of the last Ice Age, has been discovered in Sweden, researchers say. The visible portion of the 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) “Christmas tree” isn’t ancient, but its root system has been growing for 9,550 years, according to a team led by Leif Kullman, professor at Umeå University’s department of ecology and environmental science in Sweden.” Link to NatGeo article.
Posted in Blurb, Evolution, Science on/at 04/20/2008 at 8:40 am
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Posted in Books, Digital Culture, Media, Technology
September 8, 2008 at 4:29 am
Mr. Slippery had often speculated just how the simple notion of using high-resolution EEGs as input/output devices had caused the development of the “magic world” representation of data space. The Limey and Erythrina argued that sprites, reincarnation, spells, and castles were the natural tools here, more natural than the atomistic twentieth-century notions of data structures, programs, files, and communicaations protocols…. Vernor Vinge at Powells.com.
Posted in Academic Life, Books, Critical Thinking?, Media, Philosophy
September 4, 2008 at 9:41 am
“The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle inquiry, though it must be admitted that this is sometimes not a very apt designation. The irritation of doubt is the only immediate motive for the struggle to attain belief.” Charles Sanders Peirce (from Popular Science Monthly, November 1877).
Posted in Books, Comics, Media
July 21, 2008 at 1:26 am
“Ahhh, beer. The dark elixir of life itself. Nothing is so sweet, so majestic, so–”
“–so useless. You know, anyone with half a brain would’ve actually built their metallic clockwork companion with at least some kind of alcohol consumption ability if he’s meant to be a glorified drinking buddy.”
“Meh, Mr. Pendulum. MEH. I need to adjust your joviality cog when we get home.”
Ben Templesmith… at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Comics, Media
July 21, 2008 at 1:00 am
“Right, and what did you do last night?”
“I saved the world from intergalactic forces of evil.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, but this time I did it on hard.”
Jamie McKelvie… at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Comics, Media
June 17, 2008 at 9:51 pm
“Self Improve: Bigfoot got get more perfect. Refine Bigfootocity. Pull together. Think outside box. Lose ten pound. Learn speak the French. Ballroom dance. Demonstrate superior knowledge of fine wine at dinner party in charming non-pretentious manner. Be Oscar Wilde of woods. It so hard. Brain size of apricot. So, so hard think good. Maybe if eat Kelsey Grammer of Frasier fame, will absorb him soul and all attribute like McDonald’s combo meal.” Graham Roumieu at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Media, literature
June 17, 2008 at 9:33 pm
“Flower discarded, valuables restored with a zip to their lodging, the boy stood motionless. He held out to the old man a face as wan and empty as the bottom of a beggar’s tin cup. The old man could hear the flatted chiming of milk cans at Satterlee’s farm a quarter mile off, the agitated rustle of the housemartins under his own eaves, and, as always, the ceaseless machination of the hives. The boy shifted from one foot to the other, as if searching for an appropriate response. He opened his mouth, and closed it again. It was the parrot who finally spoke.” Michael Chabon at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Media
June 10, 2008 at 9:41 pm
“You find people like that on the fringes of scholarship - genuinely brilliant, sometimes - but cracked, you know, possessed by some crazy idea that has no basis in reality, but which seems to them to hold the key to understanding the whole cosmos. I’ve seen it more than once - tragic, really.” … Philip Pullman at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Media, Philosophy
May 23, 2008 at 6:15 pm
“Change presupposes a certain position which I take up and from which I see things in procession before me: there are no events without someone to whom they happen and whose finite perspective is the basis of their individuality. Time presupposes a view of time. It is, therefore, not like a river, not a flowing substance.” Maurice Merleau-Ponty at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Media, Philosophy, literature
May 18, 2008 at 8:17 pm
“But I’m still here. Rick. Yes, RICK! Widower of Anne, father of Charlie. Poor little Charlie, where is he? I should be with him, instead of trapped inside the mind (if that’s the word) of this spineless, dumb, near-doppelganger of myself who’s making love to the equally near-doppelganger of my dead wife. He’s inside her and I’m inside him. Boy, wouldn’t that just freak the both of them if they knew!” David Ambrose at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Comics, Media, literature
May 13, 2008 at 9:58 am
“Whoever dressed them had been reading too many comics, I thought… or had watched Mad Max too many times. There were punks and nuns and vampires and monsters and strippers and the living dead…” Neil Gaiman, Michael Zulli, and Todd Klein at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Media
April 16, 2008 at 6:09 pm
“And we’re also collecting donations for the campaign to have the Constitution amended.” She put on an embarassed smile. “God’s work needs funding, too.”
“I live in a trailer,” Molly said.
“We understand,” Marge said. “Finances are difficult for a single mother. But your signature is just as important to God’s work.”
“But I live in a trailer. God hates trailers.”
“Beg pardon?”
“He burns them up, freezes them out, tears them up with tornadoes. God hates trailers. Are you sure I wouldn’t be hurting your cause?” Christopher Moore… at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Media, literature
March 18, 2008 at 11:36 am
“So I raise this question, although there is nobody around to answer it: Can it be doubted that three-kilogram brains were once nearly fatal defects in the evolution of the human race? A second query: What source was there back then, save for our overelaborate nervous circuitry, for the evils we were seeing or hearing about simply everywhere? My answer: There was no other source. This was a very innocent planet, except for those great big brains.” Kurt Vonnegut at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Media
February 11, 2008 at 11:16 pm
“We got a cat because we didn’t like them much. Our garden was debated territory between five local cats, and we’d heard that the best way to keep other cats out of the garden was to have one yourself. A moment’s rational thought here will spot the slight flaw in this reasoning. However, if you’re predisposed to keep cats, rational thought has nothing to do with it.” Terry Pratchett… at powells.com
Posted in Books, Media, literature
February 8, 2008 at 2:46 pm
“The thing is you get there faster. It takes twelve hours if you go by train.”
“And where does the extra time go?”
I also gave up halfway through my meal and ordered two coffees. “Extra time?”
“You said planes save you over ten hours. So where does all that time go?”
“Time doesn’t go anywhere. It only adds up We can use those ten hours as we like, in Tokyo or Sapporo. With ten hours we could see four movies, eat two meals, whatever. Right?”
“But what if I don’t want to go to the moveis or eat?”
“That’s your problem. It’s no fault of time.”
Haruki Murakami… at Powells.com
Posted in Books, Media
February 8, 2008 at 2:37 pm
“Let’s talk about mythology, Lobey. Or let’s you listen. We’ve had quite a time assuming the rationale of this world. The irrationale presents just as much of a problem. You remember the legend of the Beatles? You remember the Beatle Ringo left his love even though she treated him tender. He was the one Beatle who did not sing, so the earliest forms of the legend go. After a hard day’s night he and the rest of the Beatles were torn apart by screaming girls, and he and the other Beatles returned, finally at one, with the great rock and the great roll.” I put my head in La Dire’s lap. She went on. “Well, that myth is a version of a much older story that is not so well known. There are no 45’s or 33’s from the time of this older story. There are only a few written versions, and reading is rapidly losing its interest for the young. In the older story Ringo was called Orpheus…” Samuel R. Delaney at powells.com
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