Archive for August, 2008
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 Blurb, Evolution, Science, ethics
August 19, 2008 at 9:54 am
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 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.