Hunter at Daily Kos post on Healthcare
“Dear Mr. President: I am writing you today because I am outraged at the notion of involving government in healthcare decisions like they do in other countries.” Link to post on Daily Kos.
“Dear Mr. President: I am writing you today because I am outraged at the notion of involving government in healthcare decisions like they do in other countries.” Link to post on Daily Kos.
Though he’s disappointed, he said, “Sometimes, you just gotta say, ‘OK, I still have nine live, two-headed animals’ and move on.” Link to article that shows how valuable an extra leg can be, until it gets cut off.
This article in the NY times was sent to me by a colleague in the Computer Science department yesterday. It makes me want to pull my hair out and shove it down the throats of either the reporter, or maybe Ray Kurzweil.
It has a sensationalized headline “Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man” (I suppose us women are totally safe, although the article is silent on that matter…)
While trying to scare us into believing the Robot Apocalypse is RIGHT! AROUND! THE CORNER! the author also writes:
While the computer scientists agreed that we are a long way from Hal, the computer that took over the spaceship in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” they said there was legitimate concern that technological progress would transform the work force by destroying a widening range of jobs, as well as force humans to learn to live with machines that increasingly copy human behaviors.
Oh, gee, you think? Look, people have been saying this for centuries. This has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with automation. Samuel Butler, in 1863, wrote “Darwin Among the Machines” to basically argue that if you can’t imagine life without your automation right now, we’ve already lost, and are already on an inevitable slide into machine domination over humankind. This argument goes back further, but Butler gives a great “inevitable doomsday” reading of the situation.
Dr. Horvitz said he believed computer scientists must respond to the notions of superintelligent machines and artificial intelligence systems run amok.
So, the current president of AAAI, a professional organization I’ve belonged to for the last 11 years (although it’s possible my membership has lapsed since I haven’t gotten an AI Magazine to laugh at in the mail lately) is happily jumping on the singularity nonsense bandwagon. Depressing enough, but then we get:
“Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,” Dr. Horvitz said. “Technologists are replacing religion, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.”
So he isn’t ignorant of the fact that this is the age-old doomsday-cult business, but somehow he still thinks we need to take it seriously?
Members of my field (leading members, in title at least) need to take their collective heads out of their collective asses and get back to work. I’m way too young to be this disillusioned over my work and my passions already.
Link to the NY Times article, if you’ve got a stronger stomach or less stake in this academic community than I do.
“You can’t get anything done by doing nothing. It’s our country. They’ve taken it from us. The terrorists who attack us are still free–but we’re not. I can’t go underground for a year, ten years, my whole life, waiting for freedom to be handed to me. Freedom is something you have to take for yourself.” – Cory Doctorow at Amazon.com
Ok, listen up, because I don’t say things like this lightly. Sometimes, people wonder what drives my love of Warren Ellis. I can’t always point to a single work of his that really illustrates why I love him. Sure, Transmetropolitan changed comics (for me, and almost certainly for others) at the time. Sure, he’s continued to write brilliant comics, including the on-going, weekly, free, online comic Freakangels. He’s also written quite a nice little book called Crooked Little Vein, that is more enjoyable if you already know the way Ellis’ head works (which isn’t something I recommend to those with weak constitutions).
But anyway, listen up.
Ellis has been writing a column (“Do Anything”) for a new comics site called Bleeding Cool recently. It’s been taking me awhile to read them all, because I can’t really read more than one a day (in theory. In reality, I’m getting through 1 every 3 or 4 days). I need to let the language roll around in my brain and choose which synapses to rest in. I decided at the end of the first one that these columns were activating the Hunter S. Thompson neural pathways in my brain, which have been atrophying since last I read HST’s ESPN columns (my only and ever ESPN experiences) and I still think that’s a fair description.
In other words? Warren Ellis is writing a column for Bleedingcool.com, and you should be reading it.
The wonderful Neurophilosophy Blog has a piece on Phineas Gage today. The interesting part? A newly discovered photo of Gage holding the spike that went through his head and made him history’s most famous jerk.
As mentioned over there, I think this is the only known photograph of Gage. There are many images floating around of his skull with the spike going through it, but as far as I know, they’re all recreations (although some were done during his life, I believe).
“Ok, look,” Wilson said. “You noted it yourself – without the brain, the pattern of consciousness usually collapses. That’s because the consciousness is wholly dependent on the physical structure of the brain. And not just any brain; it’s dependent on the brain in which it arose. Every pattern of consciousness is like a fingerprint. It’s specific to that person and it’s specific right down to the genes.” John Scalzi on Amazon.com
I apologize for the strange slowness here lately (the site itself, not my usual snail-paced posting.) I’ve been planning an overhaul for a year, but I’m barely finding time to breathe, so let’s none of us hold our breath. Hopefully things won’t get any slower before I get around to fixing them.
The man in question: DC Comics editor Matt Idleson. The pronouncement he issued was just eight words long, but such is its paradigm-shattering power that it will surely stand one day in the annals of comic book history, alongside “With great power comes great responsibility,” “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” and “Shazam!”
Thus spake Idleson: “I never want to see Supergirl’s panties again.” Link to post at npr.org