Chaos Manor View, Monday, December 28, 2015
“This is the most transparent administration in history.”
Barrack Obama
Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.
I never had this happen before. I had prepared a bunch of stuff to post in Windows, and it’s gone. Gone forever and not in the recycle bin. A couple of hours work, and I have no idea what I did. And of course it’s cold, and I can’t type, and I am about as down as I can get, so this will be brief as I try to reconstruct at least some of it. Word has never caused a file to vanish before. I am sure it is due to my hitting alt-spacebar and some key sequence. I need epoxy to disable the left hand alt key. I hate this.
Mostly I am working on fiction and doing family things and surviving the cold, which isn’t cold to anyone but Angelinos; I’ve long since become adjusted to here. Happy New Year. If you haven’t bought There Will Be War Volume Ten, you know what to do.
Another time.
Last week I wrote about Eugene, a new system Eric and I built. Well, he did about all the work. Anyway we are still doing many tests, and there will be a lot more. I must say 4K video is gorgeous even with the built in Video. We’ll add a video car next month or so.
The SSD in Eugene isn’t merely an SSD, which nobody in their right mind who makes a decent living would be without, it is a PCIe connected SSD with read speeds up to 2.5 GB. One of the reasons for running the Insider version of Windows 10 is this drive is so fast the system cannot fully exploit it but Microsoft surely has plans as these will become common by this time next year.
Also, the hard drive is 3 TB, because 4K video adds up quick. Now that high-end phones can capture 4K video and semi-pro gear is very affordable for the budding movie maker, multi-TB drives continue to justify their role in a PC where SSD capacity is now affordable for most other needs.
Eric Pobirs
This article is worth your attention.
Ever since IBM’s Deep Blue defeated then world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game contest in May 1997, humanity has been looking over its shoulder as computers have been running up the inside rail. What task that we thought was our exclusive preserve will they conquer next? What jobs will they take? And what jobs will be left for humans when they do? The pessimistic case was partly set out in the Channel 4 series Humans, about a near-future world where intelligent, human-like robots would do routine work, or stand on streets handing out flyers, while some people worked (law and policing seemed to get a pass, mostly) but others were displaced – and angry.
In May, Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of Mass Unemployment, described the concern for both white- and blue-collar workers as that Humans-style world approaches: “Try to imagine a new industry that doesn’t exist today that will create millions of new jobs. It’s hard to do.”[snip]
The prospect of robot Lamarckian evolution, self aware robots building their prodigy to design, has been with us a while. Of course some, like Penrose, have doubts about strong AI; and in any event I will not live to see it.
I think that the biggest problem we’ll have in the near future is the automated cars. There are so many possibilities of the car saving its occupants only to kill others, or saving kids to kill the occupants, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
The other stuff awaits true AI, which is, IMHO, a good piece off yet. If it ever arrives at all; it seems to me to be developing a “sustained fusion reaction syndrome,” always “only” a couple decades away.
Stephanie Osborn“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”
three laws, no waiting
Dr. Pournelle,
A good summary of the state of real AI.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/demystifying-artificial-intelligence-no-the-singularity-is-not-just-around-the-corner/
As for the singularity or sky net, I think there are more important and likely things to worry about.
-d
Of course, even with the best of intentions, robots can leave us with not much to do as they take over all our work. See Jack Williamson, With Folded Hands…
Visual picture of near Earth space, then and now
Jerry
From 1957, 58 years of space junk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPXCk85wMSQ
Ed
Suppose I am a Fubartarian. That’s a peaceful get along religion that allows its adherents to do what seems necessary if somebody else sticks a nose, pee-pee, scream, or even gun in to the adherent’s face. Otherwise adherents are expected to be peaceful and honest co-dwellers on this great ball of crusty molten gup.
Suppose my holiest day is coming along, fimblemas. So I go around and as a Fubartarian I wish others around me a glorious Fimblemas.
Why are some people repelled and moved to lawsuits over the simple wish for a specially good day on a day I consider significant? I am not wishing them to take on my idiosyncratic religion. I’m just wishing them a good day. Most other religions take the wish at face value even if the day is not significant to them. It becomes, “I hope you have a wonderful day on the 47th of gargle.”
(Whenever that is.) But atheists seem to be VERY religious about taking offense.
Is it because they see money in it? Is it their religion’s creed to feel threatened when a member of another religion uses improper phrasing to simply wish them a good day? Or are they just plain old fashioned fuggheads?
Regardless, I’d like to wish all readers here a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year beginning with the first strains of Robert Burns’ traditional melody to the last tick of 2016.
{^_^} Joanne Dow (And please underline Christmas in your minds.)
A Grim Fate for Syrian Christians.
<http://warisboring.com/articles/a-grim-fate-for-syrian-christians/>
Be sure to read the comments.
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Roland Dobbins
250,000 fine for Misgendering Transexuals…
Yes, I know this is local and topical, but it’s related to the national trend of “safe spaces”, “microagressions” and all this “social justice warrior” nonsense:
New York City will fine certain people 250,000 dollars for using the wrong pronoun with a transsexual…
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/27/nyc-will-fine-you-250000-for-misgendering-a-transsexual/
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Most Respectfully,
Joshua Jordan, KSC
Percussa Resurgo
Brave new world, fueled by progress.
https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-scientists-dismiss-the-possibility-of-cold-fusion
And there is still some funding to investigate the Pons Fleischmann effect. Energy without fossil fuels and enormous central distribution nets would change the world. Of course oil and gas companies know that. Hot fusion has been thirty years in the future for forty years. And, as the article says, Rossi continues to produce heat than anyone can find going in.
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.
