This post begins with a bit of what I see as good news. We’re exactly one month away from Winter Solstice — December 21st at 15:03 UTC. That’s 9:03 AM USA Central Time, and I set posts to publish at 9:14 AM, so by the time you read this, it’s just under a month away.
Cue regular Solstice-Equinox reminder that the day-length changes very slowly at the Solstices and very rapidly at the Equinoxes [cue regular link: Solar Derivative].
Until then, here’s another edition of Friday Notes.
Maybe this is on me; maybe I lack proficiency with English grammar. That’s always possible. I certainly have no pretension of being a grammarian, but I like to believe I have some grasp of it. In any event, lately I’ve found myself bemused by the Microsoft grammarian embedded in Windows™.
It seems to have gotten weirder. That, too, could be on me; maybe I just don’t remember it being this amusing (which is one way to put it). In the past, even though we sometimes disagreed, I seem to remember it as being more useful than distracting.
But recently it seems to have become a lot less helpful.
Given everything going on these days, blogging seems more pointless than ever. My disgust and ennui have reached new levels, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m witnessing the downfall of democracy and society. We seem in the last stages of a trainwreck I’ve been bystanding for 50 years.
The Dumpster fire rages so hot that it trivializes ordinary pursuits. Add a bushel of minor personal concerns, and my will to write is all but gone.
All but. And of course I have Notes…
It’s Friday, and I have Notes, but they’re all Science Notes, so while this post (and any others of similar ilk that may follow) is in the spirit of Friday Notes, it comes from a different direction. Science from right field, so to speak, rather than the usual oddities from left field.
These Notes were originally meant as reminders to mention some cool science things to friends over burgers and beers (or whatever). But rather than tasty morsels for the few, why not for the many? (Or at least for a few more.)
So today, Science Notes (and some reactions):
What if, as more than one science fiction story has imagined, the sheer size and complexity of the World Wide Web made it become self-aware. And what if, contrary to most of those stories, it was wonderful in every sense of the word. What if it meant world peace, freedom, and humanity at long last growing up.
That’s the vision Robert J. Sawyer presents in his WWW trilogy, which consists of Wake (2009), Watch (2010), and Wonder (2011). It’s the tale of a young woman blind from birth who gains sight, a bonobo-chimpanzee hybrid who makes a choice, and an emergent machine-based superintelligence who wants to serve man.
And not, it (or rather he) adds, in the cookbook sense.
It’s been a few minutes since the last Wednesday Wow post, and I’ve got two recent videos that definitely made me go “Wow!”
I have a third that is cute and interesting as well as a fourth that’s kind of math-y but lighthearted and certainly relevant (and which will introduce you to Benford’s Law if you haven’t heard of it).
The first video involves a tragic disaster that occurred on the first of this month down in Puerto Rico when the Arecibo radio astronomy telescope collapsed.
I hadn’t planned to post today, but cool things I want to memorize and share continue to accumulate (it’s worse than having to dust — that I can ignore). I already had one Holy Cow! item paired with a So Cool! item, plus another little piece of beko mochi beauty to share.
Then this morning I read an OMG, Yes!! article about actress Michelle Gomez, and then a really touching piece by musician Rosanne Cash. Lastly (technically firstly, as it was the first item added), I have a cute bit of AI research to make you smile.
So once more unto the breach, dear friends,…
It’s time for another Friday news dump from my list of links. (Actually, a folder of emails sent from my iPad, where I do the news reading, to my laptop, where I write my blog posts.)
The intent, originally, is to write a full post about them — which I sometimes do — but often, if the urge to bang out a post right away isn’t there, the email with that link ends up sitting in the folder. The longer they sit, the less likely I am to post about them.
So occasionally I open the cage and let some of them return to the wild…
I have a growing list of links to articles that catch my eye, things I’d like to post about (for whatever reason). But there’s a tension between posts based on lists of links or draft posts or idea files versus posts based on what I’m currently thinking about.
I seem to feel the latter isn’t enough, that I need a reserve for “lean times” — which never happen. More and more, I post when something strikes me as worth the effort. The “idea pile” seems almost like homework.
Anyway, here are some things that recently caught my eye.
On the one hand, a main theme here is theories of consciousness. On the other hand, it’s been almost eight years blogging, and I’ve covered my views pretty well in numerous posts and comment threads. Our understanding of consciousness currently seems stuck pending new discoveries, either in answering hard questions, or in providing entirely new paths.
A while back I determined to step away from debates (even blogs) that center on topics with no resolution. Religion is a big one, but theories of mind is another. Your view depends on your axioms. Unless (or until) science provides objective answers, everyone is just guessing.
But it’s been three-and-a-half years, and, well,… I have some notes…
Posts pertaining to programming!
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