Science is Still Missing the Mark

You know, it would be nice if there was something that could take on a few household chores. The weekends are too short to have to blow a few hours cleaning, don't you think?

But, unless this thing is a few feet high, it wouldn't have the space to clean up after my four dogs. Not at this time of the year.

Now, there is a version of the Roomba that can sense their owner's tension levels. The person straps a band around the head that transmits to the little robot the collected signals, and it then translates that into stress levels. If you're too stressed, it will go vacuum elsewhere. If you're relaxed, it will come up to you and wiggle around, mimicking a dog wanting attention. The point is that the robot is responding to emotion instead of commands.

All sorts of sci-fi movies are brought up in comparison to this little robot's newly acquired talent. Step 1, emotion recognition. Step 2, reflect back by mimicry those emotions, and Step 3, feel alive. The Terminator and good ol' Data didn't need human emotion to wreak havoc!

Let's face it. We're not good at interpreting our own human emotions, so who is going to program a computer to do it? Consider the results from this snippet, taken out of 2001: A Space Odyssey:

"Hal, switch to manual hibernation control."

"I can tell from your voice harmonics, Dave, that you're badly upset. Why don't you take a stress pill and get some rest?"

"I'm sorry, Dave, but in accordance with special subroutine C1435-dash-4, quote, When the crew are dead or incapacitated, the onboard computer must assume control, unquote. I must, therefore, overrule your authority, since you are not in any condition to exercise it intelligently."

"Hal," said Bowman, now speaking with an icy calm. "I am not incapacitated. Unless you obey my instructions, I shall be forced to disconnect you."

That sure doesn't sound like much fun. The machine is not able to discern that stress levels are sometimes needed in stressful situations.

Star Trek: TNG started out exploring emotion as the one thing that defined sentience in the case of Deana reacting strongly to the emotions of alien life forms, and Data trying to understand emotions without an emotion chip (programming). Mr. Spock's whole life was the monumental task of overcoming emotion.

Science is coming closer and closer to finding what it should have been seeking all along: consciousness. Still avoiding how a physical thing such as a brain can think and feel, they will soon have no choice but to recognize that life is consciousness.

Then, what will the Roomba do?

The Wrong End of the Stick

I Googled "bang head here" and found this image. It was an "a-ha" moment for me. Yep, that explains it.

It was a beautiful day, and a lot of the people in the office were out taking a smoke break at the same time that I couldn't resist the urge any longer. Sitting on a concrete wall, we all lined up like prisoners on a firing line. That fit, since most of them were in uniform, stationed on base for their current tour of duty. Reservists all, and I was damned glad they were pulling duty here instead of in Iraq.

I was sitting amongst them, in no particular order we sat, and wouldn't you know it, a bird landed in the branches of the tree we were all sitting under and let loose. The bird's contribution to the conversation landed right on my left shoulder, all white and creamy. I didn't even raise my eyebrows in surprise.

"Well now, ain't that just peachy," thought I as I reached up to wipe the contribution off with a finger, then bent down to wipe said finger off on the grass. I continued on with my cigarette and the conversation that didn't miss a beat. It doesn't matter that I got shit on, no one else let on that they noticed. Wanna know why? They were all secretly glad that the bird didn't shit on them. In other words, not all the shit that hits the fan is shared by all. Besides, what could you say, what could you do in a situation like that?

In the literal sense, it was nothing. A bird had to go, a natural thing, and that's all it was. That the bird just happened to be on a branch right above me was about as random as you can get, outdone only by the odds of winning a lottery. It wiped off clean and didn't leave a wet spot or stain (though I scrubbed the crap out of my shirt where it landed, no pun intended, in the bathroom when I went back inside). C'est la vie.

But maybe, just maybe, those birds get together and share their wisdom with each other and the one that hits the prize mark wins the fat worm. They have a purpose. They have a book they read to prepare, a how-to, and though they aim for the top of the head, a shoulder ain't half bad. Kudos to you, bird.

At least one of us had a good day.

Entrecard Users: Check out the post on Bad-Gals Radio, then check your Advertising Settings on your Entrecard dashboard!

Out in the Back Yard

The cup runneth over yet again!

I'd like to introduce you to my latest project: Out in the Back Yard.

As time has afforded me a lot of practice with my camera, and enjoying a bit of success with it, I felt it was time to create a blog filled with my favorite photos. I take hundreds of photos each time the camera comes out of the bag, and a lot of good photos end up sitting on my hard drive, rarely looked at again. The best are usually published here or in the newspaper I work for, but there are a lot more that fall into the category of "the best" that don't quite make it to publication.

There's photos of animals, wildlife, the sky, the landscape, people, flowers, sunsets, sunrises.... So much to share!

Hence, Out in the Back Yard. Take a look and let me know what you think, ok?

Loss of Newspapers No Big Deal?

Take a quick look at what happens when newspapers close:

Eyebald

It has an impact on every single one of us.

Try This Instead of Wasting Your Money

Everyone uses Google Adsense on their blogs. I do too. It may take me a year to nickel and dime my way to enough for a payout, but what the heck, that's a nickel and dime I wouldn't have otherwise, right?

All day today, I've seen some crazy ad along the lines of "...use this cheap, $10 way to whiten your teeth like my mother did" on every blog I visited today.

Your mother? Is that really a selling point? You think $10 is a deal? Here's the thing. You can easily, very easily, whiten your teeth for less than a dollar a month. I've been doing this, and it works very well.

Every time you go to brush, wet your toothbrush, dip it in baking soda, plop some toothpaste on top and brush as usual. That's it. Not only does it whiten your teeth, it improves your breath and the overall health of your whole mouth.

If you feel the need to spend outrageous amounts of money to have white teeth anyway, send your check to me after you find out for yourself just how well this works.

Empty Nest: Missing the Chickling

(Not able to think of what kind of picture would best suit what I'm going to talk about gave me a convenient excuse to use another photo of those purple flowers on the trees here. Hm, I guess if you're really imaginative, it fits; you know, spring, change, the branches all twisty turny...)

I'm ecstatic right now. I also don't want to keep moving to finish my list of chores, so I'll write about it to ease the guilty feeling. OK?

It was a crazy, insane week. The redundancy fits, trust me. The thing that made it crazy and insane was the little things going wrong behind the scenes, so to speak. I'm ecstatic because I solved one of those little things, and I Did a Good Job. Now, to be honest, I thought I solved this little problem last weekend, only to be rudely proven wrong on Monday. It's no wonder Mondays aren't anyone's favorite day of the week.

Oh, it was war! I have a cat that decided she no longer wanted to be an outside cat, and that succeeded in pushing her way into the house along side the clothes dryer vent tubing stuff, whatever it's called. I pulled the dryer out, climbed down behind there (a minor miracle in itself) and reattached the vent tubing stuff to the back of the dryer, thinking I did it really well, no problem.

Well, it was no problem, but only for a few hours when the cat decided to use her newly discovered personal doorway again. So, dryer out, go through the gymnastics of getting down behind it again, and Jimmy-rigged it up good. Or so I thought. When that didn't work, I just tried to find some way to block that hole until I could get to the store to buy heavy-duty stuff.

I'm ecstatic because I just installed that heavy-duty stuff and am now drying a load of laundry. Yeah! Solid metal won't be so easy for that cat to mess with. (Keep your fingers crossed for me.)

Karen, my friend here in Arkansas, asked me the other day what kinds of things I'm doing differently now that Tim (my son) has moved out and I'm Empty Nesting it. It's one of those things I've been avoiding thinking about, and it's not that difficult to do since Tim works nights and sleeps all day and wasn't very present here anyway, if you know what I mean.

So, here's the list of things that are different, now that my son has moved on and I'm living alone. These are in no particular order:

1. The latest electric bill is just about half what it was.
2. The grocery bill is a lot less than half of what it was.
3. My diet has improved tremendously, meaning I'm no longer eating the junk that was always in the house before.
4. I can now find things again. They are still there where I put them.
5. I now only have to run the dishwasher once a week.
6. The kitchen stays clean, and so does the rest of the house.

That's all the mundane, superficial crap. During this week's war with the cat, I would've asked Tim to do the climbing behind the dryer! All mother/son emotions aside, I mean, looking at the budgetary side of things, was that occasional assistance a good value? Let me see...

If I asked Tim, it's likely that he wouldn't remember I asked, or he'd just plain blow it off and blow it off on purpose. If I asked again, same thing, and same with 5 or 6 times of repeating myself. By then, I'm exploding with frustration and I'd tell him to do what I asked. He'd get angry that I told him instead of asking, and wouldn't do it anyway. Finally, I'd be so angry at him that I'd start threatening and saying all the things angry people say that they regret later, and he'd finally do what I asked. That's the way it was with Tim and I since he learned to walk, no matter what I tried to break that vicious cycle of ours. The good thing is, we both lived through it. And, I'd say that was the only major hitch in our mother/son relationship.

Yeah, I miss the little chickling. He turned out to be a good person and I'm proud of him. And he was great company, except for right when he woke up.

You see, the part of being alone that gets to me is when those physically intensive little emergencies pop up out of nowhere and smack me upside the head. I'm ecstatic because, age aside, I can do just fine fixing things all by myself. Even if I don't succeed at first, I just try again. No problem. It's a confidence issue.

Oh, last weekend, I put my all-time favorite CD into the stereo, cranked it up loud and sang and danced while vacuuming the house. I had the stereo so loud you couldn't hear the vacuum! Now, that was fun!

I'm sure glad the walls can't talk...