Friday, September 01, 2006

The Weather

Unable to say much of anything the past day or so, stultified by the usual ridiculous news and hackneyed commentary, I've turned to the funniest people on the internets: Bobby Lightfoot, Jesus' General, Neddie Jingo, Bullseye Rooster. They're not very funny today. Begin entertaining me, now! When these guys don't make me burst into laughter, there's something wrong.

I believe what's wrong is the internets itself.

We had Keith Olbermann to cry with a couple of days ago (which everyone on the planet linked to, but me... contrarian. I never read Douglass Adams for the same reason). He says what we know and think, and I love what Olbermann is doing - bravest guy in the mass media. While important and right-on, I found his lecture a bit pompous. Anyway, the internets have been dead since then.

How's your weather? Ours sucks. We're receiving the dregs of Ernesto, dragging its big wet across Virginia, through little DC, and into regions north. Rain and wind. Not bad, but umbrella destroying wind. DC was a city of inside-out umbrellas today, discarded skeletons in trashcans downtown. Notwithstanding, Helmette and a group of friends optimistically rented a house near the beach for Labor Day weekend.

Dum dee dum... And this, via Roxtar. I bet you didn't know I once worked with Brian Eno.


And Matt's random top ten.

And this at SteveG's: Alan Turing was gay. Huh. I did not know that.

Here's a picture of a junk (Hong Kong):


And here's a dhow (near Malindi, Kenya):


Did I tell you about the weather?
I love you too....

UPDATE:

A photo taken by Russ C of a boat that transports gravel and sand around the islands. Near Ambergris Caye, Belize.

2 comments:

MT said...

You never wondered why the hypothetical AI in a Turing Test has a gender but not a sex?

helmut said...

I was taught this stuff by hardcore analytic philosophers who thought context was irrelevant. It was the test itself that was important for pondering the AI question. "Turing" was merely a marker.

But it's a much richer story when you have the context. The Imitation Game, Turing's initial version is the one where one tries to figure out the gender of the respondent. That in itself is interesting, but it's also interesting that later, "more sophisticated" versions of the "Turing Test eliminated the gender question altogether.