Our cat has a nemesis.

JVL

blake kathryn
Today's Document

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

Andulka

tannertan36

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taylor price
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Sade Olutola
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if i look back, i am lost
noise dept.
Misplaced Lens Cap

Kaledo Art
AnasAbdin

titsay

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@theartofmadeline
Mike Driver
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@tobyscott
Our cat has a nemesis.
Photo by Toby May 29, 2017 at 09:38PM
Photo by Toby May 29, 2017 at 05:44PM
Photo by Toby May 29, 2017 at 05:29PM
I have found Theresa May's holiday cottage. It's very strong.
The 11-year-old tried to take a slo-mo video of me with an owl, but took a timelapse instead.
My Westworld theory
My all-encompassing Westworld theory
Spoilers, obviously. I'm not going to explain the show. You should watch it.
Here's my thinking about Westworld.
Everyone is a robot. Everyone in the show. Everyone we see. All robots. Ford. Bernard. Everyone.
How so?
This only came to me after the big reveal in episode 7 that Bernard is a robot. This matters because he is responsible for programming, debugging and updating the hosts i.e. other robots. This means that the AI tech in the show has reached a point where it is capable of creating and upgrading itself, or others like it.
So we're in a world either without humans or where humans simply aren't significant. Maybe we died out, or the robots killed us, or we've just shrunk to an insignificant level. The why does't matter for my theory.
So why Westworld as a place and activity? Well, these robots were originally designed and created by humans. The AI that drives them was designed to mimic human thought. So it shouldn't be a shock that even long after they no longer needed human input, they retain human mental characteristics, which include play.
Humans play, and so do other animals. Children play just about all the time they can. And a lot of that play relates to learning, directly or indirectly. Motor skills, social skills, even language and number in some games: play helps learning. But it's also just fun. Fun feels good. So does sex, and we'll return to that later. Humans also invest a lot of time and energy in rituals. Some of these are religious, some purely social, some relate to play (think sports, which have loads of rituals for both players and spectators).
So it shouldn't come as a shock that AIs originally developed to mimic human thought started to take on these characteristics. We teach computers to play chess to prove they can follow rules. But we're also teaching them to play strategy games https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602796/starcraft-will-become-the-next-big-playground-for-ai/ so show how they learn. So the AI plays to learn. But maybe along the line it also develops a sense of fun. The humans don't discourage this: fun – enjoyment – helps humans learn, so why not AIs? And so a sense of pleasure also comes to the AI mind. It feels good.
Back to Westworld. In my scenario, we have – broadly speaking – three categories, each with their own internal hierarchies. We have the hosts, who we – the viewers – know are robots. That's the point of the show. And we have the staff at Westworld. And we now know that at least one of those is a robot. So why not others? Finally, we have the guests. We thought those were humans. But why not let them be robots? We've already established that it's possible that early human-AI interactions – back when we were in charge – could have left the AI with a sense of fun, or even a need for fun. Come to Westworld, and play at being a human, in a world populated by robots. It's fun. Then go back to running Skynet or whatever you do in the real, robot world.
As an aside, there are two breakthrough technologies: the hardware and the software. The two are independent. Maybe you're an AI that spends its time running a robot production line at the bottom of the ocean. Wouldn't your idea of peak fun be not only doing something different, but also doing it in a different physical form? So maybe all the guests are given their human form when they enter the park – we see them picking out clothes, so why not bodies at an earlier stage?
The host robots are, well, just robots. Maybe the park is a testing ground for new AI developments. Or these are old models that nobody minds wrecking. Or it's a punishment.
In the middle are the staff. We know Bernard is a robot in a senior position of considerable responsibility. And the rest? There are two possibilities. First is that this is also fun for some AIs, the robot equivalent of SImCity or Theme Park Tycoon. Some robots want to play first person shooters, some want to play a sim. If humans have personalities and different tastes, why not AIs?
Or it could again be some sort of testing ground, or punishment. We know from Maeve's experience that each AI has a range of characteristics that can be changed on the fly. We also know that there are different types of “intelligence” in that mix. Felix and the other techs are clearly very smart in some areas, but too dumb to spot when they are being played by Maeve. Maybe being a tech is either a recovery period for an overworked AI, or a punishment, or even a holiday: stop worrying and just spend time as a drone. Different strokes for different artificial folks. Look, if I had all the answers I'd be writing season 2, and I'm not.
Westworld is clearly a huge place – you can travel by horse for days and then by train for hours before you even reach the edge of the mapped territory. That suggests a huge perimeter fence, somewhere in the southwestern United States (more specifically, close to Monument Valley). Now, I've driven across that landscape and it's beautiful and very sparsely populated, but it isn't empty. There are people, and roads, and buildings. None of which we see in the park. If there were a lot of humans living nearby, you'd need a Berlin wall/Korean DMZ level of security around the outside to keep them out. That's another big expense. It’s far simpler if there are no humans nearby. Or at all.
[Another possibility is that all of this is in software: it's just a sandbox game for AIs to challenge each other, or just have fun, and doesn't exist at all in meatspace. My point still stands.]
So what about Bernard killing Theresa? Well, her holiday could be as a corporate spy, and she's just been killed by the level boss. She'll respawn and try again (or not, if she's in a roguelike game).
And what about the extremely well-argued “timeline” argument that the Man in Black and William are the same person 30 years apart, and we're watching two timelines? (Because the hosts don't age and the sets don't change, we have no visual clues to determine the passage of years.) Well, maybe again we're looking at the same AI choosing two different bodies during repeat visits to the park, the older body reflecting its greater experience.
Remember also that in the original film there were other worlds – Roman and Medieval – so in this theory we could have those and others. Maybe there's a WW2 world, where some are playing Call of Duty type games while others are playing real-time strategy as generals on the eastern front.
Also, consider this. When the techs freeze the robots to come in and pick up a robot, there's never any sign of a “near miss” from a guest. Maybe they are frozen too, or restricted to a path that allows the techs to pick up the robot: that could be a game for techs! Or programmed to not see the techs. Anything to avoid breaking the illusion.
I don't know if the “AI breakdowns” that have driven the plot in season 1 are either real in the this all-robot universe, or just another game for robots playing techs and executives to deal with. I hope it's the former.
Finally, the robots have sex with other robots because once you've created the hardware for both male and female sexbots (initially for human use), it's arguably easier to teach them to enjoy it than to fake it. Or in faking they learn to enjoy it, or even just go on faking even with another robot. Either way, it's fun, and these bots have discovered the benefit and joy of fun, or give the appearance of having fun. All of them. Because they are all robots.
Railway Children part 2
The final run of shows - before it goes off the rails forever - are as follows:
Saturday, 5 November 16, 1pm and 4:30pm
Wednesday, 9 November 16, 2:30 and 7:30
Thursday, 17 November 16, 2:30
Sunday, 20 November 16, 2pm
Saturday, 26 November 16, 1pm and 4:30
Wednesday, 30 November 16, 2:30 and 7:30
Thursday, 8 December 16, 2:30
Sunday, 11 December 16, 2pm
Wednesday, 14 December 16, 2:30 and 7:30
Sunday, 18 December 16, 2pm
Wednesday, 21 December 16 1pm and 4:30
Monday, 26 December 16, 1pm and 4:30
Friday, 30 December 16, 1pm and 4:30
Tuesday, 3 January 17, 2:30
.... and that’s all folks!
What will happen if Trump loses
He won’t concede. He’ll feint towards concession, but double back. He’ll go on about fraud, that “a lot people say happened. I don’t know.”
He’ll threaten going to court, maybe even will, but that won’t go anywhere. That will trigger complaints that the courts are against him. He might try to get his supporters to rally outside the courts. He will continue to hold rallies, as long as these remain well attended.
Close to the inauguration, maybe on the day itself, he nods a press conference where he again accuses Hilary of cheating and having no legitimacy as President, but agrees to concede for the good of the Republic, and that he should be thanked for saving democracy. Later on her same day, he will call Fox News claiming he never conceded, and that he is the true president.
80s music
Since Sophie has seen fit to drag back memories of the worst song of the 80s, it’s time to also have a look at the rest of the decade. Specifically, the Fluxblog 80s survey.
Fluxblog is something I now realise I’ve been following for ages, and I really value the annual reviews, because it gives me a chance to catch up on new music that my middle-aged parent lifestyle otherwise prevents me from doing. But the 80s survey http://www.fluxblog.org/1980s-survey-mixes/ is something else.
For a start, it was published in reverse chronological order over nearly a year. The reverse bit was really important, because (for those of us lucky enough to have been following from the start) it isolated each year from the usual narrative of a developing decade. It also, because this is not only a decade I lived through, but also one where I was listening to a lot of new music, meant I was travelling back in memory as each edition came out. So for the 1989 mix I was remembering turning 21 and being at university. Months later, I was listening to the 1980 mix and remembering turning 12 and being in the first year of secondary school. I love watching the old Top of the Pops repeats, but that chronological progression through my youth is enough, so Fluxblog’s journey would have felt less interesting if it matched it. There was also a lovely period when the two crossed over, in about the middle of 1982 in TOTP terms.
But the real strength of these is the depth. Each year is eight CD’s worth of music, allowing a degree of detail you’d never get on an “I love the 80s” disc set. So there are the obvious hits, including the worst song of the decade, the oddity songs, the indie darlings, the near-misses and stuff that was hardly listened to at the time. It’s also reasonably balanced between American and British hits (if not artists) and has the space to chuck in items that I’d not only forgotten, but would have switched off at the time. It also features a lot of tracks I had no idea existed at the time, and is also quite sly about including some 12” mixes of tracks we’re used to hearing the 7” of.
And it demonstrates how my memories were misleading, not only about which songs belong to which year, but how the years stacked up. I’m not going to tell you what to like, but it’s a shock how strong some years are and how weak a couple of others are. Time has not been kind to a lot of 80s sounds and production techniques, but that’s what you get when a wave of new technology crashes in and people are trying a lot of ideas out.
I can quibble some of the omissions - WHERE’S THE SAFETY DANCE? - but not any of the included tracks, and of course I don’t need another version of a single I bought when it was released. Real effort, thought and care has gone in, and each track, for better or worse, says something about the year it was released in. I don’t believe that music was better when I was younger - there’s still a lot of great music being made today - but the music of your youth matters more to you, because it mattered so much more at the time. And of course, most of the songs here were heard on a radio, out of your control. There’s stuff you’d hear 10 times a day whether you liked it or not, and others you’d keep the radio on all day just for the hope of hearing once.
Enjoy. I recommend the reverse chronology if you have the patience.
Another miserable start to the day at Chez Bennison...
An old, unfair joke, but a classic
Delightfully unhelpful French supermarket toilet.
Marcel, my Dad and me
So, after about a decade - I’ve been at this so long I can’t remember when I started - I have finished À la recherche du temps perdu. I read it in the most recent English translation - doing it in French would have added another 20 years - and apart from the first volume, which I bought in paperback, I’ve done it all on my Kindle.
Hooray for me. I guess this earns me a badge or something. But why? Sure, I like to think of myself as well-read, but this is above and beyond.
Of course, it’s to do with my Dad. All my childhood, Dad was reading something, but only once a book, and never a novel. He’d be reading the paper, stuff for work, magazines (he loved his Private Eye, and Sight & Sound), but not a book. The one exception was a guide to better public speaking. He’d read a lot of classic novels when younger - Count of Monte Cristo, for example - but I never once saw him reading a novel.
Therefore, being Dad, when he retired he bought the single volume edition of the earlier translation of Proust and declared it would be his retirement project. And, like many readers, he got about 30 pages in before giving up. The tiny print in the single volume edition can’t have helped, but you can’t escape the fact that nothing about Proust is there to make it easy for the reader. Joyce did this through language, Proust does it through subject matter.
So when I saw volume 1 - Swann’s Way - in paperback, I thought I’d give it a go. Forewarned, I decided to take it easy, and allow breaks. I’d often read a few pages at night, three or four times a week, which explains the 10 years. Halfway through this Dad died, at which point finishing it became a tribute to him, which was just as well as volumes five and six are tough going. I wanted to finish it, and I wanted to finish it for Dad, but didn’t want it to be a slog. There’s no point if it isn’t fun.
And now it’s over, and I’m a father and I still miss Dad every day. Proust has a lot to say about childhood - and how we remember childhood - and time, and memory and death.
Is it worth it? I enjoyed it, and at times I loved it. It has some terribly dull patches in volumes 5 and 6, but it has some amazing passages. It also has more actual jokes than you’d expect, and, although we all know about the scene with the madeleine, it’s great about all the different, unexpected ways memories can bleed through when we least expect it. I’m sad now it’s over. I’m better for having read it - not better than you, but better than I was.
Tunnels & Trolls UK Edition, 1980. Cover by Liz Danforth.
Had this, played it to bits.
The Railway Children
The performances featuring Elizabeth in the ensemble are:
Sunday, 24 April 16 2pm Saturday, April 30, 2016 1pm 4.30pm Thursday, May 05, 2016 2.30pm Wednesday, May 11, 2016 2.30pm 7.30pm Saturday, May 21, 2016 1pm 4.30pm Wednesday, June 08, 2016 2.30pm 7.30pm Sunday, June 19, 2016 2pm Saturday, June 25, 2016 1pm 4.30pm Thursday, June 30, 2016 2.30pm Wednesday, July 06, 2016 2.30pm 7.30pm Tuesday, July 12, 2016 2.30pm Sunday, July 17, 2016 2pm
Thursday July 21
2:30pm Saturday, July 23, 2016 1pm 4.30pm Thursday, July 28, 2016 4.30pm Friday, July 29, 2016 2.30pm
Monday August 1
2:30pm Wednesday, August 03, 2016 2.30pm 7.30pm Sunday, August 14, 2016 1pm 4.30pm Saturday, August 20, 2016 1pm 4.30pm Thursday, August 25, 2016 4.30pm Wednesday, August 31, 2016 2.30pm 7.30pm
Wednesday September 7
2:30
7:30
Sunday, September 11, 2016 2pm Saturday, September 17, 2016 1pm 4.30pm Thursday, September 22, 2016 2.30pm Wednesday, September 28, 2016 2.30pm 7.30pm Sunday, October 09, 2016 2pm Saturday, October 15, 2016 1pm 4.30pm Thursday, October 20, 2016 2.30pm Wednesday, October 26, 2016 2.30pm 7.30pm
The tols Vs. The smols
So what you’re saying is…in order to be a part of the dark side you must be above 6 feet tall?
You must be THIS tall to Join the Dark Side.
proof
now this makes so much sense
Originally posted by destroythesith
IT KEEPS CHECKING OUT
So, I had a sudden horrible thought and
*scREAMING*