Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

I quite enjoyed reading this article. I don’t expect to see HAV’s (Hybrid Air Vehicles) taking over the skies any time soon, because the article appears at an environmentalist site, and it seems like the only people they interviewed were company executives. Of course they’re going to speak of it in glowing terms and not look at any of the possible negatives.
But it looks cool as hell, with big plush seats, lots of leg room, and big windows with outrageous views, which may be a bit much for us acrophobic types but it’s impressive as hell. That’s what could sell it. If you’re flying from D.C. to New York, or London to Paris (the manufacturers say they’re planning to use it for the short hops – maybe because it’s slower than regular jet aircraft, maybe because those routes are not as lucrative for the big airlines and kind of a pain in the ass), the luxurious experience of sailing silently through the sky with a greater amount of space than you would get in a tuna can might make it very popular with the traveling public.
I’m in favor of it because it will reduce the airlines’ carbon footprint by around 90%, but it’s the experience which will sell it.

The reader may feel free to take my comments on the Naomi Osaka case with a grain of salt, or point out any gaps in my thinking in the comments on Facebook. I don’t know much about the budding young tennis star, and certainly nothing about what she’s like as a person. So, she may have had her reasons.
On the one hand, I totally understand not wanting to talk to reporters, even though I hadn’t thought about this being an actual requirement before. If it is treated as such, and I’m guessing in light of this incident it probably is, then that helps to explain why players after the game interviews suck so badly. After all, they aren’t trained as public speakers. They aren’t politicians running for office.
So, she told the officials at the French Open that she wasn’t going to talk to reporters because she was worried about her mental health. Which, on the one hand, could be the totally sane thing to say. But then they kept after her and she bailed on the French Open entirely.
That could be a sign of weakness. Or arrogance and an anti-social attitude. Or maybe it’s a legit complaint and she’s just the first player to make an issue out of it.
In any case, I don’t think athletes (or actors) should ever be forced to talk to the media. Their job is to show up and play their hearts out, because there is a primal instinct in human beings to revel in contests of strength and athletic ability, which goes back way further that the ancient Greeks. What athletes do out on the field, or the court in this case, is just as valid whether they talk about it or not.

I was a bit more upset than most when To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry St., and some of Dr. Seuss’s other books were taken out of publication. I saw it as censorship, and PC gone mad, even if it was a decision made by the people entitled to make that decision. But I was in the minority, I’ve already got a copy (of Mulberry St.), and I’ve read them all. So, no biggie.
But the decision to continue not to publish John Steinbeck’s werewolf novel (which I never knew existed until yesterday) bothers me more. I guess it’s partly a case of we want what we can’t have. That’s human nature.
But, the way I see it, Steinbeck is one of America’s literary giants. He’s in a class with Hemingway and Twain and maybe three or four others. Therefore, anything he’s written is of historical, and literary, and literary-historical interest, and should be available to the public.
The argument given for not publishing is that he didn’t bother to publish it during his lifetime, so why should anybody go against his wishes now.
Well, Kafka specifically told his friend Max Brod to burn all his work. Max Brod ignored the fuck out of Kafka’s dying wish, which is how humanity knows about Franz Kafka. I think Brod made the right choice. When Philip K. Dick told the Hollywood producers of his book, ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ that they absolutely had to keep the title or no deal, they were probably a little bit relieved when he dropped dead and they could just ignore his final wishes. Thus Bladerunner was named, and it was a good thing because ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ would have been a terrible title, especially since they took almost all the stuff about fake animals out of the movie.
You can’t take it with you, so they say, and you can’t control anything you’ve left behind. So, I think they should publish the book. Mostly because I’d like to read it.

Any product goes through development stages. Before we had huge, flat screens and Netflix we had 3 channels, in black and white, and you had to actually touch the TV set to change from one channel to another. Before we had cell phones, which are also cameras, computers, clocks, encyclopedias, and gaming platforms, we had a black telephone on the counter in the kitchen, which was only good for making or receiving phone calls when you were actually present.
It’s natural. It’s the way it has always been. The first wheel was probably just a log, and so was the first boat.
So, it’s no surprise that it’s taking a while to get to artificial intelligence, and it will probably take quite a while longer. But, we have reached a very important first level. We have invented artificial stupidity. That is, we have a network connecting all the minds of the human race, but only at the stupidest level. Pictures of pets dominate, and games which require zero intelligence to play are extremely popular. What is your first initial, plus what month you were born forms your stripper/gangster/rapper name. Hoo-boy, what fun. The lowest common denominator is, in fact, knowing your birthday and how to spell your first name.
Some use the internet for debating political or cultural issues, and I’d like to see more of that, but even there we drop down to LCD pretty sharpish. Any legitimate criticisms of Biden are labeled as support of Trump, any legitimate criticisms of Israel are seen as anti-semitism, and any pro-Israel statements are treated as the second coming of Hitler. They come at you like zombies, huge in numbers, relentless in their approach, and absolutely devoid of intelligence.
I try to be optimistic. I tell myself that it’s just a phase and we will eventually burst through this to invent an intelligence that is more intelligent than us and which will tell us how to solve all of our problems without killing anybody, but some days I’m not so sure.

Killer Drone Hunts Down Human Target Without Being Told To, according to this article. Now, the article is from the New York Post, and they don’t give the name of the human or humans who were killed, so there are two reasons to take the story with a grain of salt. On the other hand, they do cite a U.N. report, and quote several people who are, in all likelihood, real people, and most importantly we all know that this technology exists.
So, it was only a matter of time. We’ve all seen those cute videos from Boston Dynamics with the robot dog who can open doors, dance (how well they’re dancing is another question, but I thought they were pretty good), run, and get back up again after some shit human being has kicked them over. Well, if those robot dogs were programmed to kill the mailman, there’s no doubt they could do it.
So, we’re in dangerous territory now. Who gets prosecuted if a drone kills somebody? Well, to some extent, the old ‘just following orders’ defense is likely to come into play. Even if a drone acts independently, somebody has to program it, somebody has to give it the parameters of who is a target and who is an innocent person.
If they can get away with saying “I didn’t do it, the drone did it” then we are in dangerous territory indeed. Because the drone, not being alive, not actually having sentience, doesn’t even care if it is dismantled. If it decides, for whatever reason, to kill, there is no disincentive, no fear of the law.
We are heading for an extremely dystopian future, and some people think it’s just great.