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In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is a step-by-step procedure for calculations.  Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing and automated reasoning.  (definition by Wikipedia)

I’ve been hearing a lot about algorithms recently. I saw an article the other day on different methods SETI is using to search for life on other planets, and it was all about algorithms.  The Drake Equation is really more of an algorithm than an equation, too, come to think about it.  And, of course, facebook uses algorithms to decide what ads they are going to show you, and even which posts they are going to prioritize in your feed, which has got a lot of people all pissed off.

I’m a bit miffed myself,but only because I suspect that not many people are seeing my posts.  Whether they are in chronological order, reverse chronological order, or friends and family first, there has to be some system of prioritization.  facebook’s algorithm is, apparently, quite complex, but I suppose it’s as fair as anything else.  The ones whose posts are being prioritized are undoubtedly happy as clams about it.

It’s sort of like in sports.  Whatever decision the referee makes, 50% of the fans are going to be unhappy about it.

The interesting thing about algorithms, to me, is the 2nd sentence of that definition.  Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing and automated reasoning.  Automated reasoning.  How is that not exactly the same thing as artificial intelligence?  Rhetorical question.  It is exactly the same thing.

So, we have artificial intelligence.  An early version of it, anyway.  facebook’s algorithm still assumes ridiculous things about people, can’t recognize sarcasm (you could say something extremely critical about candidate x, and then you will get lots of ads and requests for donations from candidate x), and doesn’t have an empathetic view of what motivates human beings.  It’s a bit like a 5 year old.

The question is not “When will computers develop artificial intelligence?”  They’ve already got it.  The question is “When is artificial intelligence going to grow up, already?”

One of my facebook friends only posts famous paintings.  It is nice, as long as I am wasting my time on facebook it is good that I get a bit of art education.  Also, it is a welcome respite from the woman who only posts about GMO’s, the guy who only posts about unions and  the Civil War (in both cases he is pro Union), the old friend whose every post is blindly pro-Israel, the two or three whose every post is about the reasons why marijuana should be legal, and the dozen or so who only post pictures of their children.

It could have been painted yesterday

I’m not saying that any of these are bad things, I just wonder how people can be so single minded, so obsessed with one aspect of existence that they never bother commenting on other subjects.  Life is complex and multi-faceted, fortunately.  It has its problems: illness, death, financial uncertainty, political injustice, and too much violence in movies, but one thing it is not is boring.

Anyway, back to the internet art show.  Today, he posted the painting you see here, Giverny Hillside, which was painted by American impressionist Guy Rose in 1891. I am not particularly knocked out by the painting, although it is a pleasant enough scene.  Looking through the artist’s other works, I see stuff I like better.  However, it made me think.

Whenever you see a painting of a landscape from times gone by, whenever words like ‘hillside’ or ‘garden’ or ‘pond’ or ‘wood’ are in the title, it looks just the same as a hillside, a garden, a pond or a wood looks today.  You know they didn’t have mobile phones, or the internet, or TV, or even cars, but they had the same trees we have, the same grass, the same ponds, the same flowers, the same sky.

Of course, these scenes of natural tranquillity are harder to find today, which makes them all the more precious, but they still exist.  I hope they always will.

Well, apparently this happened while I was cheerfully canoeing on the southern portion of the Vltava, near the fairy tale scenic town of Český Krumlov.  It seems strange to me that on this little ball where we all live, there are places of peace and happiness and not even any thoughts of violence, and there are others where violence is a fact of daily life.

I was pretty shocked to see it, and thought it might have been a hoax, but the article I’ve linked to was in the Jerusalem Post, and they are as pro-Israeli as anybody.  So, it seems to be true.  On top of the story itself, I’m a little bit shocked at the reporting.  Pretty much every newspaper that covered it, covered it as the story of ‘a tweet that went viral.’  That’s bullshit journalism.  The tweet is not the story.  The story is the story.

The Worst of Humanity

At this point, I need to tell you a bit about my experience with Israel.  My first trip was in ’73, when I was 19.  I was a volunteer on a kibbutz when the Yom Kippur war began.  On my next trip there, I actually took up citizenship (I am half Jewish.  No waiting.), learned a bit of Hebrew, and served in the IDF from ’77 to ’79.  I now regard this as not one of my most brilliant life decisions.

The Israelis who were up there on the hillside, sitting in their lawnchairs and eating popcorn while they watched the bombs drop on Gaza, did not look terrified.  That’s because when Hamas fires rockets into southern Israel, there is about a 90% chance that it will land in the sand, somewhere not at all close to anybody’s house.  Out of all the rockets Hamas has launched into Israel over the past few weeks, precisely 0 have killed anybody.  When the Israelis fire a rocket into Gaza, it can’t help but hit something.  People are packed in there like tram passengers at rush hour.  Israeli rockets have killed over 100 Palestinians in the same period of time, about 30 of them children.  Children.  People are eating popcorn and laughing about children dying.

Jewish people.  The race that produced Albert Einstein, Barbara Streisand, the Marx Brothers, Marc Chagall, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and oh, so many more who have made wonderful contributions to humanity, has also produced horrible cretins who laugh while children die.  Jews may not be any worse than other people but this incident proves, quite dramatically, that we aren’t any better.

Not all Israelis are war mongers.  Actually, nearly 50% are fairly progressive types with good human values.  They haven’t held political power for decades, and people outside of Israel have more or less forgotten that they exist, but they are there.

The people who attended the ‘Sderot Cinema’ do not represent all Israelis.  They most certainly do not represent all Jewish people.

The day started off partly cloudly,which is fine because you don’t need to go in the water to have a good canoe trip. The water was high enough and the current just right,so it was easy paddling. It was crowded,far more crowded than our previous trips.There were even boats anchored in one spot,selling rum,beer and mojitos. The only problem was,partly cloudly turned to pouring down rain a couple of times. The first time we stopped under some overhanging trees. The second time,we just said screw it.
It was a scenic strech of river except for the town of Větřní where we floated past a post-industrial hellscape of flaking concrete,broken windows and rusted everything else.
That’s all for tonight because writing a blog on an iphone is really stupid.

In just about an hour we are leaving for the weekend, driving down to Cesky Krumlov and we plan to go canoing, so I’m writing this this morning and I’m really looking forward, and I’ll write a blog tomorrow, if it’s possible at all.

We’ll be back on Sunday, I’ll resume my normal habits, but the weekend is the weekend and the wild river calls.

Cesky Krumlov

Actually, I’m pretty sure ‘wild river’ is a gross exaggeration.  They say it’s a 3 hour journey, but we are slow canoers, so when they say 3, it’s probably 5 for us.  A lot depends on the river and water level, too.  Two years ago, we wound up dragging the canoe over rocky bits many times.  It slowed us down and wore us out.  Last year we had none of that.

This will be a first for us on this particular stretch of the Vltava, although I’ve been to Krumlov a couple of times.  It totally deserves its UNESCO status.  I think it will be the first time for the kids, but it takes more than a cool castle and a beautiful garden to impress them.  They are Czech.

I plan to get some reading done, just in the car.  I’m reading two books at the moment: a series of essays by a guy who taught English in China, and one that was a free download on Kindle, a bunch of Dwarves following a magical map to find the ancient city of Nar, and it’s got some cool dragons in it but…there are oh, so many buts.  It’s what happens when the floodgates are open and anyone can write anything and people like me will read it because it’s free, it does not have the zing, the magic, the essence of otherworld that Tolkien and Rowling managed to pull off so brilliantly.  It’s got some clever lines, and 3 or 4 characters who I would not be upset to see hurled into a volcano, but that’s about it so I’ll probably take the other one, the paper one.

I plan to do some writing, just in my head.  I’ll take along a pen and paper, just in case.  But not in the canoe.